There are few things in life more natural, more fundamental, than the act of telling our own stories—we’ve all been doing it in one form or another since we learned how to talk.
Understanding the meaning of the stories we’ve accumulated in our professional lives is an important step in the process of claiming the career authenticity that was the subject of last month’s issue of Taking Care of Business.
This and next month’s issues take a closer at how telling our own stories and learning to listen carefully for the hidden meanings in them can ehance our professional lives, beginning with a new article by Beverly Ryle.
Career Autobiography
by Beverly Ryle, Director
The Center for Career and Business Development
There’s a lot we can learn from the stories of our professional life—if we tell them in a way that enables us to hear what they really have to say to us. Too often we are satisfied with forcing our career stories to fit the mold of a resume, which is a formal exercise with a fixed external purpose (i.e., getting a job).
A career autobiography, on the other hand, is a free-form narrative with an evolving internal purpose . When we begin to tell our career stories as stories instead of trying to make them conform to some predetermined set of specifications, we make discoveries about ourselves and tap the springs of our internal wisdom.
There is no right or wrong way to write a career autobiography, but there are few things to keep in mind as you go about it.
Some Guidelines for Writing a Career Autobiography
The list of guidelines that follows is not meant to be exhaustive. Nor are these hard and fast rules—they are merely intended to provide a framework to work within as you explore your story.
1. Begin at the beginning. A resume presents the most recent events first and moves backward in time from there. A career autobiography starts out with when and where and how you grew up and moves forward in time (though it may contain flashbacks, digressions, speculations about the future, etc.)
2. Set the stage. Fill in the background, e.g., “I grew up in a middle-class family with two older sisters. My mom stayed home and my dad worked for the same company for 25 years—IBM was almost a member of the family.” Position yourself within the context of your family, your education, the cultures of the places where you have worked, etc.
3. Speak it. This is not a master's thesis or something that's going to be published in The New Yorker! It's for your eyes only so don't be afraid to make it informal. Pretend you're talking to a trusted friend over coffee or writing a letter to someone you've known for a long time.
4. Pause to take stock. At major turning points in your story stop and ask yourself what influenced your decision at the time, what was going on inside you when you made the choice to take the path you did.
5. Look for themes and patterns. If you write something like, “I took the job, despite the long commute, because it meant I would be able to build the program from scratch,” try to identify where the notion of “building something from scratch” comes from and where it shows up in other places in your life.
Suggested Approaches
If writing comes easily, put down everything you can think of about the progression of your professional life. Then go back and highlight what stands out as most important and prepare an edited version to share with others.
If it doesn’t, record the most pertinent facts in outline form. Walk through your professional life as if you were leading a tour through a historical building, pointing out highlights such as parts of the structure which stand firm and others which are in need of a bit of restoration. Record key findings from your “tour”.
If even this seems too daunting have a friend “interview” you on tape, asking you a few simple questions such as: “Tell me a little about yourself.” “Why did you decide to major in-?” “What did you gain from that experience at-?” “What did you like the most about-?” Listen to the tape and make a note of what speaks to you in a new way.
Stories Come to Life in the Telling
Once you have gotten yours down on paper using whatever approach works best for you, find someone to tell it to who will listen attentively and quietly . Avoid well-meaning family members and friends who may feel called upon to comment or make suggestions. The purpose of telling your story is so that you can begin to hear it in a different way. For that to happen you need a listener who will not in any way distract your attention from what your story has to say to you.
A skilled counselor is an excellent resource, with the added advantage that you will be providing background information they will need to help you achieve your career goals. If you are not ready to use a professional resource, telling your story to a friend or colleague will yield some of the same benefits and start you off in developing the essential skill of articulating who you are and what you have to offer.
A Professional Writer’s Perspective
by Angela Suter
As a business writer, storytelling has been a significant part of my professional life for some time. I ghostwrite all kinds of things for my clients and I especially enjoy producing case histories about successful implementations of their products and services. But only recently have I begun to write stories for the purpose of furthering my own success.
The first of these experiences was writing stories about my career to be shared with a professional career advisor. The stories revealed a lot of competencies and good outcomes, like “projects finished on time” and “meeting the highest standards for quality.” I was, and still am, proud of these accomplishments, but to be honest they don't bring a sparkle to my eyes or a grin to my face.
I only noticed that because, at the same time I was writing about my business accomplishments, I was also telling stories about my hobbies and extra-vocational interests, which include architecture, interior design and sewing. Talking about them, even I notice the increase of energy in my voice and my widening smile.
Recently I’ve begun writing on these topics “under my own byline” and I find it ironic that, after so many years of telling other people’s stories, it is telling my own that is providing the best clues to what to do next with my career.
Angela Suter (wwell@aol.com) is a marketing communcations consultant and principal of The Writing Well in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Her goal is to balance writing marketing materials for business clients with writing articles for interior design and crafts publications.
In this month’s issue ...
Career Autobiography
by Beverly Ryle
A Professional Writer's Perspective
by Angela Suter
Quotes-of-the-Month
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“For those who know how to read I have painted my autobiography”
Pablo Picasso, on his Blue and Rose Periods
“It isn’t that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history’s meaning.”
Phillip Roth
“It wasn’t a man singing a song. It was a man singing his autobiography.”
On Irving Berlin singing, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
“Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.”
W.H. Auden
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The Center for Career and Business Development specializes in teaching people how to manage their professional lives by providing customized counseling and educational programs which integrate conceptual thinking with practical training. Our long-term relationships with clients, recognition by peers, and growing reputation as a community resource speak to the excellence of the services we provide and our commitment to making the world of work a better place for all.
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The stick illustrations in this issue are by Eloise Morley,
Tracks Across the Page
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