Unconventional strategies for reinventing your career
The turbulent labour market has caused many people to rethink their careers – sometimes without any choice. Herminia Ibarra shares some unconventional strategies for reinventing our careers… and ourselves.
Many of us will or have navigated at least one major career change in our lives. Not a simple “job hop,” but a life-altering transition that requires us to abandon years of investment in a career path. Whereas most career experts say we must begin with a careful assessment of our skills and interests to discover the perfect career match, Ibarra argues that advice is backwards: knowing what we really want to do is the result of doing and experimenting.
In her book “Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career,” she argues that we harbor a whole cast of “possible selves” we might become. And it is by continuously testing these possible futures – not by examining our past – that we learn what and who we want to be.
Drawing from her in-depth research on managers and professionals in transition, Ibarra describes reinvention as an iterative process of trial and error. Through engrossing stories and case studies of successful career-changers – from literature professor to stockbroker, from psychiatrist to Buddhist monk, and from investment banker to fiction writer, among others – she unveils a new model for change based on three “acts of reinvention”: experimenting with new activities, interacting in new networks of people, and constantly reworking the story of our changing identities.
Reinventing the act of reinvention itself, Working Identity explores the process for crafting a more fulfilling future. Whether you’re feeling unfulfilled, burned out, or just unhappy with what you’re doing, and longing to make that leap into the unknown, this book could prove really helpful.
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