James M. Citrin - The Career Playbook: Essential Advice for Todays Aspiring Young Professional

Copyright 2015 by Esaress International S. A. R. L.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN BUSINESS is a trademark and CROWN and the Rising Sun colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Crown Business books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions or corporate use. Special editions, including personalized covers, excerpts of existing books, or books with corporate logos, can be created in large quantities for special needs. For more information, contact Premium Sales at (212) 572-2232 or e-mail .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-553-44696-8

eBook ISBN 978-0-553-44697-5

Charts and graphs illustrated by Fred Haynes

Illustrations by Annalora von Pentz

Cover design by FORT

v3.1

My twenty-seven-year-old niece, Alex, is remarkable. For her masters thesis at the Maryland Institute College of Art, she conceived of and brought to life Until Now , a magazine about coming of age. Inside the attractive matte pages, forty-two writers and artists, mostly in their twenties, express their reflections, anxieties, and dreams about moving into adulthood and making their way in the world. The topics range from love and relationships, to weight control and body image, and, of course, to finding a job, forging a career, and pursuing success. I have a deep appreciation for just how hard it is for people starting out in their careers to figure out life, to land a good job, and to pursue their dreams and become the person they want to be. Even the best educated, most ambitious, most creative, and most energetic find it difficult to know where to turn to get the right advice.

Nathaniel, twenty-eight, graduated from Harvard in 2008 with honors in history and literature. Rather than following the well-worn path that runs from the Ivy League to a career in investment banking or consulting, he opted to join the analytics team at an online media start-up with only ten employees. After working in start-ups for four years, Nathaniel decided to attend the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he took a graduate internship at Google and was offered a full-time job at the programs end. But Nathaniel was conflicted about the offer. If he had his way, he would join yet another start-up in market analytics. He knew that Google would give him the chance to work with smart people, but he wanted the breadth and hands-on experience offered by early-stage companies. At the same time, could he really pass up the prestige, stability, and future opportunities that would inevitably await him at Google? And what if the start-up he joined didnt make it? Would he find himself out of work and ruing the day hed turned down Googles offer?

Nathaniel didnt know how to decide. Should he follow the classic career wisdom of starting at a blue-chip company, taking advantage of its resources and of the benefits that come from being associated with a top organization? Or should he go with his instincts and make his way back into the adrenaline-filled environment of a start-up?

His decision wasnt an easy one, and you too will experience decisions like this at more than one point in your career. No oneabsolutely no onecan predict how your career will unfold. But I can say this with confidence. As your career unfolds, it will make many unexpected twists and turns. It will be a winding road, not a straight line.

When successful people give advice or tell the story of their careers, they often speak in a way that makes it seem as if their success was inevitable. But when youre dealing with the reality of trying to secure an interview, deciding which job to pursue or accept, worrying about money, and looking for that entry-level position that will open the door to future opportunities in your chosen field, nothing is clear. Certainty exists only in hindsight, when youre looking back on the decisions and actions you took that eventually led to career success.

One person who exemplifies this fact is Jim Meyer, CEO of Sirius XM. When Jim was growing up, his family moved around frequently because his father was a career officer in the U.S. Navy. Because of this, Jim had no choice but to learn how to adapt to different cultures and constantly make new friends. Jim went on to attend St. Bonaventure University in New York, majoring in economics and later receiving his MBA there as well before taking a job at RCA Corporation, a leading manufacturer of television sets at the time. Through RCAs history of changing ownership (the company was sold to General Electric and later to Thomson Consumer Electronics Company), Jim was fortunate to be involved with the company, Thomson, that was a partner in the early days of the creation of DIRECTV. His career bloomed over the course of twenty years, in which he oversaw the production of high-end color televisions and became the companys COO.

Jim did well financially and was ready to retire after he left the company in 2001. But a couple of years later, a friend and former boss who was also integrally involved in the launch of DIRECTV became CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio and asked Jim to come on board as a consultant. Jim accepted, and in 2004 he went further, joining the company on a full-time basis to run its operations and sales efforts. Jims focus was working with car manufacturers in Detroit, Germany, and Japan to make Sirius players a regular feature for new models; this would become the companys core strategy for early growth. Jim is a low-key, authentic person who always demonstrates care for those around him, and people throughout the company were highly motivated to work for him. After Sirius merged with XM Satellite Radio in 2008, the companys board promoted him to CEO in 2012.

You wouldnt know it by looking at his job title today, but Jims career, like most peoples, was a winding and unexpected road. His story also shows that you dont need to attend Stanford or Oxford, or work at Google or Goldman Sachs, in order to accomplish something significant. As long as you make sound decisions, work incredibly hard, support others, build meaningful relationships, and have some good luck, youll have a good shot at achievement and success.

In The Career Playbook , I am sharing everything Ive learned about successful careers from working intimately with some of the most successful chief executives, entrepreneurs, not-for-profit leaders, and gurus around the world. My goal is to present this essential advice in a way that will be relevant to anyone motivated to pursue success in todays hypercompetitive, fast-changing, and confusing world.

The career marketplace for new graduates and millennials (the approximately 82 million people born between 1981 and about 2000) has never been more competitive, unstructured, and difficult to navigate. For every appealing entry-level professional position in a given industry, there are dozens, often hundreds, and sometimes thousands of candidates.