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How to combine professional curiosity and career adaptability with family life

  • Writer: Silvia R
    Silvia R
  • Jun 20, 2019
  • 3 min read

Hi, I am Silvia, I am a millennial worker and I am a parent.


In my job I look for purpose, independence and flexibility.


This is my new project around career curiosity and adaptability.


I am a millennial


How many millennials identify themselves as people looking for purposeful work, a varied career path and willing to explore other ways of working?

73% of working millennials are currently in full-time jobs, but 50% are open to non-traditional forms of employment in the future.

I am a parent


How many expecting or new mothers are considering or actively working on a side project or a new job?

The majority of interviewed mothers planned to do something significant and even life-changing while on maternity leave.
1 in 6 women also decided that they would use their maternity leave to enter the world of self-employment – a plan that 50% of those followed through to fruition.

according to a survey of 2,319 British mothers by VoucherCodesPro in 2015


I live in a changing world


How many of the jobs as we know them will still be required in 5 or 10 years time? How many new jobs will appear ? How many new skills will be required?


Across all industries, by 2022 growth in emerging professions is set to increase their share of employment from 16% to 27% of the total employee base of company respondents.
The employment share of declining roles is set to decrease from currently 31% to 21%.

according to the The Future of Jobs Report 2018 from the World Economic Forum.


I am who I am


While we know that generalisations are rarely accurate, the adapting millennial worker definition fully reflects who I am at the moment.


I have unique strengths in my natural curiosity and flexible mindset.


I am hungry for new experiences and challenges.


I have a strong critical thinking, problem solving attitude and quantitative mind.


Beyond any stereotype I am who I am and I want to make the most out of it for myself and for others.


I (and other early millennials who sit at the edge of generation X) have been loving my job for more than 10 years and I have been giving my life variety and purpose studying and working in different countries.


My job is providing the stability that my age (and my role as a parent) requires, but I sometime feel that my millennial side and the forces which are re-shaping our professions and workplaces are asking for something more.


A project is born...


Recently the inspirational reading of Emma Rosen's book The radical sabbatical has helped me giving a shape to these ideas.


I am not planning for a radical change in my life though! It might have been tempting in the past, but it is out of question now! Family and financial commitments do not allow for anything so extreme in this phase of my life.


So I decided that I will use the next 12 months to

  • explore,

  • look more in-depth at work dynamics inside and outside my field (engineering),

  • gather first-hand experiences,

  • talk to as many people as possible.

I want to understand experiences, jobs and cultures of different organisations.


At the end of this journey I aim at having a developed strategy which

  1. enables career adaptability,

  2. helps millennial workers to face the challenges of a fast changing working environment, particularly in engineering,

  3. is compatible with family life.


This strategy will be built around the idea that inputs for growth can come from multiple sources, some less obvious than others.


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