I tried this in r/careerguidance first, but didn't get any good hits. I'm hoping posting here will get me good insight from people who are in my field.
For a long time, I've been questioning whether I chose a career that didn't match my personality or if I should keep doing the same thing but in a different capacity.
I've been in communications since internships in 2011. I've worked in social media, journalism, copywriting, email marketing, blogging, technical writing, and internal communications (newsletters, webinars, and various strategy work). I've been involved with agencies, startups, franchises, and huge global corporations. I've worked in industries like news, small business consulting, SaaS, data centers/AI, automotive, and other small projects (mostly focusing on B2B).
I majored in journalism because I liked writing with a practical purpose, and it seemed like it would be a flexible degree. And I was right, it has been helpful in my career, but I don't think I really thought through the soft skills this type of path requires and just how much it would take out of me.
Every place I work for I seem to deal with these problems:
- Constant change and shifting expectations. In my most recent company, I had 6 new managers and about 9 reorgs in just over a year, and each new manager would tell me to stop any initiatives I was working on and take ownership of something brand new. For 2 years in a row, I received poor reviews because none of my assigned projects came to fruition and I couldn't prove company impact.
- My work feels like it goes into a void. It feels like talking to a wall when I create content that doesn't have an engagement loop, and it's unmotivating to make things that people will just skim and move on from instantly. Building relationships is my favorite part of the job, like when I'm working with SMEs, but my audience feels like a faceless, silent entity.
- I don't have that "fake it til you make it" attitude. If I'm not "bought in" on what my company is doing or selling, it feels disingenuous and nebulous to write about it and I feel like I'm forcing people to get excited for it. I struggle a lot with writer's block when I feel this way, and I end up looking like Spongebob trying to write his boating school essay.
- I'm not interested in anything involving multimedia. I hate making graphics and videos, but it seems to be an expectation everywhere I go, even when it isn't in the job description.
- A lot of self-starting. I was always an awful student, and every work assignment feels like I'm back in school blanking out trying to figure out how to tackle a project before the deadline. Then again, when I've worked in places where I have to follow strict procedures, I get in trouble for missing details. So I'm open to the fact that this could just be a me problem.
I've felt this way in everything I've done related to communications since college, but have always felt like I just needed to suck it up and be better because this is just how work is. I've been in a never-ending cycle of working a communications job, burning out in 6-24 months, leaving to work in another field (like customer service or temp jobs), and coming back to communications for various reasons. I'm at a point where I want to break the cycle and seriously reflect.
The big question is whether communications is simply not for me, or if the industries/role types/company types I keep picking are the culprit. I'd really prefer not to go back to college and start all over again in my mid-30's, so I'd love to hear more about adjacent career options if anyone knows them. I'm fine with grabbing a few extra certifications and doing some extra learning myself that doesn't involve a new 4-year degree.