|
CAREER MAKEOVERS?
(September/October 2004 Issue)
A TV reporter in downtown Sacramento leaps after a woman walking by, grabs her, and says: "I’m Mary Alice Haney and this is Ambush Makeover. I’m in Sacramento, a city made famous by the Gold Rush, and today my rush is to find someone who needs a makeover and turn them into gold." (Sacramento Bee, July 22, 2004) The woman in Haney’s clutches accepts her invitation and the makeover is on.
Some "lucky" person gets a chance to be on TV and see "a new me." She is willingly "arrested" by the Fashion Police and "sentenced" to a new visual identity. Sound like just fun? Well, maybe so. But, maybe not. Amidst the hoopla, the designated recipient of the makeover may feel: "Do I look that bad that they
chose me?" Consider the implications:
(1) You’re definitely "not looking good enough" as you are;
(2) It is possible to transform you fast, if you just know what to do; but you don’t, so we will do it for you. Poor you, stuck here in this fashion backwater;
(3) Once we change you, and you’re back on your own, you had better be vigilant every day about "your look", else you slip into your old ways.
What does this have to do with career counseling? It is one more example of the celebrification of our culture. People are being taught that the way to career success is through a quick fix of their visual images. "If I can just look like a celebrity, then maybe I’ll become one and everything will be all right. Why do real work when being noticed may allow me to leapfrog into fame without a lot of effort?" The possibility of a quick visual transformation encourages people to believe they can skip most of what we call "career development".
Dress for excess rides again. The TV and film worlds are turning regular people into celebrity obsessives. It is not a pretty sight. In the long run, a makeover recipient is encouraged to feel badly and very self-conscious about her/his natural physical self.
Cintra Wilson’s book about the perils of celebrity is instructive:
"We treat our celebrities, regardless of artistic merit, like
an untouchable royal family, which causes most of us to act
like dribbling serfs, despite the value of our individual lives"
(Wilson, Cintra, A Massive Swelling: Celebrity as a Grotesque and Crippling Disease)
However, in every questionable idea there may lie the possibility of a better one. Perhaps we should consider that we are (or could be) in the business of encouraging "career makeovers". Which would be entirely the opposite of "ambushing" people on the streets to give them fashion updates.
A fashion makeover runs the risk of turning a person into someone they are not; whereas a career makeover may help people to discover more fully the individuals they are. The idea of a "career makeover" can tug at our hearts in a different way. It rejects the superficial and appeals to the sublime within us.
If a turn of phrase is what’s needed in this culture to get the attention of our public, "career makeover" may be helpful. It reinforces us to do what we are already doing. We help clients get in touch with their "inner reality." Individuals can "makeover" their careers every single day by acquiring new skills, reflecting on what is important to them, and reshaping their goals. As Rick Jarow (Creating The Work You Love), Michael Ray (The Highest Goal), and many other authors have said, we need to conceive our careers as creating works of art.
A career counselor puts clients in touch with this continuing "makeover" by helping them integrate their values, skills, interests, and goals. Many clients are only vaguely aware of these things. An effective careercounselor teaches clients how to conduct "makeovers" for themselves, not in superficial ways, but reaching deep to express the best that is in them. The work of art is never finished, and that is a good thing. Every day we reconsider who we are and why we are doing our work. This is both the excitement and the mystery of being fully present with one’s career. We reshape our careers by being alive to our present experience. We "makeover" ourselves rather than having someone do it for us. Repainting our canvas. Reshaping our clay.
Not all is glorious in the world of careers. There are some jobs we would like to leave, but we cannot. Thus, a career makeover consists of finding ways to satisfy one’s strongest values both outside and inside paid employment. In this way the career as a work of art represents the whole person.
Howard Figler, Ph.D., is the author of The Complete Job Search Handbook and The Career Counsleor's Handbook. He can be reached at: hefigler@pacbell.net |
|
