Career Intuition: Knowing When to Stay, Leave or Create A Career
- Shannon Hagerty
- Apr 29
- 7 min read
Several places and careers I previously attended no longer exist…
From my high school to the electronic cigarette sales job I had...
They no longer exist physically but have left indelible marks on my soul, but how did I know when it was time to leave? My only answer is: intuition.
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I thought about updating my LinkedIn profile the other day...
Somehow, my old profile was deleted, so I was creating a new profile on the professional social media site, LinkedIn. What’s ironic, though, is that I started realizing my high school no longer exists. My college just closed in 2025. A few of my favorite sales positions I carried completely closed within two years of me holding the position. Like, the sales territory crumbled. So it got me thinking... was my intuition always giving me little hunches when I knew the end was coming?
While it may be completely random, I am sad and maybe a little proud that I kept some jobs afloat for the time I did. And it was so fascinating seeing my resume evolve from the time I started working at age 15 to now.
I don't know about you, but I am always looking for signs my intuition is getting stronger, and my career path tells me exactly what I need to know.
My Young Adult Jobs with Zero Career Intuition
During high school, I worked in retail amongst other jobs like lifeguarding and the donut shop. First, I held an assistant manager position at a store called mishmash that was owned by Limited Too brands. It was a retail store for teenagers that had aged out of Limited Too clothing but weren’t quite adults yet. The store also carried makeup, perfume, candy and accessories. It was perfect for the 14-20 year old age group. Unfortunately, all that makeup was tempting to shoplifters and the loss prevention department worked as hard as the retail girls, which is why it probably only lasted a couple years on the market (2001-2003). It was fun while it lasted, but I left before it closed.
In college, I had two jobs: cocktail waitressing at the Bottleneck Blues Bar in Ameristar Casino and freelancing at MAC Cosmetics before getting hired on as a counter makeup artist. Luckily, both of those jobs still exist. And I know why.
My "Big Girl" Jobs
After college, I moved to Las Vegas to work at an ad agency called SK+G. It was the agency for most the MGM properties as well as a couple luxury resorts like Montage Laguna Beach and Baha Mar in the Bahamas. The agency no longer exists even though most of their clients do.
After two years there, I chose to leave for a higher salary and commission selling online nightlife advertising and ticketing for a company called Track Entertainment based out of New York City. The regional director position was opening after a friend of a friend was moving back home, so I interviewed and got the gig. Coincidently, that was when I started seeing the dark side of Las Vegas from getting drugged at nightlife events and finding out I was dating a married man, but that’s not the part of the story I’m here to tell.
I’m here to say that position went away shortly after I left Las Vegas to pursue a sales career with my uncle’s startup company. I found myself moving across the country to North Carolina to sell electronic cigarettes.
Not-So-Sweet-Carolina
Feeling like a never quite fit in in North Carolina is a huge understatement. I didn’t know where I stood as the only female salesperson on my team while selling a product that was just coming to market. We were fighting the FDA and couldn’t tell if we were selling to tobacco buyers or the electronics buyers.
It was literally a Wild West situation where we were shooting off sales pitches to anyone who would listen.
Finally, we landed the 7-11 account and I became the E-cig account manager for 7-11s across the country. Soon after, I got to visit our company's warehouse in the Quad Cities and realized we were shipping single cartridges of nicotine to stores where the cost of shipping actually outweighed the cost of the goods sold. Here’s where this gets interesting - I lived with my uncle, the CEO of the company, at the time. It took him weeks to listen to the only female salesperson that saw the problem in the warehouse.
We finally updated the shipping policy, but not before we were already losing money. Plus, the warehouse was losing other money by the day on its outdated trucking equipment and c-store products. The writing was on the warehouse wall, so to speak, and I felt like I was the only person that could see it. Or maybe that wanted to see it.
And - you probably guessed it... that position - and the entire company - went under after only 10 months of me working there.
I will say that while I was in Charlotte, I did get to do makeup for Charlotte Fashion Week 2011 and quite enjoyed it! Everything else about Charlotte (other than it being a beautiful city and getting to hang out with my aunt) - was not for me.
Home again... finally.
Career intuition: Found.
When I moved back home to St. Louis, I signed myself up for esthetics school. I hadn’t done a great job of saving so I took out some student loans and started my own business doing wedding makeup to pay for school. I loved it.
Giving and receiving facials almost every day for 10 months during 2012 was easily one of my favorite times in m entire life. After I graduated, I worked for a massage chain for about three months before landing my dream job - a sales Business Consultant for Dermalogica in the Missouri territory.
Working for Dermalogica was a literal dream at first, since I was so well trained on the product line through school that it was easy to sell through education and business consulting experience I had from my prior career paths. It was phenomenal and I was able to grow the territory in several ways.
Then, they hired a Sales Director from a pharmaceutical skincare company to oversee the sales department. And then we found out we were being sold to Unilever. It felt like a double punch in the gut. The part of me that was so excited to work for a worldwide company still owned by a family quickly deflated.
I totally get the reason why Jane Wurwand wanted to sell Dermalogica and don’t blame her for a second. But the stress put on me personally as a sales person, was tremendous. I had lost one huge account due to their restructuring and making up for their deficit was unattainable. They were ordering thousands per month where most my accounts ordered in the hundreds. The stress of making my numbers finally got to me and I had a miscarriage the day before I was supposed to go to the international conference being held in Las Vegas that year.
The emotional turmoil of a miscarriage paired with the stress of increasing sales targets did me in. I decided to let that job go six months later. And the most ironic aspect of this whole stress and let-go cycle? I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter the day after my last day on that job. Turns out using that career intuition to let my "dream job" go was exactly what I needed to move forward in my life.
All that to say, the position I sustained for a little under two years quickly was replaced by another rep and then just as quickly dissolved within two years. Dermalogica no longer has a local Business Consultant in my territory.
Creating My Own Career
After all my "big girl" jobs, I knew I could count on myself as a reliable, skilled makeup artist. Weddings kept me busy working for myself for ten years. Since I had all the knowledge of the skincare and spa industry, I worked part-time at my former esthetics school as an instructor for a few years as well. And now I continue to do professional makeup for corporate headshots, commercial work, music videos, live TV and special clients in addition to intuitive work and coaching.
I’m sure that most people have had places they worked at come and go, but I couldn’t believe how many of my positions no longer exist: mishmash, SK+G Advertising, Track Entertainment, the electronic cigarette company, the Dermalogica position… all gone.
But I am still here using my career intuiton and still creating my own path, while helping others discover their own.
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Evolution and Patterns
The one thing I will say that may be different about me is the tenacity I had at all these careers. I had the unwavering will to succeed until I knew the odds were stacked too far against me. My career intuition definitely helped me identify the pattern these companies were operating in: too much, too fast, bad pricing structures and sometimes... too soon.
In joining forces with all the companies I had before, I did love the lessons, the experience and most importantly - being a part of a bigger group. That’s the one area both my clients and myself struggle with in entrepreneurship - not having a team to bounce ideas and projects off of. That's where coaching masterminds, coaches and peer groups come in play. And they are so helpful.
I will say, all these companies helped me see - and more importantly - feel changes before they actually happened.
I now know what I didn’t know before.
That feeling I have is my intuition. And it happens to work very well in business.
But if I know anything about patterns, I know that if I stay the course with coaching, it will have impact. And that’s how I like to change the world - through strong impact.
Out of curiosity - do you see signs your intuition is getting stronger? If so, we should connect.
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Take care of you,
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