By Rowan Glass
If you’re a student or young professional, perhaps you have a clear idea of what you want to do and where you want to go in your career. But if you’re anything like me, you may have a lot of ideas and interests but don’t want to lock yourself into just one path. The good news is that with creative thinking and hard work, you can carve a professional niche and forge a unique path for yourself.
Over the years, ProFellow has interviewed several professionals who have done just that for themselves and achieved great success in career fields somewhat of their own making. Drawing on the examples of these inspiring pioneers and my experience as a young professional working across several fields, I’ll share a few basic tips for carving a professional niche and forging your own path.
Stay flexible
Adaptability is key to success if you want to carve a niche for yourself. You have to have the flexibility and willingness to try new things, develop new skills, think creatively, and change directions as situations require. You also need to cultivate an attentiveness to new possibilities and routes of exploration, keeping an eye out for opportunities as they emerge.
This is a useful principle to keep in mind whether you’re thinking of changing career fields or moving to a new city or country (or both, as the case may be!). One of the commonalities between many successful multi-disciplinary professionals is their willingness to take on new jobs and professional opportunities, even when it involves a long-distance move, sometimes to a radically different geographic or cultural context. Dr. Ruth Martin, for example, has worked as a public servant and policy researcher in New Zealand, the UK, and the US, applying her skills (and developing new ones) in each of these placements throughout her dynamic career trajectory. Without her flexibility and willingness to take on new challenges at each step of the journey, she wouldn’t have achieved such success across a wide variety of contexts. Try to embody the same spirit of flexibility and openness in your work as you strive to forge your own way forward.
Develop transferable skills
One of the distinguishing characteristics of professionals who achieve success forging their own paths is their ability to develop and employ broadly applicable skills across various fields. In my case, the research and writing skills I developed as an undergraduate researcher in anthropology allowed me to transition into the freelance space as a journalist, writer, and copy editor. The camera-based skills I developed as a visual ethnographer allowed me to freelance as a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker. The trick is identifying how any given skill can be applied across multiple disciplines or professional fields; you’d be surprised at just how versatile many of your skills may be!
The story of Dr. Mi’Jan Tho-Biaz is an inspiring example of how you can creatively apply your skills and experiences across various fields in unexpected ways. Dr. Tho-Biaz applied her undergraduate major in psychology to become a social worker and, from there, earned a doctoral in education before pivoting into non-profit leadership, oral history, and public health. Only through creative thinking and the development of a varied and widely applicable skillset was she able to experience such a wide range of career pivots—and with a similar approach, you can too.
Always keep exploring
Most successful multi-disciplinary professionals, like Dr. Martin and Dr. Tho-Biaz, are always keeping an eye out for new opportunities. As the examples above demonstrate, these professionals are constantly exploring new places to take their careers, new ways to apply their skills, and new locations (often international) to develop their projects. As a young professional seeking to establish a niche for yourself, you’ll want to cultivate a similar appetite for exploration.
One way you can do this is by remaining open to saying “yes” to each opportunity that comes your way, even if it may take you outside your comfort zone. For example, a colleague recently came to me with an offer to take on a web development and data management project for her filmmaking organization. Although I have limited experience in these areas, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity as a chance for professional development and growth. Through this job, I’ll gain valuable new web development and data management skills and expand my portfolio—hopefully while serving my client and enjoying myself in the process, too!
Grow your network
One of the most important aspects of professional development in general—but especially when trying to go your own way as an independent or multi-disciplinary professional—is to network and get to know a lot of people moving in many different spaces. There are a few ways to do this. One is through networking platforms like LinkedIn, which allows you to connect with other professionals and their organizations, apply for jobs, and share your accomplishments in a public forum. Increasingly, other social media platforms such as Meetup, Slack, and even Twitter are also used as networking tools. There are also industry-specific job boards that can allow you to search for opportunities and connect with professionals in more niche spaces.
The benefit of networking as an independent professional trying to forge your own path is that it allows you to keep an eye on various fields and leading figures working within them. This means that if you keep a close eye on what others are doing, where, and how, you can make strategic decisions about your professional endeavors. Connecting with a diverse array of professionals will also allow them to come to you when they have a project you may be ideal for, as recently happened when my colleague came to me out of the blue with her web development job.
Some of the most successful multi-disciplinary professionals interviewed by ProFellow have even gone one step further by creating their own organizations and platforms to grow their network, connect with other professionals, and foster new growth opportunities for both themselves and others. Dr. Eda Elif Tibet, for instance, founded EthnoKino, now one of Europe’s largest visual ethnography organizations and film festivals. EthnoKino recently launched its new Doc Impact Lab for Mov(i)ement Fellows, of which I’m in the inaugural cohort—demonstrating the value of knowing the right people and taking advantage of the opportunities they can provide!
Apply to fellowships!
Unsurprisingly, many of the intrepid multi-disciplinary professionals we’ve interviewed at ProFellow are also multi-fellowship winners, and many attribute their success partly to the opportunities made available to them through their diverse fellowship experiences. Whether academic or professional, fellowship programs can be an excellent way to apply your skills, develop new ones, gain valuable professional experience, set yourself apart from others, and set yourself up for further success.
The ProFellow database curates a list of over 2,700 fellowship programs across all program types, disciplines, locations, citizenship requirements, and work experience requirements. Want to set yourself apart from the crowd as you develop the skills and experiences that will allow you to pursue a career adventure off the beaten path? Check out the database, and you’re sure to find all the best-fit opportunities for you!
Rowan Glass is an anthropologist, multimedia journalist, writer, and filmmaker from Oregon. His research, reporting, and travels have taken him from Indigenous territories in Colombia and Mexico to primary schools in Senegal, Kurdish restaurants in Greece, and music festivals in Morocco. In all his work, Rowan endeavors to help tell engaging stories about underreported people and places through incisive research and creative endeavors. Whether at a keyboard or behind a camera, at home or in the field, Rowan is always looking for the next chance to apply his skills to both creative and socially impactful ends. Rowan holds a BA in cultural anthropology from the University of Oregon and is currently applying to graduate programs in anthropology.
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