How to choose your career: Interview with Lynne Milburn
In 2018, I published a book about how to choose your career. In 2024, I moved the content to this site. Below is the interview with Lynne Milburn.
You do “career therapy.” Can you explain what that is?
Career therapy is the underpinning of my philosophy. It is the combined practice of traditional psychotherapy and career counseling. I use psychological theory in the service of helping a person understand how family background influences current career decision-making. From this perspective, it is important to conduct a thorough family history with career counseling clients.
For example, suppose you are the hero child in an alcoholic family. Because of growing up in that dynamic, you are probably hyper-responsible. Even as a child, you functioned as the parent in the family. You earned good grades. You grew up to be a pillar of the community. You specialize in image management, always striving for perfection and taking care of everyone else’s needs. You might show up at a career counselor’s office to make sure you are doing everything right. But underneath that façade, there may be a dearth of decidedness because you have spent your whole life pleasing others. You can’t just take a career test to find out what to do. You have to first find out who you are.
So many Americans seem unhappy with the career path they have chosen. Do you have ideas about why this happens and is there anything parents and educators could do differently to improve the situation?
In my experience, people’s unhappiness in their career life can be consolidated into five distinct themes. The five common struggles people deal with when making career decisions are: Fear, Finance, Fast, Friction, and Family.
Fear
There appears to be an epidemic of fear in our culture, and it has permeated the world of careers. People are really nervous about the unpredictability of our economy. They may worry about these areas:
- Will I get fired?
- If I leave, the next job might be even worse.
- I am miserable, but I can’t leave this job until I have another.
- I am in debt up to my eyeballs, so I can’t take the risk.
- What if I can’t get health insurance?
- I don’t want to be thought of as a quitter.
- It will look bad on my resume.
- Can I really do that job?
- Will there be jobs in my field once I graduate?
My very first revelation on the impact of fear on our culture was in the late 1980s when the Barbara Walters Show called me because I was the director of the career center at one of the largest universities in the United States. They were doing a story about how bad the job market was for college graduates. Apparently, they wanted me to just confirm their angle. Instead, I talked about how students can compete in a challenging economy. The person I spoke with actually said, “That is not the story Barbara wants to tell.”
What an eye opener that was for me. I was the expert on the front lines, dealing with students getting jobs, but they wanted to tell the story of fear, not hope. Fear can paralyze a job seeker, which can perpetuate unemployment. Hope through knowledge and support can encourage forward movement. One of my favorite ways to look at unemployment is to remember that if we have 9% unemployment, we also have 91% employment. Part of a counselor’s role is to reframe fear to hope, not in a Pollyanna way but in a reality-based way.
Fear is a powerful motivator. It can also be paralyzing. It is important to identify and confront your fears directly. Then you can consciously decide whether to choose to focus on your fear or focus on your best options for a satisfying career.
The next four F’s are also peppered with Fear, but are a little more specific about how you might get stuck in a job you don’t like.
Finance
Money is a main reason many people are unhappy in their careers. Either they think they are not being paid enough or they are afraid they could never make as much as they are making now in another job (frequently referred to as the “golden handcuffs”). It is common for the question about one’s worth and value to surface when we discuss money. They may ask themselves, “What am I worth? What are my priorities and values? What amount of money makes me feel valuable?”
I have heard teachers talk about the many hours they work doing the very important task of educating students, but they are frustrated because they feel they cannot make enough to support their families. These same teachers talk about how much they adore the students and love and value what they do. This is when a very candid conversation about values comes into play. I might ask, “Is it more important that you love what you do most of your waking hours, or that your family goes on a Disney vacation?” For some, a family vacation may be more important. They make the financial choice a conscious choice based on all the factors, including finances.
For those who make a lot of money but dislike what they do, it is excruciating to give up that big check that they have worked years to attain. I am reminded of a physician who worked 70 hours per week, made $250,000 per year, and rarely saw her children. She made a very unconventional choice and sold her Lexus, her five-bedroom home in an exclusive neighborhood, and her vacation house. She purchased a Camry and a smaller home and saved enough to go on vacations with her family. She left the hectic hospital world to start her own practice where she could work 35 hours per week. She saw her kids and her spouse daily. And, even though she was “only” making $125,000 per year, her blood pressure dropped significantly, and she reported being a great deal happier.
