Dr. Seuss:

“And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¼ percent guaranteed)”

In order to help you interpret your Anchors and Growth Intentions charts, and to illustrate possible connections between the two, we will now describe in some detail five cases that we have recently encountered that highlight various changes, connections, and combinations of work, home, family, and friendship issues. These cases illustrate not only how each person saw their own career anchors but, importantly, how they saw their own growth or developmental needs—the areas they felt they needed to improve upon.

You might make some notes to yourself in each case where you see similar things happening in your situation and then compare your notes with some of the brief observations we have made about how these cases illustrate new connections and combinations that are more and more common in the changing conditions of life and work.

In all, the two sets of 32 items and the graphical representations are an easy way for you to see your career journey and where you would like to take it or where you would like to grow. And, as we've suggested above, hold on to your Career Anchors and Growth Intentions chart for reference when you are thinking about or planning your next move. When you are asked to describe yourself and your goals, these visuals could be as useful as broad self‐description or a possible informal elevator pitch when job hunting (or hopping).

Are these five career journeys success stories? Absolutely, in the sense that vital insights have been gained through all of the ups and downs. Kate, David, Sarah, Carlos, and Maia are all fictional seekers based closely on actual cases that were recounted to us. Please note, however, that the specifics—the people, locations, organizations—mentioned in each case are disguised.

These are very relatable stories, and least surprisingly, they are all deeply affected by the Covid‐19 pandemic. As we are writing in summer 2022 in the US, Covid is on another upswing and impacts to work and life are still profound. Covid‐19 will have a long tail, with its impacts reaching out in all likelihood for another 5 to 10 years as part of our new normal. For our five stories here, the impacts of the pandemic are fresh. However, the pandemic is only one driver in these career journeys, as you will see.

Kate

This is Kate Mazeroski's story. Kate has a BA in economics, is single, and at this point in her journey she had six years of post‐college experience.

After I got my degree from a small liberal arts college on the east coast, having done well in economics, I was able to secure a first job with a large, well‐known financial consulting firm. I got lucky and was relocated to San Jose, CA, near where I grew up. My assignment was to work on compliance for large banks, usually at client sites, so I travelled a fair amount in that first year or two.

Even so, the job was not only boring, it was somewhat upsetting—I did not really click with my boss, and the hierarchy felt oppressive, with what seemed like more emphasis on long billable hours than on rational client service.

This was an important early learning experience for me. The lessons I was apparently supposed to take away were not only to follow the boss's orders and, more seriously, not to question the way the whole project was organized. Even though the project I was on was to help the institution improve, it felt like we were primarily driving up billable hours with uncertain returns for the client. This was too much for me to accept, and I shortly thereafter looked for opportunities to leave. With the help of an independent recruiter, I was able to move directly into my next opportunity.

The next job I took was with a California‐based start‐up. It was exciting to be part of a small team, I really liked the two founders, the spirit of entrepreneurship was fun. Until it wasn't—the mission turned out to be a little off what the market needed, the CEO left, and the company was eventually folded into another entity.

For me, as a sales and market development manager, the writing was on the wall, and I left when I secured a much more attractive opportunity. At that age and in that market, I did find a fair amount of opportunity and interest, working with sales‐oriented recruiters who were very encouraging. The good news was I had pivoted from the big firm, got into the start‐up game in sales and marketing, and I could start to pick and choose.

This is when I felt I could take the chance with balancing my work interests with my personal interests, I guess you could call it “self‐actualization.” I had wanted to move to a smaller city with recreation built into the lifestyle. This was made possible by the emerging category of all virtual jobs. I found a great opportunity at a company based on the East Coast, with an immediate manager in the Pacific Northwest, and the ultimate freedom to live wherever I wanted provided I could get a fast network connection for videoconferencing. For me, it was Boulder, CO, and it could have been many places similar.

The job I took that allowed me to move to Boulder was with BleekerSW, a company headquartered in New York. When Covid hit, it created all sorts of changes, including the company becoming an entirely remote work organization. This suits me very well since I came to Boulder for the lifestyle it allowed, especially for the freedom to work on my own time schedule. I've now got a (rental) house, a dog, and the frequent opportunity to dive into outdoor activities in all four seasons.

