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Transitioning to a new career Kim W. Tracy
I
have recently transitioned from a career as an information technology (IT) executive to one as a professor, and I would like to share some of my experiences and considerations. Hopefully, my experience will be helpful if you ever consider such a move. As background, I’ve spent the last 30 years in various roles at Bell Labs and then as chief information officer (CIO) of a university. I’ve also spent more than 25 years teaching computer science as an adjunct, which helped in identifying my new career.
Choices, choices As someone considering transitioning to a new career, it is important for you to specify the various realistic choices that you have before you. Equally important is for you to look at what is important to you and what you can live without. After ten years as CIO, I had decided to move to another position. For some time, I had considered moving into full-time teaching, but it comes with a considerable drop in pay. However, I knew I would really enjoy it. So, in my job search, I started to identify what roles and positions I would consider. As part Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPOT.2015.2509195 Date of publication: 6 May 2016
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of this process, I made a list of the types of things that were important to me at this stage of my career. Luckily, at this point in my career, I did not have to consider salary first and foremost but could consider other factors. For me, those included ■■performing exciting and interesting work ■■working in a leading organization with a supportive culture ■■having an impact ■■making enough money not to have to tap into my savings. It was not necessarily important to me to be an executive or to have a large organization reporting to me. Our culture (at least
in the United States) tends to expect people to always move up to larger and more powerful positions, rather than looking for positions where we can contribute and enjoy the work. Currently, contributing and enjoying the position is more important to me than making a lot of money. With those criteria, I then considered what sort of positions I would try for, as I needed to have some focus, rather than applying for anything and everything for which I might qualify. I ended up applying for three types of positions: ■■full-time teaching positions ■■an IT executive at universities ■■an IT executive at nonprofits, companies, and government agencies. I decided not to pursue other positions at this point that might also pay well, such as an individual contributor in a nonprofit, company, or gover n ment a genc y, pr i ma r i ly because those would take a lot of effort to find one that meets the above criteria, as well as there being the inevitable question of why you would take such a role after having been CIO. My priority was roughly in the order given above, with teaching positions being my preferred choice, as I knew it would meet most of my other criteria. The key question was
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whether it would meet my minimal financial needs. Another key area that I did not consider initially was what specific flexibility would I have for a good opportunity? Questions such as: ■■How little money would I take? ■■Would I move? How far would I move? Where would I not move? ■■Are there other important goals that would make one option more appealing than others? ■■Where do I really want to be in five years? Ten years?
terview). For other high-level positions, it was common to have three or four levels of interviews. Part of the reason for targeting specific types of positions is to focus my “beating of the bushes,” that is, where I was going to look for jobs. This included the usual activities of searching online postings and using personal networks, but it also involved working with search firms. For the executive-level positions for which I was looking, this was critical. These firms often refer good
Currently, contributing and enjoying the position is more important to me than making a lot of money. While I had not explicitly answered these in advance, they did come into play as opportunities became more concrete. The “Where would I move?” question became important in what jobs to which I would or would not apply.
Look at the process Once you’ve made that choice of what to pursue, you need to consider the processes for actually achieving your goal. Those processes tend to vary depending on the type of career you are pursuing. Gett i ng a ny of t hose t hree types of positions is long and tedious. For full-time teaching positions, the search is long, involving committees, timed to start in the Fall semester, and it includes getting approval for the new positions through bureaucratic approval. For high-level university administrators, the process is similar but even more tedious, with many levels of interviews, and it usually involves search firms. For government organizations, it is equally long. These processes generally take six months or longer for any of these positions. The simplest of these was the faculty search process, where there are generally only two levels of interviews (a phone and an on-campus in-
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candidates for other open positions that are being searched by the same firm. I had several good referrals come through this door. I also had a target list of organizations that I knew I would like to work for, and I would regularly check in with them to see what sorts of positions were available. I accumulated a large number of opportunities and categorized them as “high,” “medium,” or “low” priority. Eventually (about five months in my case), the opportunities matured sufficiently so that I was busy managing the interviews and opportunities. This is one of the reasons I was glad I focused on those that would likely meet my criteria. Given the different nature of the positions for which I was looking, I created different résumés and carefully crafted each cover letter to showcase my expertise that was relevant for that position. For high-level positions, the curriculum vitae is generally very long and detailed (six to seven pages) rather than a short résumé. For a teaching position, I generally write other statements that show my research, my teaching, and service activities and interests (which includes service to the profession and to the university). For interviews, it was important to be able to answer the question about
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why you would change careers. For the teaching positions, it was a relatively easy answer for me. I had been teaching for a long time on a parttime basis and have always enjoyed it. So, a teaching career would be just be switching my focus to one of teaching and maybe still doing some part-time consulting. Another important question that I was frequently asked was about the pay gap between the new career’s pay versus my prior pay as a CIO. I answered that at this point in my career, I could now afford to pursue the career I most enjoyed without having to make a lot of money. Most interviewers were fine with that honest answer, though I’m sure a few worried about whether they could afford me when it came down to sala ry negotiations.