Fast
It takes time, energy, and lots of exploration to discover your best career options, and many of us struggle to have the patience to invest in that kind of effort—that is, until we are so miserable that we have to do it. These days, with information, most of us are used to finding the answer online in a matter of seconds. It would be pretty cool to Google, “What should I do with my life?” and then get the answer. Sadly, it is just not that easy. But we are so programmed to get answers quickly that we don’t want to take the time to do the harder work. If we invest more in the career decision up front, it will cost us less in the long run.
Friction
Whether it is a bully of a boss, a complaining colleague, or a subversive supervisee, conflict in the workplace is the number one reason people are fired from their jobs. It is also a major reason people want to leave their jobs.
Ideally, you want to address the conflict directly with the party in question. Sometimes, though, you are working with someone who is not willing or able to work through a conflict. Many people learn behaviors in dysfunctional homes. They bring those ways of thinking and behaving into the work setting. You put a handful of those folks in the same work environment, and you can have a pretty difficult situation on your hands.
Family
As I just discussed in the Friction section, the way you learn about being in the world of work is mostly from your family. Your family influences can also affect what career you choose and how you decide on your career path.
There are two opposite ends of the parent career response continuum. On one end, a parent might say, “Oh, honey, I just want you to be happy.” There is nothing wrong with that at face value ... it sounds quite supportive, in fact. But, with helping your child, just saying you want them to be happy is not enough. You need to give them guidance. It would be as if your child wanted to learn how to ride a bike and you said to them, “OK, sweetie, just be safe,” and you sent them off to learn alone. You need to show them how to be safe and how to gain the skill of riding a bicycle. The same idea applies to career decision-making. You need to show them ways to get closer to being happy.
The other end of the continuum is the parent who insists that their daughter or son choose a specific career. Some parents actually disown or withhold financial assistance from their child because the child doesn’t do what the parents wanted them to do. At this point in U.S. culture, this is not a helpful response to a son or daughter who is trying to figure out what career to choose. I have worked with students who became suicidal because of receiving this reaction from their parents. Though the parents were well meaning and they wanted their son or daughter to be successful, their response was perceived by their child as a significant rejection.
Parents are the first career coaches. 80% of students at The University of Texas at Austin Career Services office said the most significant influence on their careers was their parents. It is important that they have tools to help their daughter or son make the best possible career decision for themselves. Most parents and educators want to assist their son or daughter student in choosing a satisfying career path. In order to do this, it's helpful to first understand what it takes to make a good career decision.
Below are the five components I use with clients to help them create a more effective process in their career decision-making. I call it Making As in the Career Decision-Making Process. A keyword is process. Although I am presenting this linearly, you may go back to a previous component as you learn more about yourself and the world of work.
Component 1: Assess
This initial component, Assess, is primary and core to the process of choosing a career from the inside out. First, you need to identify aspects of YOU before you try to integrate yourself into the world of work. So often people see some cool career on TV and decide to do that without investigating how it fits with who they really are. When CSI: Crime Scene Investigation first came out, we had a disproportionate number of students wanting to be crime scene investigators. However, when they learned what values, interests, personality, and skills it took to be successful, they were not as interested. Choosing a career from a television show is starting from the outside in.
In order to assess yourself as it relates to career, I recommend a combination of methods. Of course, as a career counselor, I would first recommend talking to one. It can help to talk to someone who is objective, has experience listening for nuances, can help work through barriers, is well versed in the career decision-making process, and has knowledge of careers and labor market trends.
As part of the counseling process, some people take career tests. There are many instruments available. Personally, I use some combination of the Campbell Interest and Skills Survey, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the Birkman Method, in order to help them learn how their interests, skills, needs, motivation, strengths, and personality correlate to the world of work. As part of the counseling conversation, we usually discuss their VIPS: Very Important Parts of Self:
Values
What is important to you? Helping others, financial security, enough time for family, etc.?
Interests
To what am I naturally drawn? When you were a kid, what were the activities you were involved in where you lost track of time? What stories on the web do you read?
Personality
What qualities about you rarely change? For example, if you are naturally gregarious, you are probably someone who enjoys going to events and talking to many people. If you are logical and care about fairness, you are likely to make your decisions from that vantage point.
Skills
At what do you excel, and also enjoy? I have found it is important to differentiate between skills (what you are good at) and motivated skills (skills you are good at and enjoy using). For example, I know a lot of individuals who are great at math, but they don’t want to use it as their primary career skill (e.g., becoming an engineer or an accountant).