The specific job I have is part of a seven‐person sales team. Of the seven, I've met only two people face‐to‐face although I get along with everyone on the team. In contrast to some of my previous jobs, I really like my boss. She originally hired me while she was living in California but has since moved to Georgia. The work I do is typical of sales with various individual and team performance targets. I've gotten useful feedback from my boss, and the team seems to operate smoothly. And I'm doing well. Soon, I'll have two people reporting to me—a step up in the organization.

I should note that BleekerSW has a great wellness program that is free to all employees. We can access free coaching programs that take up various development and wellness issues with coaching provided by licensed psychologists and coaches. The company provides the program to all ~200 employees who can access whatever the announced program of sessions or exercises that are offered on any given week. A surprising number of employees take advantage of this as a way of dealing with the variety of challenges that arose during the pandemic. It is certainly the most supportive organization I've ever worked for, and I feel fortunate to be associated with such a forward‐thinking team.

What I've been able to do in Boulder is to follow my values and put together a work and life situation that maximizes my freedom and autonomy. The only thing I miss is more in‐person contact among the employees. As I said, at the moment, I've met only a few members of my team in person. Naturally, we talk frequently about getting together someday when Covid wanes. Yet, in spite of the absence of everyday face‐to‐face contact, we still feel that we know each other pretty well.

Will I play out the rest of my career at BleekerSW? Not likely, I guess, as a graduate program is probably in my future. For now, I'm quite satisfied and no longer do I look around for something better. I'm happy here and find the work and organization amenable, a good fit for me. I do know, however, that if BleekerSW doesn't work out, I'd seek out another remote job, it's a great way to work.

Career Anchors and Growth Intentions Assessment

Kate's Career Anchors and Growth Intentions chart is shown below (Exhibit 8.1). As you will see from the chart, there are certain themes that came out in her story that clearly show up in the chart. In particular, the line extending toward Autonomy is not surprising: Kate chose to work autonomously and remotely when she moved to Boulder and began working for “BleekerSW.” Similarly, the high value of Life‐Work Integration is as expected; Kate was quite intentional in realizing this personal value. A subtler theme for Kate is her interest in being Technical‐Functionally strong at what she does and also notable, her leaning toward Serving other people in her work.

Shifting gears and looking at the dotted line, the growth intentions, we can see a theme emerging that Kate feels the need to grow her General Management and Entrepreneurial skills, in addition to increasing her ability to handle more Challenge and Risk as she grows in her career. She does not seem to feel the need to increase her Stability nor her value for Serving other people as these are either less important or already being served by her existing career direction. Lastly, it is notable how her intentions to grow her skills again emphasized Technical Functional skills. For Kate at this stage of her career, it is easy to see from this chart that a graduate school or professional program in which she could increase technical skills and receive some formal general management training might well be a very positive step for Kate to consider.

David

This is David Lewis's story. David has a BA in finance, is married with two children, and at this point in his journey he had 15 years of post‐college experience.

Like a lot of people, I started baking bread in the early days of the pandemic. It was a way of filling my time and was in fact something I enjoyed. I got pretty good at it and started giving some of what I was baking out to relatives, neighbors, and friends. They all said they loved what I was making. It's crazy, I know, but as a consequence, I decided to get out of finance for good and take up something completely different from what I had done before. What was basically a new hobby became a new career.

In July of 2019, I got laid off from my finance job; the result of a Wall Street merger and the redundancies that took place afterward. I'd been in finance ever since graduating from college about 15 years ago. I had done pretty well, working for three rather prominent firms, gaining more reach and responsibility in my job and, not surprising, I was making very good money. I probably could have landed another decent job right away—in fact, I had a couple of tempting offers to join other firms—but I decided to kick back and, as they say, spend some time with the family.

In my old job as director of research with an investment firm, I was of necessity up and out the door before my kids even woke up. By the time I got home at night, they were asleep. I figured the layoff gave me the excuse to step back and take some time off and figure out what I really want to do. I really needed to see my kids more as well! Looking back at all my jobs in finance, I was fairly miserable but just kept on pushing. Each job was overworking me. I was dead‐tired almost all the time and usually coming into the office even if I felt sick. But I stayed because that's what you were supposed to do if you had a desirable position in the industry and wanted to advance. I wanted also to be the best provider for the family even though I hardly ever saw them. When I left the company, I planned on eventually returning to finance, just not right away, maybe in a year or two with the right firm. But events and the pandemic conspired to change these plans.

