Read the empowering career story of an entrepreneur who learned through a serendipitously unplanned career path the skills to lead a major organization of career-management practitioners. Also included are the suggestions and resources from the Quintessential Careers team -- for this job-seeker and any other job-seeker facing a similar situation.

by Liz Sumner, as told to Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.

Liz Sumner

An analysis of the career of Liz Sumner, 53, of Marlborough, NH, reveals numerous common threads, but perhaps the most striking is her tendency to stay in each job -- for better or worse -- for about four years.

"I've never had a directed career path," Sumner says, "rather I have stumbled into everything based on where I was and what seemed agreeable at the time." Through this undirected path, however, Sumner assimilated the leadership and communication skills that have propelled her to success in her current position as director of the Career Management Alliance, an association of career professionals encompassing every sector of the careers industry.

"I sometimes wish I had been this wise when I was 25," Sumner says, "but then I wouldn't have grown to be the person I am, and I like my current self a lot." The New Jersey-born Sumner had four childhood ambitions: baker, psychiatrist, Perry Mason, and actress. Her first job was perhaps most like the baker ambition -- but all her jobs have contained elements of her early aspirations.

"My first job was at a pizza joint when I was 15," Sumner recalls. "My sister, Hilary, took me out job-hunting and did all the talking, making up skills and experience for me while I just nodded my head. I mostly remember slicing Bermuda onions for hours and hours. "While at boarding school I took a shift running the switchboard in the school office. My sister had done the same when she was there. I had actually started my career as a school receptionist when I was in fourth grade. I would answer the phone while the administration took their lunch. I was on duty when the school was notified that President Kennedy had been shot.

"I parlayed my switchboard skills into a job at a local answering service and felt like I was Judy Holliday in Bells Are Ringing. From there I became an operator at a brand new 300-room hotel that opened nearby. The hotel took awhile to become profitable. I survived a massive layoff, was trained as a desk clerk, then took over reservations. I remember telling my new boss to give me a raise and a promotion, and I would prove to her that I deserved them. She did!

"I stayed there four years and became front-office manager. That was my one and only time of supervising staff. I was 22.

A Personal Glimpse FAVORITE MOVIE The Third Man FAVORITE BOOK Novel: Shadows on The Wall, by by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Non-Fiction: The Emperor of Scent, by Chandler Burr INTERESTS/ HOBBIES Computers, technology, singing, harmonizing FAVORITE FOOD Salad FAVORITE TV SHOW Veronica Mars, Battlestar Gallactica BIGGEST THRILL Whitewater rafting? When I get back from the space station I may amend that.

"Lots of horrible things happened that year and I moved to join my family 3,000 miles away in Eugene, OR. I finished college with a degree in journalism. Picking my major felt kind of like trying to decide what badges to go for in Girl Scouts. I paged through the catalog trying to figure out what to do. I was never driven to pursue a field. I happened to have a talent for writing so I chose journalism (I had started a tongue-in-cheek employee newsletter while at the hotel). While in J-school I tried magazine writing but then became the pet student of the copywriting professor. He got me a great internship, which turned into a good job at the best ad agency in town. My father had been a copywriter.

"I stayed at the agency for four years. I was very fortunate to have a smart and talented senior copywriter who taught me a lot. One of the first things I learned was that I was supposed to be a producer as well as a writer. I didn't have a clue what was involved with that. I learned by doing, and a fair amount of clients' money was spent in my education. "I don't remember why I moved on. Just time I guess. I moved to Seattle and did temp work for a while. On one assignment I was a receptionist at a natural-foods distributor. When the marketing director asked someone if I knew anything about natural foods the person replied, "She's from Eugene!" Apparently that was enough. I was hired as a customer-service representative. "One thing I discovered in my, yes, four years there was a fondness for IT geeks; they called it data processing then. I became the only person who could communicate with the information processors, and it gave me an enormous advantage. I took care of the largest, most important customers who used primitive modem technology for their orders. I also produced the company catalog and other marketing materials on the early PCs.

"During this time I fell in love with a man who lived 90 miles away and moved to be with him. Though I didn't particularly care about advertising/marketing anymore, it was the best-looking theme on my resume so I started looking for copywriting jobs. I found one at a local radio station, and I can remember the sinking 'uh oh' feeling when I accepted the job."

In fact, Sumner considers her return to copywriting the biggest mistake of her career. "I made a choice to go back into advertising because I had a lot of experience, but at that point I was really sick of copywriting. I was bored and not very good.

"One of the things about not being directed to a certain career is that I tend to stay too long at crappy jobs. I don't know whether I'm lazy or scared or what. This place was a big mistake. Guess how long I stayed."

But there was an up side to to Sumner's wrong turn back into advertising: "It ended up kicking my butt to go back to graduate school. In all of the places I'd worked I'd been fascinated by the management of people and how effectively work got done. My sister, Jennifer was an organization development consultant and helped me frame the way I looked at things. She was on the advisory board of Antioch University in Seattle and just happened to know of a master's degree program that sounded like a good fit.

"Graduate school helped me survive the mindless job at the radio station. And the work was so non-involving that I had plenty of time for my studies.

When I got my master's degree I went into a 'what next?' slump. I had not thought beyond graduation. I consulted part-time on team building, goal-setting, and action-planning. I facilitated some off-sites. Independent consulting was a struggle for me on my own. I'm a lot more comfortable as part of a team.

"Thankfully my husband called me up at work one day and said, 'Want to move to New England?' I said, 'Sure.' Ten months later we were here.