In addition to a person’s VIPS, for some, it is valuable to identify what motivates them. My wife (Gail Goodman, LPC) and I developed a conceptual framework for identifying, quantifying and understanding one’s motivation that can lead to improved career decision-making, increased compatibility in relationships, and enhanced communication skills. We call it DeepFunDo™.
DeepFunDo™ categorizes primary motivation as coming from intellectual and/or emotional experiences (Deep), from liking to entertain and/or be entertained (Fun) or from liking to have results and/or be active (Do). I am a DeepFun with very little Do. This translates into my need for my work to be meaningful and fun. I care little about producing. That is why writing is difficult for me. I don’t care about producing. But if I motivate myself by seeing writing to help others (my Deep), then I am willing to push through my lack of interest or motivation to write.
You can tell your primary motivation by which aspects of an activity are the ones that excite you. For example, if you are volunteering, are you more interested in providing one-on-one support to people or in building/creating something?
When you are anxious, do you tend to move around or crack jokes? Whether you like to crack jokes, learn about how celery grows, or build a miniature golf course, knowing more about yourself is the foundation for achieving excellence in your career.
Then, in this career learning process, you might discover some boulders in the foundation that need to be excavated. That brings us to Component Two.
Component 2: Address barriers
Frequently I will work with someone who knows what they want to do but there is a big BUT after their career idea. This is when I know it is necessary to address their barriers. For some, it is an external barrier such as not enough jobs, family disapproval of the career choice, and/or not knowing what opportunities are available. For others, it is an internal barrier such as self-confidence, a values conflict between money and time, and/or struggling with depression or anxiety.
These barriers are frequently the underlying motivation for seeking counseling. Because each individual is unique, each counseling intervention is tailored to the person. I start by listening for one or more of the five themes of career unhappiness I described earlier. Determining which one or more of those barriers are in their way will influence the counseling work we do.
Once you have addressed your barriers, you may end up returning to the Assessment stage because you now have new information about yourself. Or, you are ready to move onto the Amass Information component.
Component 3: Amass information
This A, in the Five As of good career decision-making, is all about gathering information about the world of work. Broadly, there are two ways to access information. One is through people; the other through the written word.
Amassing information from others might feel intimidating at first. So I recommend you start with the indirect research. Most folks have already spent some time at the keyboard, surfing the internet. That is great! There are several resources that you can use to get you the best breadth of information. For example, you might try O*NET OnLine. It can be a little confusing, but if you are persistent, they have a great deal of information about careers on their site. In addition, many high schools, community colleges, and universities have career libraries. This is a valuable way to do a deeper dive in career exploration. For example, you can read about careers for introverts or careers for night owls.
Another way to learn about a career is to find their national association. It is amazing how many professional associations there are. I worked once with a woman who really wanted to be a belly dancer, but she did not know how to start. That day, I learned that there is a national association for belly dancers! These associations commonly offer a great deal of information about their career field.
Once you have some details about the career (what they do, what kind of training you need, how much it pays, what is the job outlook, etc.), it is time to talk to someone in the field.
There are many ways to develop a network of contacts. For example, this is the time you shake your family tree! Start asking family members if they know anyone in x field. The number of connections your family has might surprise you. Then, of course, you can use social media. Most of us have over 100 contacts on Facebook or LinkedIn. These are great resources to use for contacts. It can be as easy as sending out a message asking, “Does anyone know an environmental activist?” For some, alumni networks are a rich source of career information. And, surprisingly, talking to casual acquaintances might result in just the right contact. For example, while you are picking up your grandmother’s prescriptions, ask your pharmacist if they know anyone who is in the field you are considering.
If these resources don’t pan out, you still have the option of initiating contact yourself—a cold call. It might seem harder, but statistically, they say one out of two professionals will say “Yes,” to a request for an informational interview.
There is a plethora of resources to learn about careers. Doing your research is very important for discovering a career that is a good fit for who you are. The only caveat I would offer is to be careful not to get caught up in the analysis-to-paralysis cycle. Some people get stuck in the research and never move to the next stages of analyzing and acting on the information they have about self and the world of work.
Component 4: Analyze the connection between the self and the world of work
In this part of the process, you want to consider how your VIPS correlate to the careers you have been researching. For some, it is helpful to talk to someone objective—maybe a career counselor—to process this information.
