Zigzag careers p1 - Military Transition - Military Times EDGE

Brian Schulz never expected to be standing in the operating room consulting with neurosurgeons on delicate procedures. “I was in the OR the other day and the nurse turned to me and asked if I went to med school,” he recalled. “I said no, I flew jets in the Navy for seven years. She just kind of got this puzzled look on her face.”

Schulz was a lieutenant working as a flight instructor in Pensacola, Fla., when he left the Navy in 2007 after eight years of service. Rather than stay in aviation, he took an unlikely leap into medical sales with Medtronic in Billings, Mont.

While some people follow a linear career path — from law school to law practice, for example — others change direction from time to time in leaps that don’t always seem obvious, yet can lead to substantial rewards. Call it the zigzag career.

There may be many good reasons for making a sideways jump out of the career mainstream and into some divergent course. Sometimes an opportunity comes along that is too good to miss: a chance to grow or make more money.

Maybe boredom is the impetus. “People may get lethargic about what they are doing, and they don’t like feeling that way,” said Sharon Armstrong, author of The Essential HR Handbook. Especially for ex-military, who are used to being constantly on the move in their jobs, “they don’t want to become complacent or disengaged at work.”

Most often, though, it is ardor that stirs the pot. “You do it because something has grabbed you, something has touched your passion. You’ve met someone, you’ve heard something, and it has taken hold of you,” Armstrong said.

Once bitten, the zigzag worker may have to put in some extra effort in order to cross the chasm into that new career path. “If you find that there is some special experience or skills or credentials that are needed, then you’ve got to get those,” Armstrong said. “It might mean you need to go back to school, either for a degree or a certification or even just some coursework.”

Sometimes an employer will provide that ramp-up, if you’ve got the basic skills but not all of the specific knowledge. Medtronic gave Schulz a full year of training before handing him his own territory. “That’s why I went with the company that I did, so I could get that training. Another company told me they had a two-day program and I felt like, holy cow, I didn’t know anything about the medical industry and they wanted to start me in two days?”

To make his zigzag move, Schulz talked to dozens of employers at job fairs, looking for an industry that suited his tastes. The operating-room environment offered the best match for what he had learned in uniform. “The mission orientation, the mission planning, the multitasking, the team orientation: All of those translate,” he said.

Going for the nonobvious career move, the job seeker will almost certainly come upon some variant of the basic question: Why are you here? Interviewers want to know why you chose this field, how you think your prior experience could possibly apply.

Be ready to turn the question to your advantage with meaningful anecdotes, Armstrong said. “You want to get positive as quickly as you can. They say, ‘You’ve never done this before?’ You say, ‘Well, maybe not specifically, but let me give you an example of something I have done that is similar.’ That puts you in charge of the interview, directing them to a story that shows why they should hire you, and moving away from this question that asks why they shouldn’t hire you.”

Schulz was able to convince Medtronic that his career change wasn’t as out-there as it seemed on the surface: His aviation work was detailed and technical, just like medical device work. But he thinks his ability to present himself in a confident manner was even more important than his skills for landing the job.

Once you’re in the door, don’t forget that for every zig, there is a zag. In other words, this career strategy pays off best when each step drives one further up the ladder.

“You need to be aware of what is going on in an organization, to see if there are opportunities to grow. You want to look at your career path and always be thinking about the next step,” Armstrong said. “You have to keep moving.”

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Making the move

Want to zigzag toward a new career?

• Look inward. What do you like? What really excites you at work and at home?

• Hit the books, or the Web. Read up on possible new fields. Talk to people working in those areas.

• Take an audit. What skills do you have that will transfer when you make your move?

• Get experience. Maybe volunteer or take a part-time job in your new field.

• Find a mentor, someone who can guide you through the zigs and zags along the way.

Source: Career development site www.quintcareers.com