"This time I actively pursued a job with someone I knew from Seattle. He was now general manager of another natural-food distributor and spoke of designing me the perfect job to use my experience and my new master's degree. It took a lot longer to come together than I'd planned so I temped again. Finally I was hired six months after moving.

"My job title was TQM administrator. I vaguely knew what Total Quality Management was. I knew some people at school who did it in their engineering jobs. I didn't quite understand how it would apply to distribution rather than manufacturing, but heck, it was a job and I was paid almost twice as much as I'd ever made, so I faked it.

"Before the company could get behind its quality initiative, management decided I was the right person to oversee the hardware and software conversion. That took about a year longer than it was supposed to and is a story in itself. Afterwards I hung around in a catchall job they called operations analyst, and no one had a clue what I actually did, including me.

At this time I was about at my four-year limit and was ready to move on. I was sick of doing indescribable work that no one understood. I wanted to be a 'Something.'

"One day I was reading the bulletin board of job postings and wondered what it would be like to be a purchaser. Just as I started glancing at the job description the general manager entered, saw me, and told me he'd hire me in a minute for that job. By the end of the week I was a purchaser. "That first year was the hardest I've ever worked. It's a complicated job that involved many kinds of talents. I was organized and had people skills, but I wasn't a math whiz and couldn't do pricing in my head. I stumbled along and did my best. I was adequate, but not great. I did not care about it. My co-workers who did were great buyers. Really had the knack. I was only ordinary and knew it. "When the company suffered financial difficulties and had to downsize I was the first to go. It was just about four years anyhow.

"At that point I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do next. None of my previous career paths held any interest for me. I liked the organizational-change stuff I'd learned in grad school but could not see myself working in the corporate world. What I really wanted to do was action-planning and goal-setting for individuals. I'd seen so many of my co-workers be passive and powerless in the workplace.

"Enter sister Jennifer again. She turned me on to a relatively new field known as life coaching. It sounded like exactly what I was looking for. I researched and entered a coach training program. It wasn't what I'd originally thought (advice-giving) but it was better, and I was good at it. I started my own coaching practice.

"I used my talent for organization, my intuition, my techniques for goal-setting and action-planning, my love of technology, and my passion for working as part of a team. I served my clients extremely well and helped change their lives for the better. "As many experts will tell you, it is not enough for an entrepreneur to be good at what you do. You must also be a good businesswoman and especially a good marketer. Though I had supported myself writing advertising copy for eight years, I was not good at marketing my own business.

"I have lots of explanations and excuses for my lack of success. One of my problems was that the population I felt most drawn to serve -- unemployed people -- had no money to pay me. The freedom of working for myself at home was very attractive. I could spend countless hours at the computer, almost convincing myself that I was doing something worthwhile, when actually I was just futzing. I took an occasional side job here and there to supplement my income -- at a health spa, a political campaign, a seasonal retail job. I reinvented my practice about once a year. I knew in my heart that it wasn't going anywhere, but again I couldn't think of any job I did want to do.

"If the phone hadn't rung that day last fall I'd probably still be sputtering along. For some miraculous reason I was offered an ideal position with a local company. I was not technically qualified for it, but in 35 years, that has never stopped me. I get the job and then learn how to do it."

Sumner's acquired talents in team building, facilitation, goal-setting, and action-planning, along with her organizational skills, intuition, and her love of technology have crescendoed in her current position, quickly winning her the respect of the executive team and membership who note her knack for making things happen.

Sumner's current job has also enabled her to be mentored by the best boss she's ever had, whom Sumner describes with these words: "smart, funny, friendly, great leader, straightforward, clear instructor, gives great advice and notices accomplishments. I couldn't be happier." Sumner has had a second career -- in music and theater -- that for two decades has run parallel to the one she's described here. She has been a singer/songwriter with a band and an actress/director with several local theater companies, including Small Pond Productions, which she runs with her husband and some friends. At the time of her interview, Sumner was directing a production of her husband's latest musical.

Both the deliberate and the accidental portions of Sumner's career have inspired the personal philosophy that also serves as her career advice to others: "Do what you love. Love what you do. Stop doing what you hate."

And if Sumner could do anything she wanted? "I am really jealous of Sergey Brin," she says. "I would sign up in a minute to go into space if I had the money. When I used to fantasize about what I'd do with $10 million I always set aside money to go into space. I always knew there would be commercial flights."

Assuming space travel is not immediately in the cards for Sumner, what's next? "Talk to me again in four years," she says.

Suggestions and Resources for Sumner and others in similar situations:

We suggest that Sumner:

• Keep her coaching practice going on the side. Though she's discovered she doesn't have the marketing skills to generate full-time income from her coaching, she knows she has much to offer to clients. She might find helpful information in our Entrepreneur & Business Start-Up Tools and Resources.
• Realize that rather than stumbling through her career, she has had a "portfolio career," full of variety and skill-building. She could read our article, Portfolio Careers: Creating a Career of Multiple Part-Time Jobs.
• Bring her singing and acting talents into her current work. Sumner's constituents would certainly enjoy getting to know another dimension of their leader. She may also be able to find ways to apply acting and singing in gigs in corporate training and organizational development.
• Tell her story to job-seekers. Though she may be a tad too self-deprecating, Sumner tells a compelling career story that could inspire others who feel they haven't planned their careers well.
• Plan her next move? Sumner is probably right when she suggests her way of handling her career is unlikely to change -- and after all, it has worked for up to now. Still, if she decides to take a different approach in the final chapters of her career, she could review our Career Planning and Guidance Articles for Job-Seekers. She may also want to think about what she wants to do as she approaches retirement age and read our article Working Beyond Retirement: For Money, Identity, and Purpose.