Careers:
To Change or Not to Change?

By Anita M. Harris
C. All Rights Reserved

Ten years ago, Mark Orton was an executive with a six-figure salary in a large manufacturing company. After a downsizing in 1992, he spent a year and a half mainly out of work, then he got a state job helping to develop small business programs. For the past three years, he has been the assistant director of a program that helps small- and mid-sized manufacturers to improve their competitiveness.

"If I had not been tossed out (by my company)," Orton says, "I would be a group VP, earning $160,000 a year, running all around the world. I was on that track. Now, at 50, I am asking, 'What's the purpose of all that money?'"

Orton and his wife, Karen Davis, who voluntarily left her corporate job during the recession, are now considering downscaling their lives and careers still further to focus on projects that are personally meaningful to them. Karen is already beginning to exhibit her photographic work. Mark would like to concentrate on issues of world peace.

A generation back, it was virtually unheard of to change careers at mid-life – especially if you worked for a large corporation. But these days, people such as Orton, Davis and countless others are entering new fields. Many of them are doing so in response to the downsizings and consolidations that remain common even during the current economic boom.

Gary Reed was senior vice president and chief operating officer at New England Baptist Hospital – that is, until it reorganized and consolidated last year. When top management shifted, Reed left the hospital after working there for 16 years. He took a year off, and at 46, recently joined Picture Communications, a startup teleconferencing venture in Boston. "The hospital culture had changed," Reed says, "and I was ready to do something else."

Joseph Turner, 56, of Malden, Mass., became an independent consultant after he was laid off by Digital Equipment Corporation three years ago. Now, he teaches business management skills to line managers in various industries. "I love it," Turner says. "I am only sorry I didn't get laid off sooner because then I could have gotten started sooner."

Looking to Move On

But even among those whose employment seems relatively secure, there are plenty of people looking to move on. In rapidly growing industries like financial services, companies are asking employees to work nights and weekends – in part, says one career counselor, to avoid paying benefits to additional full-time help. A 40-something marketing manager for a software startup says she can't wait for her company to get bought – so she can retire.

In companies that have downsized, the new "flat" organizational structures (companies without middle-management layers) mean extra work and lack of advancement for those who remain. "I have been at the same job for 10 years without a promotion," says a 48-year-old engineer who works on government contracts in a large computer company.

To escape the stresses of this new "leaner, meaner" workplace, some professionals are fleeing, literally to the hills. "If you drive up to Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont, you'll find that six out of every 10 antique shops are run by former doctors, lawyers or executives who are trying to get a sense of control," says William Brown, a professor of organizational behavior and human resources at Babson College.

Other boomers are making changes mainly for personal reasons. Some want more flexibility because they have both young children and ailing parents to care for. Others are motivated by seeing their kids grow up. At mid-life, "people start asking themselves, 'What are the next 20 or 30 years going to look like for me? Is this what I want to do with the rest of my life?'" says Deborah Knox, a career counselor in Newton, Mass.

In her practice, Knox finds that men who have spent the bulk of their careers seeking power and wealth in hierarchical situations now want to "downshift" – not to stop working, but to work for a different value system. "I hear men say, 'I want to be as passionate as my wife is about what she does.' For these men, and for corporate women who find themselves blocked by the 'glass ceiling,' starting a small business is very attractive," Knox says. However, women who have been in small businesses outside the mainstream may now want to increase their power, authority and income. "They may ask, 'How can I capitalize and get a higher-paying job inside the system?'"

Easier for Some

Making mid-life career changes is obviously easier for some than for others. "It is more difficult if you are depressed and alone, under financial pressure, or forced to make a change for which you are not prepared or motivated," says Phyllis Stein, director of career programs at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. And, needless to say, the match between your skills and the job market makes a huge difference in terms of the opportunities you will have.

In preparing a report called "Massachusetts and Its Economic Might," David Tobin, a program consultant for the Corporation for Business, Work and Learning in Quincy, Mass., found that well-educated executives are "doing well," boomers in their 30s are "doing better" than those in their late 40s and 50s, and "blue-collar Vietnam-era boomers are in a particularly difficult position."

While in eastern Massachusetts nearly 97 percent of the workforce is employed, in Berkshire County, with the recent closing of General Dynamics, for many men in their 50s there is no employment at all. Jerre Dumbrill, a partner in Tricorp Associates, a Medfield, Mass. placement firm, points out that there are plenty of jobs no matter what your age in the Boston area if you have high-tech or administrative-support skills. But things are still more difficult for middle managers who have lost jobs in manufacturing or defense, where some 600,000 positions have been cut in recent years.

"They can't understand why (other industries) aren't interested in them. When they try to get a job in state government, they are shocked because the competition is so keen," says Rickie Moriarty, executive director of Operation Able, a Boston-based non-profit organization offering career services and training to people over 45. "Some employers want to hire only people who already have industry experience or younger workers who may come cheaper and expect to work long hours," Moriarty adds. And although age discrimination is illegal, in companies populated mainly with younger workers, there may be a belief that mature workers "won't fit in."

"Certain companies facing labor shortages are beginning to hire and train older workers," says Mike Pilot, chief of the Division of Occupational Outlook at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But Moriarty also finds that many people in their 50s who lost their jobs remain out of work for lengthy periods of time – eventually settling for lower-paying jobs. For anyone wishing to change industries, Moriarty recommends finding an internship, either by offering to work for free, or by applying to a program such as those sponsored by the Massachusetts Software Council, which provides a stipend and training for those who want on-the-job experience.