By February of 2020, at the beginning of the Covid crisis, I was home and baking every day for a couple of hours in the afternoon—occasionally my wife and our two daughters helped out when their routines allowed. They would waltz in and out of the kitchen doing some of the prep work and clean up. Slowly, however, baking began to take up more and more of my time as I was now capable of producing multiple batches of rather delicious—if I do say so myself—sourdough bread and assorted pastries. I continued to share the results of my work with those around us. But the idea was gradually growing on me that maybe, just maybe, I could do this full time. Baking became rather quickly a much more significant pursuit, more than just a hobby.

We live in a coastal suburb not far from New York City. We moved outside the city about six or seven years ago when our daughters were quite young, and we've become more and more active in town affairs over the years. My wife, for example, teaches math in the local public high school and got to know many of the parents of her students. She loves her job, the kids, the people she works with, and, unlike me in my former jobs, has a reasonable work schedule. During the height of the pandemic of course she was teaching from home on videoconferencing. Quite an adjustment, but she seemed to handle it with aplomb.

Our daughters are in a private day school a couple of towns away. They also video'd‐in to school during the first Covid surge. We're members of a local beach club that provides lots of family activities during the summer months, activities that were rather unhappily restricted for a time. In the past, I served for a couple of years on the town's Advisory and Finance Board, so I also know a lot of people in the town.

All in all, it's been a comfortable, if somewhat stereotyped, suburban lifestyle. The pandemic has disrupted some of this lifestyle, but we've managed to get through it for the most part without too much distress. The children found a way to contract Covid, but thankfully it turned out to be a mild, almost asymptomatic form. We are now all vaxed, boosted, and healthy. Luckily, no one in our immediate family or close circle of friends has died or come down with a serious case.

This reminds me that when I was in my old position, I asked for a bereavement leave to go to my uncle's funeral. This was a couple of years ago. The funeral was in Chicago and was to be something of a reunion for family members increasingly spread across the country. I had what I thought was a respectful conversation with my boss but was told in the end this was not the time to take a leave, even a short one. He said essentially, “Tsk, tsk.” I guess it's the price we pay for the money we earn. But it got me to thinking: Do I really want to spend the rest of my life letting somebody else's work demands take precedence over everything that was important in my life? I got a chance to do something about it during the pandemic.

So, to get back to what's happening now, I eventually decided that rather than return to the city and to another finance job, I would train myself to become a better and more serious baker. I read and watched everything I could about baking. I volunteered for about 10 hours a week in one local bakery as a jack‐of‐all‐trades and did anything and everything that helped them out—from customer service, to cleaning up, to baking preparation, to actual baking. Because the labor scarcity surrounding this kind of work, it soon turned into a part‐time job, and I learned a great deal as a result. I was further able to hone my skills later as a part‐time baker at another local shop. These experiences provided real hands‐on training, a kind of apprenticeship. I spent about a year doing these odd and varied jobs while continuing to bake at home when I could.

This eventually led to what I'm doing right now. In January of 2022, I started my own baking business, Sandpiper Bakery. I make my bread at the Founder Space, a food and business incubator located close by in a neighboring town. There I make and sell about three‐to four‐hundred baked goods each week and on weekends at farmer's markets nearby. In about a year or so from now, I'll open my own bakery in the area. I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur, but I guess you just never know. I have no plans to ever again work in finance. It was a grind, and for a time, it was probably worth it. It certainly allowed me the time and space and, importantly, the money to take up baking. But, in hindsight, I should have left finance sooner. It was really wearing me down. But, at any rate, what I'm doing now feels much better, it's the right thing for me. And the kids are no longer waking up and going to sleep in my absence.

Career Anchors and Growth Intentions Assessment

The Anchors and Growth chart for David (Exhibit 8.2) shows a lot of gaps between the lines. This is another way of visualizing that David is making a dramatic career shift. His Career Anchors line represents his life in finance—his priorities were Technical skill in investment research and taking on the Challenges of a Wall Street career, comprising the risk inherent in placing bets in capital markets, as well as the risks associated with climbing the ladder in Wall Street firms. The strong General Management extension in the Anchors line is no less surprising since taking on leadership in the research department meant that David needed to develop his managerial skills as much as his research skills. The Stability extension is also not surprising in that the choice to have stable employment in order to best provide for his family was one of his goals. The contrast is to Autonomy and Life‐Work Integration. Wall Street was not offering steady and lucrative employment to allow David to seek autonomy and optimize for time with his family. This was the trade‐off David the “banker” made over the past 15 years.