Here is an example:
Bambi learned her strongest values are making a contribution to society and having strong relationships. Her top interests are building things, aesthetics, plants and animals. Her most prominent personality qualities are that she is very friendly, playful, and responsible. Her top skills are fixing things, motivating others and being creative. Bambi’s primary motivation is having a good time and her secondary motivation is to having something concrete to show for her work.
She spent two weeks researching careers in the outdoors working with plants and animals (especially bunnies). In her analysis, she discovered that many of the careers were missing her interest in making things beautiful and being creative. Using her creativity, she researched even more about how creativity and the outdoors went together. After doing career research, she discovered landscape architecture.
The next layer of learning presented another challenge. How was she going to get to work with her beloved bunnies? She went back to researching careers having anything to do with bunnies and landscape architecture. She was stumped. She consulted one of her most trusted colleagues, Mr. Thum Purr, to get some new ideas. Mr. Purr threw out the idea of designing abodes for bunnies. Maybe even call it Homes in the Hutch. She loved the idea; it combined most of her VIPS and motivation.
Then, the big BUT … but how do I get experience? How will I make money? These key questions led Bambi right to the next component, “Act.”
Component 5: Act
The last component in the career decision-making process is to get some hands-on experience doing what you are seriously thinking of pursuing. This can be through participating in an internship, becoming an apprentice, or getting a job in that field.
This frequently involves going through the whole job search process … research jobs and internships, prepare a resume or curriculum vitae, write cover letters, do interviews, etc.
There are many books that provide great detail about how to search for a job. One of my current favorites is The 6 Reasons You’ll Get the Job: What Employers Look For—Whether They Know It or Not, by Debra Angel MacDougall and Elisabeth Harney Sanders-Park.
To summarize, earning As takes hard work. However, if you will put in the time, you have a much higher likelihood of being satisfied and successful in your career. And, considering that you spend the lion’s share of your waking life at work, it seems worth that extra effort.
You have decades of experience working with college students. One trend is for college students to be asked to choose a major earlier and earlier, with some universities requiring students to declare their major when they apply for admission. In your opinion, when is the ideal time for a college student to choose a major?
It depends on the individual. A small group of students have known what they want to do since they were five years old. But 75% of first-year college students don’t know what they want to major in. And I believe “not knowing” can be a virtue for students who are open to exploration.
I encourage students to remember that most majors are not professional training programs. In fact, when you look at most majors, only 30 out of the 120 required hours are your major. This underscores one difference of a college education vs. vocational training. A university education affords you an opportunity to not only become an expert on a particular subject, but to pursue other interests and develop additional marketable skills. By remembering that for most, a major does not equal a career, it can take some of the pressure off of this decision.
But, if I could offer a broad recommendation for when a college student should decide on a major, I would suggest by the second semester of their sophomore year. By then, they have been exposed to a year and a half of college courses, experienced those courses they liked and did well in, learned how to live on their own, and may even have gotten involved in some co-curricular activities or an internship. Because of waiting and taking in more information, they are making a much more educated choice among their academic major options.
I appreciate that at The University of Texas at Austin, they have created an undergraduate college just for undecided majors. This offers a home for students to be supported and encouraged to discover what could be the best major for them.
What advice do you have for college students to maximize their chances of making good decisions about their major and career?
Focus on the career from the inside out. Shift the locus of control from external to internal. Assess VIPS (values, interests, personality, skills) plus motivators. Then learn about the world of work via research and talking to people. Finally, try it out. Sit in class, go to the work environment, do an internship. And, if you get stuck, go see a career counselor.
I am seeing a lot of media advising students to choose a “strategic” major such as accounting or engineering, and to think of interests in liberal arts or humanities as hobbies rather than ways to earn a living. What are your thoughts about that?
Our culture has shifted from valuing a well-rounded education to focusing on career training. At the same time, employers are expressing concern that students are inadequate communicators, innovators, and problem solvers. They want employees who interact well with others, write professionally, and have a strong work ethic. Many of these traits are learned and supported via the soft sciences. The pendulum has swung too far toward vocational training and needs a better balance.
My general recommendation is for students to be more well rounded. For example, I think it is good for liberal arts students to learn skills in leadership and computers and technology, and for business and engineering students to work on their interpersonal and writing skills.
Is it ever too late to make a career change? What advice do you have for people who reach midlife and decide they want to do something different for work?
