Pulling Out All the Stops

Yesterday I volunteered to critique resumes at a local job fair. I met with a young women who had just earned her master's degree in school counseling. She was bemoaning her lack of a job, saying that area schools (she meant public schools) were just not hiring. I asked her a series of questions and her answers immediately showed me that she had not pulled out all of the stops in her job search. Had she gone to her university's career center for help?... had she looked into employment in any private schools in the area?...had she joined any professional associations or her alumni association and tried networking through those?...had she tried social networking sites?...had she expanded her search outside of this area, especially into places where there were immigrant populations speaking the languages that she speaks? and finally, had she considered her transferable skills and how to use them to secure employment in another area of counseling?...Obviously, this young women had not...and that is one reason that she does not have a job right now.

In this market, it is very important to "pull out all the stops" and leave no stone unturned when looking for a job. Make sure that you do.

Career Change and Networking

I recently read a blog entry written by an MBA who has spent the last seven years in the financial world. He has decided that he wants a career change but has been having trouble making connections. It has just occurred to him that while he has many connections in the financial world, he has yet to establish any in his target career. How can he establish such connections when he has no experience as yet in the new career (much less a job or any training)? My advise to him would be to work with a career coach who expertise includes how to network and how to get experience and contacts in your new career. Remember, the best investment you can ever make is in yourself>

Starting a Private Practice-Colleagues to the Rescue

Here is what it takes to begin a private practice.

A New Reality

One of the things that I enjoy as a career coach is the variety of clients that I service. Besides my private practice, I also volunteer at my local one stop career center where I use my group skills with a new collection of people each week, many of them immigrants to the US. It always strikes me how different we are as a people and yet how similar. What I am hearing from all my clients is how the "new reality" of job and career search is challenging the mental and perhaps even physical health of most of us, and what I continue to tell everyone, from the newest immigrant to the executive at mid career is the following: continue to hang in there, work your network, prepare career plans A, B and maybe even C, be positive, and be good to yourself even in the smallest way. Remember that you are the president of "You" Inc. and it is in your best interests now and in the future to always be prepared for changes in your work life.

Over on Career 'Rocketeer'

Have a look at this article about Making a Career Plan. It appears on Career Rocketeer, which is also on my linklist to the right.

"Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work"

I recently read an essay entitled "The Case for Working with Your Hands" based on this forthcoming book by Matthew B. Crawford, which will be soon published by Penquin Press. The essay, like the book, puts forth the premise that many of our young people, in their parents' quest to provide them with future "success" are hustled off to college and pointed at "cerebral" professions rather than allowing attention to be paid to natural tendencies for "hands on" work. Therefore education and work become "abstract and distant". The author makes quite a case for his theories.

Nothing in this essay surprises me. As a coach who has spent lots of time assisting adolescents in making post secondary choices, I have been aware for years of the disconnect in our American culture between what is seen as "real" work and hands on work. Mike Rowe, the star of "Dirty Jobs", a popular television show on the TLC network, has stated that Americans have declared war on work, or "hands on" work. Parents, before you begin talking to your children about post secondary education, which I agree all young people need, make sure that in your desire to do the best for them, you allow their personalities, interests and abilities to help drive their choices. A four year degree from a college or university is not the only answer, and in this day of outsourcing and massive layoffs, a young person who is equipped to earn a living with both his brains and his hands can indeed do very well in life.

Creating a Career Transition Plan

Have you ever done anything of major importance without developing a plan of action first? People who are buying a home, getting married or taking some other big momentous step in their lives usually try to insure their success by making a plan of action first, and then sticking, more or less, to it. Surely this must also be true in making a career transition. When you are ready to look for the answer to the question "What will be my next career step?", try making a plan of action first! Assess all aspects of yourself, update your resume, research, pay very close attention to networking and not just Facebook or Twitter, develop and set short and long term goals, and be flexible enough to make adjustments along the way. How can you do all of this? With the assistance of a career transition professional, of course! Don't think you can do it all yourself! You hire a realtor to help you select a home, you partner with a wedding planner to give a wedding; why not find a career coach to help you take that next very important career step? You will be glad you did.