Similarly, the Growth Intentions line fits the “baker” part of the story. David's intentions are clearly to become more comfortable with Autonomy and Entrepreneurship; these are perhaps the two most striking gaps. The shift in values around Stability and Life‐Work Integration are also of note and consistent with David's story. He's focused on spending more time with his family while he recognizes the greater risks in sacrificing his Stability in order to make this career pivot from banker to baker.

Sarah

This is Sarah Smith's story. Sarah has an MA in public policy, is married with two children, and at this point in her journey she had 10 years of post‐master's experience.

After grad school, I worked for eight years in NYC for a firm called Tech Solutions. It was essentially an IT consulting firm helping mostly big global firms install, maintain, and use tech infrastructure. It was a good job at first but gradually grew into a real grind.

It had a very traditional office life. We were tied to the mid‐town office, a nine‐hour day, 8:30–5:30, but half of the time we weren't busy enough to justify the hours. Nonetheless, we were expected to be in the office every day. But if a client wanted some information or help during your off‐hours, you were expected to be available. Chats at 3 a.m. with, say, a Saudi client were not unusual. You were monitored constantly, and idle was the state you didn't want to be caught in.

When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, Tech Solutions shut down its office, gave up the lease, and all business were handled remotely. The company began losing clients by the basketful. I worked in that environment for about a year, and while the job was better now than when we had to be in the office—I didn't have the horrendous commute, going from our place in Brooklyn, to Charlie's daycare in lower Manhattan, to the office—it was still focused on job monitoring and work routines that seemed frivolous.

Then, in January of 2021, they had a mass layoff that I was caught up in. About half to two‐thirds of the 300 or so employees in the company were let go. I was the finance director at the time, seven months pregnant and about to begin a four‐month maternity leave. Can you imagine a company that fires people who are pregnant and just short of going on a maternity leave?

At the time, I had been interviewing with several companies for a new job. I still liked the tech industry and the kind of work I had been doing. The interview and hiring process in one firm, Graphic Enterprises, based in San Francisco, was pretty far along at the point the layoffs hit at Tech Solutions. And, to my good fortune, they hired me right away. I was out of work for about 24 hours. Not only did they hire me at an increase in salary of about 20–25%, but they agreed to continue my planned maternity leave and even extended it by several months and agreed to my coming back at 60% time. Now I'm working 80% time, and I'll soon go to 100%. My husband Alexander, then a public interest lawyer in NYC with about 10 years of experience, was also working remotely at the time I moved over to Graphic Enterprises. Our baby, Michael, was born in February 2021.

Still living in Brooklyn, we went to visit family in California in May and, surprisingly, didn't return to Brooklyn. The visit was to be a short stay—about a week—yet turned out to be more or less permanent. We soon found a house to rent and had most of our belongings shipped out. We didn't want to come back when the pandemic was running rampant in NYC, and California then seemed to be doing so much better. We were able to stay in California partly because Graphic Enterprises was totally virtual. We were able to rent out our tiny Brooklyn apartment for roughly what we pay in rent for a four‐bedroom suburban home with a large yard. Alexander recently got called back to the NY office as the worst of the Covid‐19 crisis seemed to be lifting. But we're now settled in California, and Alexander resigned to become a house husband for the near future—happily I must say.

Anyway, I love my new job. The company was established in January of 2020. It builds coding infrastructure and is doing quite well. It just got Series D funding. It started with 20 people. When I joined, it was up to 60 employees. Now it has about 200 employees. It's a global firm, which means we recruit wherever the talent is found. We can get the best engineers, the best tech people.

Because we work virtually and are not restricted to a particular search area, we have employees in NYC, San Francisco, Nigeria, Singapore, Paris, Barcelona, Italy, all over the world as well as across the US. One thing I like about this firm and the remote or virtual way of doing business is that you get to know a very diverse set of fellow employees. Not the old, boring, same culture sort of colleagues that all live in the same general locale.

I should mention that I think the company tries very hard to be transparent; everything is online, and they seem to be really trying to live up to their values as put out in the company descriptions of processes and ways of evaluating your work. They don't just write their values on the wall and walk away. They help you set work and personal boundaries, and you really can say no to requests others make of you.

There are travel budgets in place to meet coworkers in other cities or countries that are generous—although I haven't been using them, because of Covid. There are twice yearly meetings in San Francisco, where the company maintains a brick‐and‐mortar office. I love that I have no two‐hour subway commute each day. I can choose the hours I work and take vacations and breaks when I want to.