It is never too late. I just read a news story about a 90-year-old man who learned to read. He wrote his first book at 91 years old. People change careers five to seven times in a lifetime. There are more career options and people live longer. The cultural norm now says it is okay to go for satisfaction rather than just survival.
People often start out doing what they thought they “should” do, but at some point, they decide they want to go for what they want to do.
And, if you are trying to figure out what you want to do, I refer you to my previous answer about Making As in the Career Decision-Making Process. As Dr. Helen Harkness says, “What would you do if you were 20 years younger? Do it anyway.”
Another consideration about whether it is too late is that maybe the next career for you has just become real. For all those people out there earning a living managing social media, that career was not an option 20 years ago. And there are careers that do not exist today that you might want to pursue when they do come on the scene.
You have been helping people with career decisions for over 20 years. Do you see the decision-making process as somewhat the same over that time or do you see differences now vs. how decisions were made in the past?
There are some differences: Technology, access to information, people are more tied to parents and peers (social media is more public but more distant). Students are talking to their parents two or three times per day vs. two or three times per month. There is more emphasis on a global rather than local economy and more outsourcing. This generation is much more culturally sensitive and aware, with more expectation of immediate rewards and answers. This generation is better at seeing their life as a balancing act rather than strictly focusing on career. There is less stigma about going to counseling for this generation.
There are also similarities: Like previous generations, this generation struggles with self-confidence. There is still fear. This generation is still idealistic and socially conscious. They want to work smarter, not harder, which is the same as the previous generation.
You have significant expertise in working with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning/queer (LGBTQ) community about career development. In what ways, if any, does career decision-making differ for this population?
Some might wonder how one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity might affect their career. Why would their work and their private life have to intersect? It is an important question.
To better understand the dilemmas faced by the LGBTQ community, it's helpful to view the world of work from their perspective. I encourage the estimated 90% who identify as heterosexual to go through one day at work and make no reference to your spouse or partner or anyone else’s spouse or partner by gender. Notice the sort of energy it takes to withhold information about one’s personal life during the workday. It is no wonder that so many LGBTQ employees experience isolation when they are working in an environment that is not one in which they feel accepted for their sexual orientation or gender identity.
If you feel that the gender you were assigned at birth is congruent with your emotional and psychological gender, you are likely in a 97% to 99% majority. Imagine what it would be like if you felt a disconnect between your assigned gender and your true self, but you had to spend each day at work hiding that. You might make clothing and behavior choices that are not congruent with who you are, but are designed to prevent people from finding out how you feel. For me to put myself in the shoes of a person who identifies as transgender, I would have had to wear a suit and tie to work, go to the men’s room when I had to use the bathroom (or try to find a gender-neutral bathroom), use the men’s locker room, be searched by male employees at the airport, etc. That would have been very uncomfortable and scary. For someone who identifies as transgender, it takes a tremendous amount of energy just to hide who they are each day and try to fit in.
The reason they hide? As of this writing, in 28 states, one can be fired for being gay or lesbian and in 30 states one can be fired for being transgender. In the transgender community, proportionately, this group has the highest murder rate of any group in the United States. The effects of living and working in a homophobic or heterosexist culture are significant. Most individuals who identify as LGBTQ experience subtle or obvious rejection long before they start their first job.
When a person identifies as LGBT and/or Q, many additional factors influence their career decisions. Below are many of the issues I have encountered working with the LGBTQ community related to career decision-making.
Coming Out — The stage at which a person is in their coming-out process can greatly affect their career choice.
For example, if you are in the early stages of coming out and are trying to pass for heterosexual, you might choose a career that fits with your gender stereotype and avoid those that do not. A gay man might choose to be an architect instead of an interior designer. A lesbian might choose to teach first graders, not physical education. A person who identifies as a woman but looks like a man might become a physical therapist instead of a nurse for fear of being outed by a stereotypical career … even if that career is what they really want to pursue.
Those LGBTQ individuals who are in the pride or activist stage of coming out might swing to the other side of the pendulum and choose a career within or serving the LGBTQ community. They might also be more likely to pursue a career that is more stereotypically thought of as gay or lesbian.
As the person continues in their coming-out process, they come to the integration stage. At this stage, their sexual orientation and gender identity are experienced as a part of who they are, but not all they are. Usually, at this stage, their identification as LGBTQ has less of an influence upon their career decision-making, though it may have a significant influence on the company or environment in which they decide to work.
