Realigning Priorities with Career Goals

I consider myself an ambitious person. I have great desires to succeed in life and expect to be rewarded for this success. I completely understand that success has many different definitions and many different avenues to achieve those definitions of success.

Early College Year Career Goals:

When I was a freshman in college I had dreams of moving to the east coast, getting into some executive development program and quickly working my way up the corporate ladder of some huge company. I would be some important VP of some large company by the age of 30 and living the good life with all the benefits that would come with this position and title.

This was my dream. The fact that I was an accounting major at The University of Akron was the avenue through which I would achieve these goals. During my sophomore year of college I met my wife. The summer following my sophomore year I interned for Sallie Mae in Newark, DE. The following spring semester I interned for The J.M. Smucker Co. located in Orrville, OH.  While not located on the east coast, I thought Smuckers was surely my path to success. I would leverage my internship into an entry-level position and quickly work my way up the corporate ladder. However, this plan was not meant to be as I did not receive a full-time offer from Smuckers. After not receiving a full-time offer I felt lost and was not sure where my future to lead me. My wife and I were dating at the time and she was a huge source of support for me during this time. She continually encouraged me and showed more faith in me than I had in myself.

By the time my Smucker’s internship ended it was May of 2010.  I would be starting my senior year of college in the fall and had a strong desire to lock down a full-time job before the school year started. I wanted the peace of mind of going into my last year of college with a job offer in hand. Accounting is one of the few professions where you can get such an offer for a position that won’t start for a year or two in the future. To rebound from my Smuckers “set-back” I went about reaching out to my connections in the Cleveland Accounting Industry in search of a job. Most public accounting firms were content to wait until the fall semester before they started conducting internship and full-time interviews on The University of Akron’s campus.

There was one public accounting firm, Grant Thornton, which responded to my emails and wanted to bring me into their office for interviews. I had interviewed with Grant Thornton when I was looking for an internship, but had turned down their offer, in lieu of an internship at Smuckers. I re-interviewed with Grant Thornton in the June of 2010 and had a job offer from them by the fourth of July. This job offer rejuvenated my confidence and my drive for success. After graduation I started working at Grant Thornton as a public accountant, working in their auditing department. After two years as a staff level employee, I was promoted to a Senior Staff Accountant. The “senior” or audit “in-charge” runs the on-site operations of an audit. While the promotion officially occurred in August 2013, I had assumed the role of an “in-charge” at clients in March of 2013. I was extremely motivated and was ready to someday become a partner a GT. I, of course, had big goals and wanted to work hard and succeed, but now wanted to stay in Northeast Ohio region due to my family and my wife’s family being in the area.My work began to wear on me as I transitioned into the “in-charge” role. I was working a lot of hours each week and traveling out-of-town for weeks on end. Between a month in Detroit, MI in November 2012 and a month and a half in Buffalo, NY in April 2013 I was getting discouraged by the travel and living out of a hotel room. By August-September 2013 I was discouraged and all the traveling made planning for a wedding at the time very difficult. I was also discouraged because the end result of an audit, of my work, was essentially a piece of paper. Given these discouragements, I began searching for new employment and by October 2013 I had a new job at Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts in Hudson, OH.

I will be with Jo-Ann 2 years in October.  I really enjoy coming to the same place every day for work and I enjoy coming home to my wife every evening after work (I don’t mind traveling for work, just not for months on end).I also enjoy working for a company that has a tangible product/store that I could look to and think my work was contributing towards.

Current Career Goals:

I still consider myself an ambitious person and hope to be in a position of leadership in the future where I am helping a team reach their goals and initiatives that contribute to a productive and profitable company. I also want my career goals to work together with my personal goals of raising a family with my wife and spending time with family and friends.

These goals have some similarities to my career goals when I was a freshman in college. I still want to develop into a leader in the business. However, with significantly more work experience (2 internships and 4 years of work experience) I have found that being the head honcho isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. To get to that level you will probably sacrifice time with family, time with your kids, and time with your spouse. Prior to meeting my wife, I never realized just how important these aspects of life would become to me. I think it’s interesting to see how goals change over time. I would say my current career goals are more realistic, more selfless, and in many ways can result in a much more successful life than my early college goals. Every few years I think it is helpful to reassess what is important in one’s life and determine if your goals have changed or adapted over time. I can’t wait to see how mine have adapted and changed in by 2020.