Work is organized around my personal life. If I want to take Charlie or Michael to the park at 2 o'clock, I can do so. Nobody is checking on me. I'm trusted to get the work done. It's a place that respects its employees. Occasionally, say, a couple of times a month, I get away from the distractions at home and go to a local shared‐office place and pay for the time I spend there at a quiet desk. Overall, I think I'm far more productive working this way than before, either in the office or at home with Tech Solutions.

I don't really miss the social aspects of the office life. I'm slowly getting to know people at Graphic Enterprises, but it's not the same as seeing them every day, face‐to‐face. I guess there are questions about what is a work friend. What does it mean? It's not clear to me. There is another colleague at the company who I've worked with together a bit. She lives close by, and we've talked about getting together sometime for dinner but have yet to do so.

The company does encourage visiting coworkers in other cities, where you'd get a tour and learn about their personal lives. But social life is largely restricted to remote daily and weekly meetings with some virtual time dedicated to socializing akin to happy hours where you are not supposed to talk about work or the company.

How long I'll stay here remains to be seen. But, so far, it's pleasant. The company seems to care about its people, and the work is interesting and challenging at times. We are growing, and there are opportunities to increase my responsibilities and expand my job. The transition to this job and to California certainly happened very quickly, seemingly almost spontaneously, clearly brought on by the pandemic and a desire to get away from my previous job.

Career Anchors and Growth Intentions Assessment

Anchors and Growth Intentions chart for Sarah is presented below (Exhibit 8.3). In Sarah's case, her Career Anchors line clearly shows her need for Autonomy and Life‐Work Integration. She has been through some disappointments and keeps coming back to the things she values, balancing life and work and maintaining her independence to work on her own terms.

When we evaluate Sarah's growth line, a couple themes emerge. First, she has a clear “appetite” for taking on start‐up challenge and risk. This may reflect the fact that she has been through the disappointment of her first company going downhill and recognizes that in the tech sector, Stability and Security are illusory while tolerating more Risk and taking on more Challenge are typically rewarded. It is notable, however, that she is not trading off Life‐Work Integration for Challenge and Risk. She wants to have both. There are companies that are “wired that way,” and she seems to have found one in Graphic Enterprises. It will be interesting if the company decides to bring key employees like Sarah back to the office as the Covid threat declines and pare back on the virtual work policy. Sarah may welcome that social immersion, but she does not seem to relish commuting and foregoing Autonomy for the strictures of in‐office life.

Carlos

This is Carlos Diaz's story. Carlos has a BA in sociology, is single, and at this point in his journey he had five years of post‐college experience.

The summer of 2020 was really a stressful time in my life. I just spent three years working for Upward Bound, a Boston‐based nonprofit devoted to helping first‐generation, low‐income high school students make the transition into college. I started with them part time in my junior year of college and went full time after I graduated. I enjoyed the students, and I could certainly identify with them. They came from the same place I did. It was a great job, and in many ways, it was perfect really for me when I was a student. But, frankly, after college it wasn't taking me anywhere, and I was beginning to feel trapped by the mission, which never let up.

This became especially obvious when we shifted to an all virtual way of providing service in response to the pandemic. My bedroom became my office. It was isolating. I was in my room all day looking at the computer. It was monotonous really, spending the day on video with the students. And the job became even worse as I saw the negative effect distance learning had on my students. The seniors that I primarily worked with were forced to forego those high school milestones, little ones like dances, assemblies, football games, to big ones like proms and graduation ceremonies. They became increasingly disengaged with school, and I had to put more and more effort into my job just to keep them on track.

I also had plenty of time to think about what I was doing. It was basically a job with little opportunity to grow, and even though I felt I was doing something helpful and worthwhile, I knew I would have to leave eventually if I wanted a job with more opportunity and learning potential. I started looking around. I really didn't want to go to grad school since I had no clear idea of what I wanted to do. But with a little help from my friends, one in particular, I stumbled into a field that looks as though it will work for me.

