2002 Speeches
Thoughts on Singapore American School’s Career Day
Franklin L. Lavin - U.S. Ambassador to Singapore
September 20, 2002
Does this day make sense?
Giving someone career advice is a bit presumptuous, a bit like giving romantic advice, because the presumption is that the speaker knows enough about the person to be able to offer advice. Much of what passes for advice is simply autobiographical. People can comment on what is best for them, or what they like, or what motivates them, but it is difficult for a stranger to opine on what is best for you, or what you need to do.
Also, I’m not entirely sure about the value of "Career Day." What do we hope to accomplish during the course of the day? How realistic, or necessary, is it for high school students to think about a career? Jon Bon Jovi said, "map out your future, but do it in pencil." In my view, maybe during the course of the day you will be exposed to some people or some ideas that spark some interest on your part. Maybe today could more accurately be called, "Courses to Think About Taking in College" day, or "Possibilities for Summer Job" day - though "Career Day" does sound a bit snappier.
What’s the point of a career? Is it desirable or necessary to have one? What is a career? Do you work to live or do you live to work? I think one of the goals of the day should not be so much to come up with answers, but for you to begin to devise the questions. Only when you have sorted through your priorities and your preferences will you be able to think about which career might match up the best.
What not to do.
Let me get into this topic by mentioning two approaches I think you would do well to avoid. One mistake is when people act on impulse alone. What do you like or not like. Does someone make a good presentation or not? A good anecdote? My guess is that every unsuccessful career, every bad career if you will, had a decent presentation at a career day someplace. We see this mistake frequently as people start to look at colleges. What did you think of your college visit? People typically answer, "They have a nice library," or "The tour guide was terrific."
The other mistake is to be guided only by familiarity. We are all creatures of habit, and we gravitate to the familiar - teenagers perhaps even more than adults. This can be a helpful tendency, but it can also be limiting. One of the great privileges of coming to adulthood in this era is that the only limits you need face are the limits of your own abilities, or the limits you might unwittingly place upon yourself. Because you have never done a particular task before, or your parents haven’t, is no reason why you shouldn’t give it some thought.
How to ask the question.
What I’d like to do is simply outline some general principles to keep in mind as you listen to some of today’s presentations.
There are only a few attributes of a job that are worth reflecting on. You can come up with your own list. Here is mine.
- Intellectual stimulation - I enjoy working with ideas and complicated projects. Social setting - I enjoy working with bright, switched on people.
- Professional pride - I want to be proud of the work I do, and I want to earn the respect of others.
- A cause broader than the immediate task - I want to make a difference beyond the immediate problem on which I am working. "All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence," to quote Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Compensation - We need to put food on the table.
- Opportunities for advancement, travel, education, etc.
Put these all together and you have job satisfaction. Everyone will have different preferences when it comes to these criteria. What must a job include to be satisfactory to you? Recognize that not every job is going to meet all of these criteria every day - and that is probably not necessary. But to the extent these are matched up against your needs, you will have higher satisfaction.
Trade-offs.
Not every career has to satisfy every one of these needs. You can find satisfaction outside the workplace. So part of your decision process is understanding these trade-offs
One trade off is between continuity and broadening yourself. Some people crave predictability and hierarchy; others have a preference for new experiences. Each of these decisions has opportunity costs.
For a variety of reasons, we are seeing increased labor mobility. Statistics show that American workers change careers - not just jobs - approximately six to eight times during their lifetime. No longer does the average employee remain with a company or institution for most or all of his or her professional life out of loyalty or for job security.
What are the reasons for this turn about in American employment tradition? Ease of mobility, changing lifestyles, relatively low unemployment rates, economic booms altering with busts, workers' lower tolerance for boredom in a world with ever-expanding and enticing work and volunteer opportunities.
Another trade-off is between the horizontal and the vertical. Vertical jobs are those that require technical depth such as in medicine and law. Horizontal jobs cut across all disciplines and use system skills and external skills such as management, creativity, and communication. The political scientist Isaiah Berlin described this as the fox and the hedgehog: the fox knows many things, and the hedgehog knows only one big thing.
So the key step in thinking through a career is not so much understanding the market place, but understanding yourself. What are your preferences, your strengths? What will make you happy, what will you find rewarding.
Serendipity plays a part in this, but what will you do to take advantage of luck when it comes? Luck is simply another name for opportunity, but how can you be prepared to take advantage of an opportunity? Thus the core skill you need in the job market is not necessarily technical expertise, but adaptability and openness - the ability to master challenges.
It’s not Career Day
To my mind, a career does not mean that you necessarily spend your life doing the same thing or even working for the same institution. But it does mean that you should find one or more areas of expertise that satisfies you. And, it means you must have a desire to explore, a willingness to go outside your comfort zone, to learn and to grow.
Everybody in this room starts with some key advantages. Everybody has the prospect of receiving a good education. Everyone should have mastery of English, and everyone will have had some sort of international experience. At the end of the day, this is not "Career" Day; it is "You" Day. Where are you going? What are you doing? In your childhood, others would make those decisions for you. As you approach adulthood, you increasingly make them for yourself.
As a child, the stakes are low, the consequences are minimal. As an adult, the consequences of your decisions begin to define your life. Keep your options open. Try new things. Excellence counts. Performance counts, character and persistence count. If all you have is talent, that isn’t enough -- you can always hire talent. By now you realize that school is not just a giant conspiracy designed to annoy you - though it might seem that way at times. You should realize that happiness is not gratification, though there is nothing wrong with seeking both.
Everybody in this room will have a career of some sort. The question is, is it the best you could be doing - or did you make some decisions along the way that have cost you? Making your own decisions. Taking responsibilities for your decisions. Becoming an adult.