The identity transitions that come with career transitions
Photo by Damon Hall on Unsplash
When we think about advancing through various career stages in academia—going from undergraduate school to graduate school, to a postdoctoral fellowship, to an assistant professor position, to associate professor with tenure, and beyond—we tend to focus on the skillsets needed to make those transitions. Skills like designing experiments, running analyses, writing papers and grants, developing courses, etc. Certainly, developing those abilities is important and necessary. But what we talk less about, as a field, are the shifts in mindset and identity that must also happen at each stage of a successful career. And I would argue that moving through these identity changes is even trickier than learning new skills.
Career transitions can be really destabilizing. When you come to the end of one career stage, you tend to feel like you finally have the hang of things, your projects are moving smoothly, and you have confidence in yourself. Of course, you are ready to take the next step in your career! Then, as you move on to the next stage, it suddenly feels like someone pulled the rug out from under you. You were sure you knew what you were doing, and now you have no idea what’s going on. Imposter syndrome starts to rear its ugly head. How did you get this position?! You might start to question whether this was really the right path for you.
All of these feelings are normal, and they probably happen to most people. (Those who don’t admit to ever having those feelings are probably lying.) The expectation when advancing to a higher position is that we’re going to continue working the same as we’ve been doing, (after all, it’s what got us there, right?), maybe just doing a little bit more, or a little bit better. But that’s not how this works. You don’t simply stride along to the next stop in your career. There’s a reason why we often call these transitions career “jumps”.
Each career jump requires you to embrace new roles and activities, from new perspectives. Consequently, it also requires you to develop new mindsets, and to cultivate a new identity. This doesn’t come without struggle, however. But it’s crucial to remember that struggle doesn’t signify failing, it means you’re growing into a new version of yourself, one that is meeting the moment.
Over the next four weeks, I’m going to use this space to talk about the mindset and identity shifts that happen as you move from being:
an undergraduate student to a graduate student
a graduate student to a postdoctoral fellow
a postdoctoral fellow to an assistant professor
an assistant professor to an associate professor (with tenure)
We’ll explore how jumping between these stages requires you to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. At every stage, you to move from learning from others to standing confidently in your own ideas and expertise. You’ll move from considering only your individual success to developing the success of your team. You’ll move from existing in your current environment to carefully curating the culture around you.
The goal of this series of blog posts is to help you anticipate how to be ready for the next stage, beyond just refining your current set of skills or learning new ones. If you’re already past some of these stages, let these blog posts serve as a reminder of how far you’ve come, and as a reminder of the internal work that your trainees or junior colleagues are doing at these stages. Use these posts to reflect on how you can help mentor others to become the best versions of themselves.
As this series unfolds, you may start to recognize your own transition more clearly. If you want personalized support in navigating the mindset and identity shifts that come with your next career stage, you can book a call with me here.
Next week: Identity shifts in going from being an undergraduate to a graduate student