In May, as the school year was coming to a close, I gave notice to the people at Upward Bound that I was leaving. And I applied and was accepted to what is essentially a kind of trade school in computer technology, Resolute Coders. The school offered a five‐month intensive program in coding. It was costly—but I had a good friend who went through the program and landed a pretty good job afterward in the tech world, so I thought the school would be worth it. He talked it up with me, and it seemed at the time like it was the right thing to do. It would open up jobs for me that were beyond the terminal or dead‐end sort. I certainly didn't have any computer skills beyond the rudimentary word processing and internet‐search sort, yet I was more than willing to learn. But, wouldn't you know it, fate interceded because just after I heard back from the admissions office at the school that I was accepted, I got some really bad news—all the people in my family, my mother, father, and brother, all came down with Covid. And I got it too.

In early June, I left my job at Upward Bound and became the go‐to person for the family. My father was hospitalized, put on a ventilator, and, for a couple of months, we didn't know whether he'd live or die. My mother was pretty sick too but didn't require hospitalization. My younger brother, who was just starting high school, was sick as well but with a much milder form. And like my brother, I too had a mild form.

It was an incredibly stressful couple of months, and I didn't do anything but care for the family. I was buying the groceries, keeping the house up, and even acting as the family policemen by not allowing friends to come to the house. Most painfully for me was the fact that I couldn't even hug my little nieces, who were two and five at the time. Life pretty much stopped. In the end, my father pulled through but has some lingering effects but is now back to work at the USPS. My mother is fully recovered.

As the family got back on their feet, I started the remote classes at Resolute. It was tough, and I found the remote learning, like the high school students I counseled, a bit intimidating. It was super intense, to say the least. I had a lot to learn, and I must say it didn't come easy at first. I wanted to quit a number of times. I was very frustrated.

But about three months into the program as I began to focus more and more on coding—even in my spare time—things began to click for me. I remember working on my portfolio website in my room when I began to think, Wow, I can really do this. It was getting easier. It was as if I discovered I had an interesting and exciting power at my fingertips.

I finished the program around November and got lucky. We were required to do a final project for the program, which we then had to publicly explain and demonstrate to the faculty. It was a sophisticated form of show and tell. The faculty also invited outsiders from the tech industry who were curious about what we were doing and just might be interested in recruiting graduates of the program. It was all done remotely, and each graduate had about a half hour to present their work.

For my project, I made a prototype app to help those navigating the immigration system. About a week later, I got several calls from different companies to come and sit for an interview. I was pretty excited, and after a round of interviews, I got a couple of offers right off the bat. My most attractive one came from the Anderson Institute, a science‐driven organization just outside Boston that does biomedical research to improve human health. It's a pretty famous place, and I was pleased and somewhat astonished that they hired me.

I started work as an assistant software engineer in January. It's a challenging job but tremendously satisfying. The tech area is a world I never thought of before, but I'm really enjoying my work. And I'm learning so much—about cloud computing, big data collection and storage, information security, and on and on. I think I'm getting fairly good at my job and can see a lot of opportunities for advancement at the Institute and even other places beyond the Institute.

Maybe I was pushed by the pandemic to make a career change sooner than I might have otherwise—although, truth be told, I was burnt out and exhausted with my college advisor role when I started the program at Resolute. At any rate, I couldn't be happier and pleased I made the switch when I did even though it was in the middle of terrible times.

Career Anchors and Growth Intentions Assessment

The Career Anchors and Growth Intentions charts for Carlos is presented below in Exhibit 8.4. In Carlos's case, the years of experience and number of jobs is limited. This can mean that the Career Anchors line is very discrete, representing less experience with career trade‐offs than a mid‐career job seeker. The other key factor with Carlos is the impact of Covid‐19—his life was clearly disrupted during the pandemic and the close calls Covid‐19 represented for his immediate family. While we would not expect this to have a primary impact on his career trajectory, we know for most of us, the pandemic had a profound impact on our state of mind. For Carlos, this apparently meant a willingness to try something new and to leave a position that was not fulfilling. Given how quickly the term “Great Resignation” caught on, we can surmise that many of our friends' and colleagues' sense of purpose and preciousness of family and health were deeply altered by Covid‐19.

Carlos was in a Service career at Upward Bound. However, he felt the need to change his career course. We can see his motivation to learn a new set of skills and develop some expertise by the strong extension toward Technical‐Functional in the Career Anchors and the Growth Intentions chart. Also notable for Carlos is his recognition that in addition to building his Technical‐Functional skills, he recognizes the need to take on more risky assignments, build General Management skills, and possibly pursue Entrepreneurial aspirations, which shows strong leanings in both assessments. Carlos's case is a good example of where the chart seems to show a profound shift from Service to Technical‐Functional and Entrepreneurial. The question for Carlos will be what his career anchors and growth intentions look like after another five years or so working in software development, a high‐growth and very crowded competitive field? Will he see another shift?