Family is another significant factor—especially for those who come out early in their lives. If you fear you will be rejected, this might translate into losing the financial and emotional support of your family. I worked with a student whose parents disowned him when he came out, including withdrawing all financial support (they had been paying for college tuition). He had to drop out of college (he had a 3.9 GPA in Engineering) and get a minimum-wage job. The good news is that I suggested a couple of scholarships that are specifically for LGBTQ students and he followed through. He is back on his original path after this enormous bump in his career road.
Stereotypes — As I mentioned earlier, some who are trying to decide what career to pursue may choose something that they think is stereotypical for a person who is gay, lesbian, or transgender because they might think it is a path with more acceptance and fewer barriers.
On the other hand, some LGBTQ folks might avoid a career they really want because it is too stereotypical and might out them more than they want to be outed. Frequently, individuals who are transgender do not want to draw attention to themselves in a work environment. Considering the aforementioned safety statistics (highest rate of murders, proportionately), you can imagine why someone who is transgender would avoid highly public positions. So, even if their values, interests, skills and personality point to a career as a politician, they may be more likely to choose a “behind the scenes” role in the political arena—especially if they are early in the process of accepting who they are.
Geography — Where one works is a piece of the decision-making process for most people. For LGBTQ individuals, it is a bigger factor. They are more likely going to choose larger and more inclusive cities. Larger cities draw bigger businesses and bigger businesses have more inclusive policies. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 89% of the Fortune 500 have non-discrimination policies related to sexual orientation. 66% prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, compared to just three in 2000.
Great strides are being made in the workplace toward equity for LGBTQ employees. And, the more they make, the more LGBTQ candidates will be drawn to the larger and more progressive cities.
Dual Career Concerns — In many organizations, if one partner is being moved for a job, the company will help the spouse find another job, too. For same-sex couples, it is more complicated.
If you have not yet come out at work, this might force your hand. If you have come out in this setting, it might force you to come out to your new setting before you are ready. And many employers will not provide this same support to same-sex spouses.
Job Search Process — Part of the decision-making process is determining for what jobs you are applying and what companies or organizations would be the best fit for you. Although this is true for all who are looking for employment, the job search and application process is unusual for an LGBTQ candidate. Much of the information they seek about a company and the information they decide to reveal about themselves will probably be based on criteria unique to their identification as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
When working with an LGBTQ client on their resume, a question I am frequently asked is whether they should reveal anything on their resume that might suggest they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. If someone is involved with organizations that are tied to LGBTQ issues, they will need to decide if and how to include that experience in the application materials. Depending on what business or organization you are applying to, it may cause you to be eliminated from being considered. There is no federal law protecting LGBTQ candidates from job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Even in the 22 states where you cannot fire someone for being gay or lesbian (20 states if you are transgender), the person who is looking at the resume may discriminate against you anyway, consciously or unconsciously.
Some individuals decide to use their “rainbow resume” because they only want to work for an organization that accepts and respects their sexual orientation or gender identity. Some people decide they will include it, but not as obviously. For example, their resume might say they were president of an organization working with disenfranchised communities. This person can still highlight all the skills, results, and experiences they gained in this role without coming out directly. However, this individual will need to be prepared to address this during the interview.
The third option for an LGBTQ job candidate is to not include this information at all. As a candidate, you may decide getting a job in your field of interest or just getting a job is more important than being out about your sexual orientation or gender identity. Some people want to test the water first and then decide whether to come out once they are on the job.
Another factor to consider with the resume that is unique to the transgender community is whether to use your legal or preferred name. For example, if your legal name is William and you are now using Lilly, what do you do? If you are going into this position as a female, but are legally a male (on your driver’s license, for example), you need to know that at some point you might have to sign legal documents that require your legal name. This means you may have to come out to your employer before you are ready.
This is one reason many transgender job searchers seek opportunities with inclusive employers. According to the Human Rights Campaign in 2018, 58% of the Fortune 500 and 79% of the companies top rated on the HRC Corporate Equality Index offer transgender-inclusive health care coverage, up from 0 in 2002 and nearly three times as many businesses as five years ago. 103 new employers offer this coverage in the 2018 report. This is important information for the transgender community and will probably cause them to choose some companies over others.
A key question for most LGBTQ job searchers is “How do I identify the more LGBTQ-friendly and inclusive employers?” The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an excellent resource. HRC’s Corporate Equality Index provides an in-depth analysis and rating of large U.S. employers and their policies and practices pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees.