Making the decision If you’re lucky, then you’ll have many opportunities to consider and they’ll be of very different types. So, you need to carefully consider those opportunities and make sure they are what you need them to be. For me, my preferred choice was teaching. However, I had several other opportunities that were coming in at the same time. These other opportunities would not pay just a little more but factors of three or four times more, sometimes in the range of seven or eight times more. So, the temptation was there to take one of those high-paying positions for the short run (five years or so) and then move to teaching later. Moving to teaching now would give me a longer career in teaching, rather than waiting five years and it just being a hobby. After a teaching offer came in, I needed to make a choice, and several of the other ancillary factors kicked in (moving, pay sufficient, other synergies, etc.), making the choice more obvious. Part of the decision involved weighing the state of the job market in each of those three job cate gories (teaching, university IT, and corporate/nonprofit IT) and the state of sophistication and interesting positions in those categories.
aving accomplished many things H in university IT, there would be little that I hadn’t already seen and done in any new role. There’s also a lot of cost pressure in many universities (especially public ones) that can make the role less interesting. IT at universities (in general) tends to be very conservative and five to ten years behind in terms of most leading-edge technologies. Nonetheless, there were many opportunities to work in university IT or in corporate/nonprofit IT where I could “do it again” and re-apply what I had learned throughout my career. I expect to be able to leverage that experience by occasional consulting and still be focused on the future through teaching and research. Interestingly, I was in the final interview stages for each of those types of positions and ended up canceling a number of final interviews for university, corporate, and government positions after verbally accepting a teaching position.
Reality sets in With any new position, but particularly for one in a new career path, there’s a lot of work and adjustments to be made. I’ve taught parttime for a long time, but still there’s a learning curve to being in a different ca reer path. As one might expect, there was a pent-up demand for teaching a number of courses and a lot of preparation when teaching three new classes concurrently. Even though the pay is a lot less, that doesn’t mean the work load any lighter. Nonetheless, I’m really enjoying the position. There’s also realizing that your old career is no longer your responsibility. For example, I try hard not
to tell those responsible for IT at my new university how to do their job, but sometimes it is a challenge. To keep in touch with realworld uses of technology, I do plan to consult, which will also help alleviate the salary level and transition challenges. Another challenge is seeing postings for positions in your old career path and thinking, “I would be ideal for that” and “maybe I should apply.” Those can be real time wasters, not good for your c areer in the
positions that fit your criteria. At the same time, you need to be flexible enough to look for, consider, and take positions that might be a bit outside of your initial criteria. Spend some time thinking about what is important to you and how you can be better fulfilled in a new job. ■■Be persistent and plan. It really helped me to be persistent and stick to my targeted positions. At times, particularly in those first few months, you’re tempted
With any new position, but particularly for one in a new career path, there’s a lot of work and adjustments to be made. long run, and not fair to your new employer. So, you have to be willing to go “all in.”
Reflection If you’re considering moving to a new career path, below is a bit of what I have learned through the process. ■■It’s not easy. It was a lot harder than I expected, and it would have been a lot easier to just continue as an IT executive, partially because that’s just what everyone expects. It’s also be cause the processes are set up that way from hiring criteria, job advertising, search firms behavior, and even your colleagues’ expectations. You’re really going against the grain. ■■Be bold and flexible. If you’re like I was, you’ll be at a point where you can make a real choice and can take any position. Dream big and really go for
to try lots of other options that may not be ideal. Having a plan and targeting specific industries and organizations helped a lot. Executing on the plan is also a lot of work in creating targeted résumés and cover letters, as well as doing detailed research of your target organizations. So far, things are going well in my new position, and I don’t regret my transition whatsoever.
About the author Kim W. Tracy (
[email protected]) is currently a lecturer in computer science at Michigan Technological University. He previously worked as chief information officer at Northeastern Illinois University and at Bell Laboratories in roles ranging from software development to information technology architecture. He is currently working on a textbook on software history.
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