Maia

This is Maia Potter's story. Maia has an MS in marine biology, is single, and at this point in her journey she had five years of post‐master's experience.

I had a bunch of so‐so jobs prior to going back to school for my master's degree. After getting a BA in fine arts and environmental studies, I worked for a small art education company in Los Angeles where I did day‐to‐day support activities for the founder. I also worked for several art galleries in LA. All were part‐time jobs, none very exciting. So I made a decision then to return to school in an environmentally friendly field, marine biology.

After grad school at a university in Boston, I took a job in January of 2018 as a program manager at the University's brand‐new Global Sustainability Institute. I was one of four program managers. The Institute had been in existence for only eight months when I arrived.

I worked there for almost two years. In the beginning, I enjoyed the job and felt I was contributing to the overall goals of the Institute, which I supported wholeheartedly. Traditional work hours were required, nine to five. We were dependent on grants—from government agencies and various foundations—for our funding, and the pressure was always on to keep the money coming in. I co‐wrote proposals and was responsible for compiling a database capturing the work of hundreds of researchers.

Those I interacted with as part of my job were my boss, Jane, various student interns, and a host of researchers from other universities or independent marine biology labs. At first, my relationship with Jane was good, she seemed upbeat and helpful. But it eventually deteriorated as I think the funding pressure on her coming from senior management began to build up.

Over time, I grew to resent the sloppy way the place was run. The head of the Institute was basically out of sight, rarely coming in and apparently taking little interest in the people doing the work. It seemed to me that my job kept changing with every new directive from Jane.

In the end, I was let go in July of 2019 along with several other people. Funding for the Institute was drying up. Grants were not coming in. I started applying for jobs immediately—in the Boston area and beyond. I came close to a few seemingly ideal jobs. But, in the end, I was passed over.

Each job application and the selection process that follows is an ordeal and itself almost a full‐time job: checking every day for openings, working on different versions of my résumé, writing specific personal statements of interest that looked like they fit the job opening, going through an endless set of interviews, some in person, some by phone, and some by videoconference. And then the harrowing anxiety that builds up while waiting for the hiring decision to be made.

While looking for work, I took on some unpaid jobs. The first was as a marine science consultant for an organization in the Caribbean Islands called Beyond the Sea. I discovered the organization on the web and developed a working relationship with the people who started the venture. I helped them prepare a few grant proposals and did some SCUBA diving on various company operations. Before the pandemic, I was able to even spend some time on site in the Caribbean.

After Beyond the Sea, I took another unpaid, part‐time job with the Ocean Mammal Rescue Center in northern California as an animal care and data intern. I found out about the internship from a state government website. One reason I took this gig was that I was told at the time a paid position might soon open up and I would be a good candidate. It was a small center—six people when I started—but had contacts and connections with the other rescue centers, research labs, and various coastal protection agencies up and down the coast. So I left Boston and moved across country in January 2020.

Then the pandemic hit full‐on in March and the Center severely cut back its outreach programs and already small staff. The partial shutdown of the Center didn't affect me since I wasn't being paid. But it did cut down on the learning opportunities and the routine duties the internship allowed. Calls from citizens—the main source of our rescue opportunities—dropped way off; in part, a result of there being few beachgoers.

Looking back, however, I still consider it valuable experience. The project I worked on while there was to collect and analyze information from our own and other rescue centers in the state on the processes currently in use to inform best practices for stranded marine mammal care. I started from scratch and built out a data structure that I think is being used today. I was supervised on the project by Roxanne, who left the Center about five months after I started. She moved on to a bigger job with a statewide marine biology office in Sacramento. Since there was so little for me to do once my project was finished, I left about the same time as Roxanne, in August 2020.

I found my next job in September with a San Francisco–based Coastal Tides agency as an operations director. Thankfully, this was at last a paid position. The work involves a variety of tasks: managing a portfolio of environmental design and strategy projects, organizing meetings and webinars, helping with presentations, and almost anything else that comes up. It's all virtual, and I'm one of four current “partners” who do the work of the agency. I enjoy the work, but when I initially accepted, it was a part‐time position, about 15 hours per week. At the time, my savings were dwindling down, and I needed a second job to cover my living expenses.

