Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra challenges the career advice that people must know what they want before they make a move. In her account, knowing comes from doing and experimenting, and a career change is a crooked route on which people try out several possible selves. Drawing on in-depth research with professionals and managers in transition, she describes three ways of working identity: trying new professional activities, building new networks, and making sense of events as new possibilities emerge. Her cases include a literature professor who became a stockbroker and an investment banker who became a novelist. Practical guidance covers identity experiments, small wins, role models and mentors, and getting through the rocky stretch between two careers.

Deal'n founder Nadia Al Sheikh said it helps young people, still working out who they are, see that each of us has many identities, a realization she believes supports their growth toward their goals.