How to Win Your Quarter-Life Crisis

The quarter-life crisis can inspire world travel, career change or any number of new experiences. Photo taken in Istanbul, Turkey by Caitlin Barry ’12.

If the midlife crisis is defined by its flashy sports cars and young romantic partners, the quarter-life crisis is defined by flashy new jobs and plane tickets to faraway destinations.

Despite being a relatively new phenomenon, the quarter-life crisis has its own Wikipedia page and several blogs and Buzzfeed posts dedicated to its analysis. The high level of attention experts pay to the quarter-life crisis makes sense, as Wikipedia defines it as, “a period of life usually ranging from the late teens to the early thirties, in which a person begins to feel doubtful about their own life, brought on by the stress of becoming an adult.”

As of July 1, 2013, 23.5 percent of adults were between ages 18 and 34 according to the U.S. census bureau, making that the most-populated age group in America. That’s a lot of people potentially experiencing a crisis. And for many of them, a career change is the antidote.

“Statistics show that people are changing careers three to five times in their lifetime now,” said Erin O’Dea, the College’s assistant director of alumni career services. “It’s different than people from generations before, who had one career their whole lives.”

O’Dea, who generally works with alumni in their late 20s to early 40s (she specializes in people who have been out of school for more than a year), says the urge to explore new, potentially more rewarding careers is not solely reserved for the millennial generation (which the Pew Research Center defines as people born after 1980).

“The idea that a new career will reinvigorate your life and allow you to do what you’re passionate about spans generations,” O’Dea explained. “I see people anywhere from 23 years old to well into their 60s. The difference is that younger clients are looking for more of a grandiose change, while older clients are constrained by other responsibilities, like a home or a family, which limits the kind of jump they can make.”

Proven Track Record

Millennial at work.

One alum with whom O’Dea consulted, Keith Mayfield ’03, worked as the manager of a Charleston-based restaurant before seeking career services for advice. “I began to feel like I was missing opportunities to be with friends and family during important times. The restaurant was open on holidays and there’s nothing you can do about that,” he said. Mayfield was also engaged to a kindergarten teacher, and their opposing schedules made it hard to spend time together.

In addition to a regular schedule, Mayfied was interested in new challenges, which he found at Hayden Jennings Properties. There, he works in property management and real estate sales at Hayden Jennings, and the field has made him excited about work again.

“My old job was not without challenges, believe me, but my new profession brought a new learning curve that is still looking very steep. Hayden Jennings Properties understood my desire for a new challenge and put me in a great opportunity to learn and develop,” Mayfield added.

Self Starter

On the other end of the spectrum is Erin Talberg ’12, who enrolled at the College after concluding six years in the U.S. Navy. “I turned 25 my first semester of college,” Talberg said. “I knew I wanted to finally get a degree, but was unsure of how I would feel attending a civilian school surrounded by 18 year olds.”

Talberg attended Trident Technical College before transferring to the College of Charleston, where she majored in English. Now, as a grants assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, she reflected, “It turns out college was exactly what I needed. I needed to re-calibrate to non-military life… I needed to be surrounded by passionate students and to make new lifelong friends. I needed to confirm that I was more than a uniform (though I am still incredibly proud of my military service).”

Quick Learner

For those who can’t go back to school, O’Dea recommends looking into alternative options like certificate programs if the job in question requires further education. “They’re often shorter and less expensive,” she said. But the advice O’Dea stresses most is to learn how to network.

“Once you’ve exhausted your first connections, like the people you know and your LinkedIn connections, you’re just getting started. A lot of being good at networking is knowing how to build your network through tools like LinkedIn, local alumni chapters and industry networking events,” O’Dea explained.

She added that, in spite of popular belief, online job hunting contributes to a small percentage of job search success. “Networking is far and away the number one way people get jobs. Studies show that only about 10 percent of jobs are found online, and 10 percent are found through a recruiter or staffing agency. 80 percent are found through networking.”

This doesn’t mean job searchers should abandon their online search, however. “People should still use all of those tools,” O’Dea clarified. “They should just organize their time accordingly – spend 10 percent of your time looking online and 80 percent building your network and introducing yourself to new contacts.”

Real-World Experience

Photo from Barry’s travels in Budapest, Hungary

Caitlin Barry ’12, for one, plans to take O’Dea’s advice as she searches for a new job. Barry, whose mother immigrated from Ireland, worked at a creative agency in Los Angeles for about a year before leaving her job to backpack across Europe for a month.

“Traveling has always been important to me and I wanted to see my family in Europe,” Barry said. “I figured, when else will I have the chance to do this?”

Upon returning, Barry packed up her apartment and moved home to Princeton, New Jersey to look for a job closer to family.

“I’m looking for a company I can grow with, and a position that challenges me both as an employee and a person,” Barry added. “I left my last job because the company experienced some setbacks and it became clear that there was no opportunity for growth for me.”

One part of the search process for Barry is reaching out for an informational interview. “I’ve contacted some of the people in positions I aspire to hold to ask their advice,” she said.

O’Dea confirms this is an effective tactic, and one that works no matter where the applicant is applying – whether it’s in his or her current city or elsewhere. “Just submitting your application online from South Carolina to, say, California is probably not going to get you the interview. You’ll have to go the extra mile to identify alumni or other contacts in the area who could help, and you have to ask for informational interviews.”

Strategic Thinker

Regardless of where in the job-search process an alum is, he or she can always benefit from meeting with a career counselor. But before reaching out to the College’s Career Center, O’Dea recommends alumni take a few steps on their own.

“Spend some time making a pros and cons list of the work you currently do before setting up a meeting,” she advised. “Also, sit down with your resume and highlight all the tasks you’ve ever enjoyed doing, and then assess how many of them you’re actually doing now – and how often. If those bullet points are lower on your resume, bring them to the top. If you’re not doing them at all anymore, it may be time to reevaluate your current path.”

Finally, for recent graduates looking to advance in their careers, O’Dea encourages using LinkedIn to examine profiles of people who hold the positions they aspire to. “Then you can start to see what steps you need to take to become qualified for those positions,” she said.

Whether the quarter-life crisis leads back to school, to a new career or simply a new hobby that employs a quarter-lifer’s interests, perhaps the moral of the crisis is to embrace the chaos and incorporate the change that the internet insists will cure it.

“I faced my quarter-life crisis head on and found great joy,” Talberg said. “In spite of my initial fears.”