🎓 Top 5 Sparks To Career Paths

14 Switchboard Leader Quotes on the start of their Professional Paths

May 08, 2024

Hello, it’s Julia, Founder of The Switchboard, a newsletter exploring the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond. Thank you for being part of this community. I’m grateful to you for reading, reacting and commenting. If you enjoy this edition, consider sharing it with a student exploring their career path.

As graduations approach, I’ve been thinking about the career beginnings for today’s students — what will spark their career paths? While writing this newsletter, I’ve asked this question to 100+ leaders I’ve interviewed on The Switchboard. This week, I took a nostalgic look back to analyze common themes and wisdom for this year’s graduates.

These are the top five sparks — family, curiosity, bold steps, friendship, and community. From happy memories to uncertain times, each of these leaders navigated their paths their own way. I believe that’s the most important message to take away from this edition. We can learn from others and discuss possibilities, but ultimately, we must find or seek the spark ourselves.

In This Edition

Lean into Family
Pursue Curiosity
Take a Leap
Learn from Friends
Contribute to Your Community

Lean into Family

Driven by experiences with parents or grandparents — these leaders were motivated by happy memories or challenging times to pursue their professional paths.

🎨 Zofia Ciechowska

I come from a family focused on serving others. My mother is a teacher. From a young age, I was able to observe my mother at work, which I think had a big impact on how I have decided to develop my own leadership. By watching her, I learned how to communicate, educate, uplift people and be of service to those around me.

📚Gorick Ng

I grew up in Toronto as the only son of my working-class, single-parent mom who had dropped out of school at 12 years old to work in a sewing machine factory. When I was 14, she lost her job. Because of my proficiency in English and knowledge of the Internet, we job searched together—I used to write resumes and cover letters during recess and coach her over the kitchen table after school. But, despite sending in probably 200+ job applications, not a single role called her back.
Though she eventually got a position as a daycare assistant and also returned to school, this experience has defined what I do today and continues to shape whatever comes next. As for what I do, I’m a first-gen college grad turned career adviser turned author. I’m on a mission to help talent from humble beginnings rise to positions of leadership while demystifying the unspoken rules of career success.

🪀 Michelle Lee

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a National Geographic animal photographer and go on safaris! I would draw to bring new places, creatures and stories I dreamed up to life. I also loved putting together puzzles, and I still enjoy it! I was constantly curious to understand how things worked, an interest stemming from watching my grandfather take apart watches and put them back together.
Meanwhile, my grandmother taught my brother and me how to sew — we would make puppets and put on shows together. Looking back, there were elements of design in all of these activities.

📈 Jiyoung Pamela Yoon

I am the daughter of immigrants. My parents came from Korea when I was really young, so except for a few words, they did not speak English and I became their primary translator. I like to joke that I was doing internal communications most of my life and I didn't even know it — whether it was translating at the doctor's office or at the grocery store.

Pursue Curiosity

Explore your interests, remember when you were happiest and seek to learn when you feel lost. This mindset led these leaders towards curiosity in their careers.

🏢 Ryan Anderson,

I tried out marketing and sales but ultimately landed on R&D because I realized if I focused on research — in theory, I wouldn’t get bored. I would always be searching for solutions. That curiosity and desire to have a positive impact on my hometown really shaped my path.

⭐ Farrah Mitra

I have loved all things business and people since I was really young. One of my earliest memories is teaching dolls math! That theme has really followed me — I’ve done a lot of teaching, community service, mentoring and tutoring. But, I've also gravitated to business and analytics.

💫 Jared Taylor

After I graduated from college and started working a full-time job, what jump-started my path to employee experience and culture was becoming disengaged at work. I landed a job in the scheduling department at Disney Channel - it was a wonderful place to begin my career - but after about 18 months, I learned the job inside and out and no longer felt challenged.
As I was searching for what to do next, a friend suggested I flip through Deloitte’s Human Capital Report — an extensive, annual report that examines the state of employee engagement worldwide. I realized that disengagement was a problem many employees were experiencing, and I saw myself reflected in the numbers. Learning that I was not alone drove me to want to improve engagement in the workplace not only for myself but for others.

Take a Leap

Sometimes when you explore your curiosity, it still might not be the right fit, and that’s okay. For Michael, Phillip and Sean, they each switched paths and ultimately found the best place for them.

🛠️ Michael Maney

I started out in politics in Atlanta immediately after graduate school, but quickly realized it wasn’t the right fit. A friend further along in his career suggested I consider a move to LA or New York, where there were more opportunities to start a career in communications. So I set out to LA in search of my professional passion. I was very fortunate to get a freelance role at Disney. It was supposed to be a two-week gig but turned into a nine-year career!

🏦 Phillip Hales

My communications career was a bit of a happy accident! When I graduated from college with a degree in Ethnomusicology, my plan was to become a queer studies scholar. I started to pursue that goal as a Ph.D. student in Performance Studies at Northwestern University, where I hoped to do ethnographic research on the consumption of hip-hop culture within Chicago’s Black Queer community. After a year in graduate school, however, I started to have doubts about whether an academic career path was actually the right one for me.
After taking some time, I ultimately decided to leave graduate school. That decision was liberating, but also terrifying because at the time I didn’t fully appreciate the range of career paths for someone with a degree like mine.

🔖 Sean Langston, Jr.

I found my passion in connecting the people and the projects. I spent more time talking to the engineering students and learning about their projects, passions, and skill sets than I actually did studying with them. Fast forward three semesters, and this passion landed me in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences where I majored in Communications with a focus in public relations and organizational communications.

Learn from Friends

Through conversations with friends, Chase and Bertie discovered new paths. Your friends know you well. Take time to learn from their experiences as you are considering what’s next.

🧪 Chase Warner

After undergrad, I studied abroad in New Zealand where I focused on Public Health. That experience led me to Pharmacy School, but that wasn’t the right path for me. I was trying to figure out how to blend my passion for science with connecting people. Friends suggested I explore a career in communications. Ironically, it was not something I had considered with my liberal arts education. I interviewed for a number of roles and joined Porter Novelli in their Health Group.

📋 Roberta (Bertie) Thomson

It was a complete coincidence for me! I studied Classics, and then trained to become a chartered accountant. When I graduated from college, I went to work for Deloitte as an auditor. It’s a career path that I highly recommend. I learned many important skills — the basics of finance, and how to serve clients.
When I was living in London, I had dinner with a neighbor who was working at Brunswick Group, a financial PR agency. His work sounded a lot more interesting than testing consolidation adjustments. Before I knew it, I was meeting with the team at Brunswick and started a new career path.

Contribute to Your Community

By being active and involved in organizations as volunteers or through student projects, Ben and Janelle discovered their professional passions.

⚡Ben Lang

I’ve always engaged in community work in different ways. It started as a personal passion. The earliest example is when I moved to Israel after high school. I was trying to meet new people so a friend and I organized the first hack-a-thon in the country. It was a really cool experience to connect with people who wanted to work on interesting projects.

🏙️ Janelle S. Kpeli

I think my first stint in Internal Communications started in college while working on my college newspaper. My college was really a community, and everyone read the paper for news, perspectives and to share their feedback. As a reporter and managing editor, that was my first time capturing stories, meeting different people, and finding out what motivated and interested them. I’ve continued using those skills in some capacity throughout my career.

What sparked your professional path? I’d love to hear from you. Share your experience in the comments or by replying to this email.

The Switchboard