Advancing Your Career Even When Your Employer Isn’t

I had two experiences within two days where others reinforced one of my views on the value of active participation in a professional association.

I am a professor in an academic clinical laboratory science program. We were discussing applicants to our graduate program. This is a very competitive process. We typically accept only 20% of the applicants because we don’t have the faculty capacity to mentor any more than that. Yet, I would say that virtually 90% of the applicants would be fine graduate students.

On this particular day, I was struck by the fact that we had at least 3 candidates to consider who were obviously very capable laboratory professionals. They had strong letters of recommendation from employers about their bench-level performance but that was really all there was to their application. Although they were working professionals for at least several years and in some cases held professional association memberships, they had not participated with those organizations beyond joining. I observed to our graduate director that I thought these candidates should be advised to join and actively participate in a professional organization in order to strengthen their applications. If their employers were not permitting them to demonstrate leadership in their jobs, then they could do that within the professional association. The graduate director said to me “That’s what I tell candidates all the time.”

The next day I was presenting a leadership development seminar for the Michigan Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (MSCLS). In that presentation I mention how MSCLS gave me opportunities to develop leadership skills, like organizing people to accomplish a task or budget management, that were not part of my job at the time. Yet these are skills I now use daily in my job. So I see that as a real benefit of professional association participation. One of the participants, a laboratory manager who hires staff echoed my view. She said (I’m paraphrasing), “When I review applications, if the individual’s job experience doesn’t demonstrate leadership experience, I look for participation in a professional association.”

If you are looking to get active in a professional association, the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science is a great place to do that. ASCLS has state chapters in each state and in some cases, those state groups have local chapters. So it is easy to “break in” because it is local. Believe me, if you call the state president and say “I’d like to get active. What can it do?” You will get a job to do. And then the benefits accrue of developing a professional network, knowing more of what is happening in your profession, developing a real sense of influencing the direction of your profession…I could go on and on.

For genetics professionals, the Association of Genetics Technologists offers the same opportunity because though it is a national organization without state chapters, it is relatively small. You get to know people and be known easily at the national level. Once again, an e-mail or phone call to the president, Helen Bixenman, would be welcomed.

There certainly are other professional associations you can join. If they are large and without state chapters, it will be harder to get involved. So I do clearly have a bias here. But the fact is, regardless of the organization you choose, if you want your career to go places – you just gotta join a professional association AND PARTICIPATE!