A second job soon materialized as a program fellow for the Ecosystem Funders Group (EFG). This too is part time, yet with worse pay and more hours (24 per week) than with Coastal Tides. It too is entirely virtual. I started with EFG in November of 2020. The job itself involves providing administrative and operational support to various marine conservation programs. I help plan and bring off virtual and in‐person meetings (although there have been very few in‐person meetings thus far). Basically, I try to get the diverse individuals and groups to interact with and understand one another—fishermen, academics, NGO members, marine researchers, and government people from, say, NOAA or the World Economic Forum.

What I like about virtual work is the autonomy and the personal time it affords me. I have lunch when I want, maybe walk the dog in the middle of the day, and I don't have to commute to work or dress a certain way. I can travel and take the work with me. I just spent six weeks visiting friends and family in Boston and New York while working my regular schedule (although it's harder than it sounds).

I really think I am far more productive working this way than in the office. I'm far more efficient and organized these days than I was at the university, where I was constantly being interrupted, really jerked around, subject to Jane's moods, and basically struggled to feel appreciated in a large organization.

A possible downside of remote work is that I've not formed any close relationships with coworkers in either the Coastal Tides Agency or the EFG. I pretty much work on my own, at my own pace in both places. There are some efforts to establish closer relations among the staff at EFG through virtual social hours a couple of times a month, but they haven't been very successful. At Coastal Tides, there are only three employees, and most of my contacts—aside from constant contact with the founding partner Anne—have been with clients and fishery people, who provide much of our data.

In April of 2022, Coastal Tides got great news. A grant proposal I worked on was approved. This is something we really didn't expect. We've been working on the proposal off and on since my first day on the job. The grant is for $450,000, and I will soon be a full‐time employee as the operations director and lead project manager on the grant. My role with EFG will wind down over the next couple of months. This is a huge relief and a real opportunity for me to contribute to a cause that I care about.

The grant is for developing a data management system that helps support sustainable ocean resources. It's a big project. My job will remain virtual although there may be some future meetings face‐to‐face with collaborators. Data governance is not exactly a people‐on‐the‐ground project, but it is important, and I've got some background in the work that's required. So a new chapter in my life opens up, one with good pay, some stability, and challenging work with interesting people.

In terms of my career, I've been surviving by taking on paid and unpaid work—with some help from the pandemic‐related unemployment benefits. It's been a frustrating and anxiety‐provoking period of stringing together various part‐time gigs into something resembling full‐time work. But I take some measure of satisfaction in having been able to do work that in some small way relates to my goal of creating a more sustainable marine environment.

Career Anchors and Growth Intentions Assessment

Given Maia's career transition following her master's degree in marine biology and her commitment to improving our marine environment, the strong extension toward Service in her Career Anchors line is as expected (see Exhibit 8.5 below). The values of a master's degree recipient in a technical field are also represented in the strong extension toward the Technical‐Functional anchor. For Maia, Autonomy and Life‐Work Integration are also prominent, which fits her career path to date.

There is a pattern in the Growth Intentions line that is a bit different and fascinating. Maia has indicated a strong interest in or need to be more Entrepreneurial. We can hazard a guess that this is related to Maia's focus on Autonomy and the implicit recognition that in the specialized field of publicly funded marine environment advocacy, Maia may be recognizing that knowing how to run an agency and creating buzz for a new endeavor demand skills and interests in entrepreneurship to some degree, and therefore she is recognizing the need to grow skills in this dimension. Another possibility is that Maia would be completely surprised by this pattern suggested by differences between the Career Anchors and the Growth Intentions lines. This illustrates why there is benefit to comparing all of these assessments, all of these items. These may be “false notes” for Maia, they might also be crystal clear insights, leanings that she might not have articulated in an interview but for which she could become increasingly confident and driven.

Career Anchors and Growth Intentions for You

If you go through the Career Anchors and Growth Intentions exercises and are not surprised at all, seeing just what you expect of yourself, reward yourself for your self‐awareness, and focus on finding ways to communicate this self‐assurance without it coming across as horribly arrogant.

For the rest of you who go through the exercise and learn something new about yourself that you either want to feature in your career journey or want to get over and move beyond, we hope the items and the charts are helpful insight generators. This is the end goal—whether validating or challenging to your sense of self, we hope the insight makes it easier for you to handle the next tough interview question or the “fork in the road.”