Another option is self-employment, which could take the form of temporary, contract or consulting work, or starting a small business. National statistics do not bear out the popular belief that self-employment is on the rise, however. In fact, in New England just 6.5 percent of the population is self-employed, compared with 6.7 percent nationwide. But 1997 statistics do show that self-employment tends to increase with age, rising from 7.7 percent of workers aged 35-44 to 11.7 percent of workers aged 55-64.

According to the BLS, 84 percent of independent contractors, who tend to be men over age 35 and earn far more than other temporary workers, are satisfied with their work. As one independent human resources professional explains, "I don't have to play office politics, and if I don't like what is happening, I just move on." Since her husband has a full-time job, she says that she is not concerned about health-care or pension benefits, nor does she worry about advancing in a company hierarchy, influencing its decisions or being let go.

Become More Independent

Regardless of your employment status, in the new economy "just about everyone should be finding ways to become more independent," says Cliff Hakim, president of Rethinking Work, a Boston-based executive-development firm. With increasingly rapid technological change, Hakim says that we can no longer strategically plan five to 10 years ahead. Companies cannot guarantee employment, and the skills needed for employment may be different in three or five years. He thinks it's important to "see yourself as self-employed, to align your personal strengths with organizational goals and customer needs, and to take responsibility for making your own work meaningful to you."

Hakim also recommends developing what he calls "a personal board," which might include a counselor, people within your company or friends to help guide you through the process of change. Still, he points out, it's not easy to learn to take charge of your own career, especially for those long-accustomed to secure and steady employment.

There are also concerns about what the new emphasis on individual responsibility might mean for those forced out of jobs relatively late in life. In a recent Nation article, Margaret Gullette, a research affiliate at Brandeis University, cites a MacArthur Research Network Study showing that older workers are disproportionately shut out of full-time employment. Ten years ago, before the recent recession and spate of downsizings, 90 percent of white men aged 45-49 were employed full time. But among those five years older, only 77 percent were. And between 1993 and 1995, during the economic recovery, 6 percent of working women between 45 and 54 lost their jobs, often because of age-related issues.

These and other figures indicate that only 40 percent of the population is eligible for company pension plans, leading Gullette to wonder what will happen to unprotected boomers as they age; especially now that the social, health and welfare safety net has been, by and large, dismantled. There is nothing yet to take its place. Gullette and others call for national health insurance, portable pension benefits and strict enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

Douglas T. Hall, a professor of organizational behavior at the Boston University School of Management and executive director of the Executive Development Roundtable, advocates for what he calls a new sort of "psychological" career contract, under which companies offer not lifetime security, but the opportunity for their workers to learn the up-to-date skills they might need to move on.

Hall believes that boomers in positions of leadership today will increasingly address issues of income and health security for others. In their youth, these were the same people that were very socially conscious. At mid-life, he predicts, many who have achieved their career and income goals may return to their former values, and thus, bring about workplace and systemic changes in "a thoughtful, caring way."

Anita M. Harris is an award-winning journalist who has reported for Newsday and The MacNeil-Lehrer Report. She is the author of Broken Patterns: Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity. She is currently on the faculty at Radcliffe College.

RESOURCES

Here are some places to find help with the search and the decision.

• Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Cambridge, Mass., 617-547-6789.

• Career Source, Cambridge, Mass., 617-661-7867, 1-888-273-WORK, TTY#: 1-800-439-2370.

• CareerPoint, Holyoke, Mass., 413-532-4900.

• Corporation for Business, Work and Learning, Quincy, Mass., 617-847-3063.

• Deborah L. Knox & Associates, Newton, Mass., 617-332-8848 or 630-9981.

• Future Works, Springfield, Mass., 413-858-2800, TTY# 413-858-2800.

• Gosman Jewish Community Center, Newton, Mass., 617-451-8147.

• JobNet, Boston, Mass., 617-338-0909, TTY# 617-338-4311.

• One-Stop Career Centers, sponsored by Mass. Department of Employment and Training – www.MassCareers.State.MA.US – offers free and paid workshops, counseling and training.

• Online Women's Business Center – www.onlinewbc.org – is an interactive Web site for women entrepreneurs.

• Operation Able of Greater Boston, Boston, Mass., 617-542-4180, offers employment and training for people over age 45.

• Rethinking Work: Executive and Personal Coaching, Cambridge, Mass., 617-661-1250.

• Service Corps of Retired Executives, Boston, Mass., 617-565-5591, offers free advice and education for people starting businesses.

• Small Business Administration, Boston, Mass., 617-565-5590 – www.SBA.gov – offers advice, education and loans for start-up businesses.

• Society of Professional Consultants, Westford, Mass., 978-692-6950 – www.spconsultants.org – offers advice, education and a support group for independent consultants.

• The Boston Career Link, Boston, Mass., 617-536-1888.

Books:

• Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, by William Bridges, Addison-Wesley, 1991.

• Multiple Paths of Midlife Development, edited by Margie E. Lachman and Jaquelyn Boone James, University of Chicago Press, 1997.

• True Work: The Sacred Dimension of Earning a Living, by Justine Willis Toms and Michael Toms, Bell Tower, 1998.

• We Are All Self-Employed, by Cliff Hakim, Berrett-Koehler, 1994.