I've often said I'm not interested in retirement in the "classic" sense. I have too many plans to think about lazy days of fishing, golf, and volunteer activities. At some point over the past decade I've become enthusiastic about continuing meaningful work well past employment. I still haven't written the Great American Novel or developed my Legacy, and I sure don't want to spend my Golden Years living on Social Security. Plus, I plan on living long enough to start a whole new career ... or two. Here's a great article from Small Business Trends with some great advice for those of us who are approaching "retirement" age.

Before I changed careers, I spent years feeling trapped by my circumstances. Friends told me: you have a great career, make a lot of money, why the #$*&!! are you thinking of changing careers? My former wife advised me that I needed to be thinking about retirement rather than thinking about starting a new career, and at my age, yet.

The prospect of changing careers was scary: what if I didn't make it? What if I was making a big mistake? I was comfortable, my career was a known quantity, and I was making a comfortable living at it. I felt my expertise was known and respected by my clients. Why rock the boat, and start out new in a career when I could stay where I was and have a warm and fuzzy comfortable life?

Because of passion: I wanted to make a difference in peoples' lives. I wanted to look back at my life from my deathbed and know that what I had done transformed others and helped them find their passion, too. So I did it: quit my job, went back to grad school, got an MA in clinical psych and began work at a counseling agency. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. The day I sold the house I loved was an important one: it felt like there was no turning back.

Now, I'm working on building my coaching practice. I have a long way to go. But I'm happy: I feel like I'm following my heart, that my work speaks to my authentic self. And that's what really makes a job into a vocation.

Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal site posted an article with several good tips for those who are submitting resumes online:

1. Use keywords in your resume. Look for job-related words in the job description that are used two or more times.
2. Position yourself in your resume for future promotions. Include skills that will help you move up the ladder.
3. Catch their attention quickly; if you don't grab them in 30 seconds, your resume will likely be deep sixed.
4. Think career portfolio when you do and post things online; recruiters may google for your name.
5. Improve your chances by contacting and (if possible) getting to know someone in the organization.
6. Holiday lulls are great for job searches; recruiters and employers will have more time for your resume.
7. Be persistent - "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" as the saying goes.

Nothing earth shattering in the article, but some pretty good and solid suggestions.

A new startup that's attempting to create a resource that will integrate resume data crawled from around the web with information about the user (personality, etc) with information about the career paths of the people who wrote the resumes (what jobs did they actually hold). They're going to provide APIs (Application Programmer Interfaces) and encourage other sites to link to them. How exactly this will work is rather confusing and unclear at this point to me, but hey, they're a startup.

They're also live blogging their startup efforts in a sort of blog reality show, so whether they succeed or fail at their entrepreneurial efforts, the results will be out there for all to see. I wish them well, and look forward to following their efforts over the coming months.

You can check out their blog here.

The Self-Directed Search (see earlier posting) is ideal for the adult career seeker or career changer. For the younger person just entering the job market, or the high school student who is considering college majors, career coaches often use the Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS). If you are in high school or college or new to the job market, you may want to check out the JVIS web site here. You can take it online and get immediate results for only 14.95USD.

If you're looking at starting a career or changing to another one, knowing which careers are expected to grow the fastest over the next few years can help you focus your plans for career change. An article on the ten hottest careers at CollegeBoard.com provides some interesting data from government economist; the ten fastest growing careers for college graduates includes several medical and computer-related careers, which is no suprise; but forensic science technician is also on the list. Occupations projected to create the most new jobs in the next seven years are also listed for college grads as well as grads with associate and vocational educations.

The SDS is a career interest inventory developed by Dr. John Holland, whose career theory is widely used by career counselors and coaches around the world for working with clients who are pursuing career changes. People can be categorized with respect to six career types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. These types are often represented as the vertices of a hexagon, and the theory says that most people have a strength in one of these areas, with secondary strengths in adjoining vertices on the hexagon. For example, I'm an IAS. The data collected from the SDS over the years suggests that people with a certain SDS three-letter code are more likely to be happy working in certain careers than in others. Your SDS report will suggest careers that you may want to consider. Note that the SDS doesn't indicate a natural aptitude for a certain career, or the possession of the skills needed to be successful in the career; it will however tell you whether a person like yourself is likely to be happy with the career in question.

You can take the SDS at this web site for only 9.95USD; the website also has a sample report so you can see what you're getting into before you pay for the report. Once you've identified careers you're interested in, you can investigate them further at the O*Net website at this link. Good luck with your search!

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

We've heard many messages in our lives that can make change difficult in the second halves of our lives. I've known people in their 30s who were already planning for retirement, which for many means endless rounds of golf, and a couple of cocktails before hitting the Early Bird Special at the local restaurant. Retirement becomes a kind of second adolescence: no kids, no job, no responsibilities. And yet, plenty of people choose to start a new career relatively late in life. Personally, I have a lot of energy, and the thought of "classical" retirement holds little appeal. I want to do meaningful work until I drop. When my paternal grandfather retired from his job as a machinist, he spent the last years of his life parked in front of the television. No hobbies, no meaningful activities. Sorry, that's not my cup of tea.

So, you're 50, or maybe 60, and for whatever reason you decide to start a second (or third) career. How do you keep going knowing that you probably have fewer years of life left in you than you've already lived? I don't know how it works for others but for me, I find it useful to live each day of my life as though it were the last ... and paradoxically, to also live as though I had all the time in the world ahead of me! I might drop dead tomorrow, but so what? The 25 year old next to me at work might die suddenly tonight, and I might outlive him!

Years ago, my sister was dying and my family was trying to avoid talking about the inevitable. One day, she looked up at me and asked if I thought she was dying. To comfort her, I told her that each day was a gift, and none of us knew how many days we had left. I could get hit by a car on my way out of the hospital and she could outlive me. So we need to appreciate each day we are given on its own terms. Since them, I've come to understand that this is among other things true, and that the life lived in fear is not worth living.

Do you look forward to each day as though it were a great gift, and truly enjoy it for what it is rather than for what it isn't?