Career and Management Development
1330 Beacon Street, Suite 265 Brookline, MA 02446 E-mail: help@careerleader.com Tel: 617.232.8666 Fax: 617.738.9783 www.careerleader.com

CareerLeader, LLP

December, 2008

Bringing Discipline to the Dream There is no doubt that we are facing very difficult times in the economy, and that this will bring a serious challenge to the job search. At CareerLeader we feel strongly that the current situation demands that students take a hard look at their attitudes and expectations, but not in a way that is driven by reaction, fear, or a spurious (and elusive) “flight to safety.” We believe this economy calls for students’ and other job seekers’ taking the time to renew their efforts to develop their career vision. We have something to learn in this regard from the recent past. We faced tough times in the economy in 2002 and 2003. The recession of that period hit the job market hard, and the going was very tough. During those years many students voiced some version of the complaint, “I’m going to have to abandon my dreams, my career vision, for the sake of pragmatism and a job.” No doubt there are already people who can relate to this sentiment as the current situation develops. That was the wrong attitude in 2002 and it is the wrong attitude in 2008. Now, as then, we need our dream, our sense of our personal career vision, even more, but we need to bring discipline to the dream. We need to work harder, think deeper and make the vision both more detailed and actionable. What would that mean? We need to ask ourselves, “In five to seven years, where do we want to be in terms of functional role, industry knowledge, organizational culture, skill acquisition, our relationships with significant others, work/life balance, geographical location, community involvement, our daily expression of our core life values?” How deeply have we imagined