Feed Your Career

What are your goals, your dreams? Take a moment to ponder these questions. I’ve spent many moments chewing over such questions. These questions do not just belong in job interviews or over dinner with friends. We should be asking ourselves all the time. If we don’t, how can we achieve our goals and dreams?

My journey

For the past six years I have been working towards one goal: to become a registered dietitian. Now I am only weeks away from taking my exam and applying for jobs. It is a little scary, but even more exciting. Throughout this process my passion for helping others has not changed, though the method of achieving this dream has morphed a few times.

When I began college I was sure of what I wanted. No one could sway me; in fact I had spent three years already gaining practice in my field of choice, journalism. Work at the high school paper soon turned into work for the college paper, and things looked promising. Then, it all changed. One nutrition course awoke a burning desire to learn more about healthy eating and to share this knowledge with everyone I knew, and many people I didn’t.

Now I am finishing graduate school, and my dietetic internship, and I have noticed that my love of writing has never diminished. In fact, my journalism background has helped me get into grad school, become a TA, and led to many writing projects throughout my internship. Who would have thought that a change in majors doesn’t mean you have to give up on your former dreams.

Though writing and nutrition can be put together successfully, I saw this as a far off dream, a 10-year-plan. Not something to put on the resume just yet. But why not? Why not strive to start my career in nutrition by involving both skills? At first the idea seemed more of a dream than a realistic goal, until one after another of my internship preceptors began identifying my writing ability as a unique skill in our field. One preceptor in particular strongly suggested putting together a portfolio of my writing clips to include with my resume, a novel idea that I am currently executing.

Now your turn

So what are your goals, your dreams? First, ask yourself, ‘What do I do best?’ and ‘What do I love doing?’ The answers are very important and can be the key to reaching your ideal job, career, and life. Whether just getting started, like me, or reassessing your career at any point, it is possible to incorporate your skills and reclaim your dreams.

Don’t set aside your passions simply because they may not fit into your work right now. Instead, map out a plan that involves your skills, all of your skills. Odds are your history can improve your future.

You are more prepared than you think you are. So wake up, but keep dreaming.

–Laura Jeanes, Dietetic Intern and Guest Blogger

Time Magazine had a feature article in March on the job market. An interesting point was  think job security, job longevity.  They spoke of a trend of looking for work that is sustainable into the future.  Jobs that will weather the economy and advancements in the robots industry (workers being replaced by robots) must build on a human being’s unique abilities, like problem solving and creativity. In food, nutrition and dietetics these skills are necessities.

On the medical side of nutrition problem solving is a backbone. Dietitians every day are faced with solving human nutrition problems – patients or clients needing help with chronic disease management or achieving optimal health.  Creativity — when you work with changing lifestyles and habits of people, creativity is a must.  What works for one client, will not work for another client, each is unique and has different needs.

When I was in foodservice management, problem solving was the biggest bulk of my time.  My day usually started with some shortage of employees to find unique and creative ways to cover for including me at times pitching in at the dishwashing line.  After human resource there were the budget challenges that required planning, analyzing, forecasting,  improvising skills in addition to problem solving.

For culinary professionals, problem solving is key from front line positions like wait staff and servers to management and owners.   Menus and food should be synonyms for creativity.  Making customers’ palate happy and keeping food costs down is a true art left best to professionals.

Job Security

You can see, in the food, nutrition and culinary industries problem solving and creativity are here to stay.  What I see needed for job security in our industry is a keen focus on providing a service or product that there is a paying market for.  Lately the economy has resulted in changes in customer behavior.  If your employer is loosing ground in connecting with your customer/client, then you need to turn things around and repackage what you do so it outshines any competition, it brings in more customers.  When you help your company succeed, everyone benefits.

More good news. A Best and Worst Jobs List released by the Wall Street Journal in January 2010 ranks dietitians 28th out of 200. List is based on five criteria — environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress.

The job market looks great for dietetics, food, nutrition, and culinary fields into the future.  There are jobs.  What professionals instead should focus on is being successful in a job so that the job always exists, never becomes redundant (British term for job no longer needed).   Today, job security is far more than working hard or even harder than others.   Job security is being great at what you do and partnering with your employer for success in the marketplace.  The fastest way to do this, find work in something you excel at, something you are passionate at.  When you are working from within your strengths in an area of passion, it takes less work from you to accomplish things.  Imagine if you worked hard at something you loved, then move over moon and stars — here you come.