Two seemingly opposite definitions of the word 'career' came into play earlier this month at a round-table discussion of professional opportunities in science, sponsored by Naturejobs at the University of Birmingham, UK. "A course or progress through life...an occupation or profession engaged in as a life-work" are definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary, and the ones that probably first come to mind. They indicate a certain amount of planning and imply some sort of linear progression.
But Alison Cooper, a lecturer in pharmacology at the University of Birmingham, cited another definition that applied to all seven of us panellists: "Move or swerve about wildly."
The job in which one ends up is very rarely completely due to chance. But, like many discoveries in science, a certain amount of serendipity — and conditions in the real world — had come into play in our cases. Cooper originally intended to focus on in vivo pharmacology, but at the time she finished her PhD, there was little demand for those particular skills in industry; that, of course, has changed completely over the past decade. So she became an instructor.
Andy Garner, a group leader in drug discovery at AstraZeneca, applied for a job at the company and attended the interview just for practice — and landed a position.
And I intended to be a medical writer for newspapers, but quite literally by accident (see Nature 430, 705; 2004) found myself teaching and carrying out research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before spending the past ten years writing for a scientific audience.
Despite this erratic 'careering', none of the panelists' current destinations was a complete accident. All had identified transferable skills, then broadened them, weathered storms of rejection, tapped into personal and professional networks, and, perhaps most important, sought the best person, place and project to fit their skills and interests. In doing so, we all met the first definition of 'career' as well.