Once you get closer to deciding, you may want to ask one or more of the following questions of your potential employer. If you are not sure if it is safe to ask the person who is interviewing you, go on their website and see if they have an LGBTQ employee group. If so, check with them. If they do not, you might be able to go to a professional LGBTQ website and ask about this organization. For example, if you want to be a lawyer or teacher or engineer, they have national LGBTQ chapters within those professions. If you are really nervous about asking anyone, maybe it is not quite time to come out at work or this place of employment may not be for you.
Here is a helpful guide:
Assessing the work environment for LGBTQ employees
It's difficult to know if your work environment is safe or even empowering for LGBTQ employees. The following questions may help you assess your organization.
• Are there persons with power who are out in your organization?
• Are there opportunities for personal development, career progression, and advancement for LGBTQ workers?
• Are there written rules and policies that protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation?
• Does your organization offer benefits for sexual reassignment surgery?
• Are there gender-neutral bathrooms?
• Does the company advertise in LGBTQ media?
• Does the organization’s search committee consider sexual identity as a desirable characteristic in diversifying its workforce?
• If the organization does training on diversity, do they include LGBTQ as part of the training?
• Are there any LGBT associations or support groups within the organization?
• How does the organization handle conflict around sexual orientation?
• Do LGBTQ persons fully participate in all aspects of corporate life, including jobs involving interactions with the public?
• How out could an LGBTQ employee be, given the level of organizational heterosexism or homophobia?
• Does the job application have a blank space for gender vs. M/F?
• Are unmarried partners invited to company events?
• How does management handle heterosexist or homophobic humor?
• Does the organization have policies to make it easy to change gender in the organization’s documents?
• Does the organization publicly support LGBTQ rights?
• Does the organization’s charitable foundations give to relevant causes?
• Is there company support for individuals with HIV/AIDS?
• Does your organization have domestic partner benefits?
• If so, what are the domestic partner benefits?
Once you have written your resume and researched potential employers, it is time for the interview process. Two issues can come up: One, what do you wear? Two, do you come out?
Regarding attire for the job interview, if you dress in more gender-variant clothing, you may want to consider wearing something slightly more gender-neutral (e.g., for a person who will probably be perceived as female and who usually wears pants, a shirt, and a tie, consider not wearing a tie).
Regarding coming out during the interview process, that is a very personal decision. I encourage LGBTQ clients to ask themselves, “How would I feel if I did not get this job I want because I was part of the LGBTQ community?” If they answer, “I would not want to work at a place that was so discriminatory,” that is probably their answer about coming out. If they say, “That is really frustrating because I really wanted that job,” then maybe they are OK with not being out at this time.
Most of what I have been saying has a tone of struggle as it relates to career decision-making and being LGBT or Q. Yes, I do think it is more challenging and there are some advantages in the world of work for the LGBTQ community.
First of all, because there is discrimination, some safety nets have been put in place. For example, there are several scholarships that are specifically for LGBTQ identified people, job websites that help the LGBTQ community, and LGBTQ professional groups around the nation that offer mentoring, networking, and employment information to this community. Professional groups are a way to get on the inside track, similar to how alumni of a particular university help each other.
Scholarships for LGBT students
Out for Work
Out to Innovate
Looking for employment can be a time-consuming and draining endeavor, and it is important to use your resources, which includes people and information. If you focus on getting support from those people whom you feel accept you for who you are, and you use LGBTQ-specific job search information from reliable sources, you are likely to have a much easier time looking for a job. And, if you get stuck and too discouraged, reach out to an LGBTQ-affirming career counselor.
Is there anything else you wish I had asked that you want to say?
Yes, I would like to add that there is one other factor that can significantly affect career decision-making. That factor is luck.
We know through the research of Dr. John Krumboltz that happenstance is a big factor in career development. Happenstance is a chance occurrence or event that may increase opportunities. According to Krumboltz, the five attributes you can develop to increase the probability that luck will cross your path are persistence, risk taking, flexibility, curiosity, and optimism. Add these happenstance qualities to your already gained insight into yourself and the world of work and you have the ingredients of career success.
Now retired, Lynne Milburn is the former Director of the Career Exploration Center at The University of Texas at Austin. She was my first career counseling supervisor and the person who most inspired me to pursue career counseling as my career focus.
