At the beginning of 2007, I started a new job. I wasn’t particularly fed up with my old job, but there wasn’t much place else for me to go there, and I needed more money. So I took a position with a very, very large company that gave me a substantial boost in pay.
Nine months later, I find myself incredibly frustrated. I spend my days in a bleak, bland office where no one talks to anyone else, unless it’s over IM. The skills I wanted to develop by coming here are languishing. The company’s sheer size gives me a constant “cog in a machine” feel.
“Find another job,” you might say. But there’s more to it than that. I keep having this nagging feeling that I’m meant to be doing something else. That there’s a job out there that would make me really happy, yet I don’t quite know what it is. Right now I work in the media, and yet I also find that I don’t think much of the media at all. And I’ve also grown kind of tired of keeping my political views under wraps, at least in public.
I look at the job listings every day and only rarely see something that appeals to me. Yet a part of me feels that I’m just not looking in the right way, because I’m so used to working in one industry at this point.
My fiancée has suggested that I look into a career counselor. I read online about one, and it was really expensive. And I don’t want to spend that kind of money unless it’s really going to help me find a job that would make me happy. So has anyone ever used one before? Was it effective?
I used one once, but it was through the alumni association for my University, so it was very inexpensive (like $20 for a registration fee). I went to a UC school and we get privileges throughout the system, so I was able to use UC San Diego’s facilities, even though I graduated from Berkeley.
They had me take an on-line aptitude test (which showed that, among other things, I’d make a good career counselor.) I also talked a couple of times with one of the counselors who set me up with some informational interviews in the area and eventually got me a short contracting job that held me over until I found something permanent. However, I got the permanent job through the regular old want ads, on my own. The counseling center had lots of information about local businesses and people willing to do informational interviews or mentor in other ways. I was concerned at first that they would only be useful to recent grads, but I think it was helpful in getting me focused on what to look for. I was making a career change out of academics at the time. Overall, I’d use them again.
I don’t know about expensive ones, but the generic kind I’ve dealt with have all been marginally useful. Sponsored by either the union or the city, they mainly get you thinking about things yourself. Sometimes they’ll tell you something specific that you’ve got wrong. “Oh, don’t put your hobbies on a resume, unless they are specific to that field.”
I did the alumni career counseling thing once. It was OK. I probably could have made better use of the resources. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it again if a similar situation arose.
Around here, community colleges and university non-credit programs often have classes that are designed to help people find their career direction. They seem pretty reasonably priced.
There are a lot of people out there calling themselves career coaches and charging money, and the quality really varies. I’d try any free/ low cost options before taking a chance on one of them. I think many career coaches are more useful at motivating people than providing information. You sound motivated, but could maybe benefit from taking some of those tests and getting them interpreted, and having contact info for a lot of local employers, like a university or community college would have.
Come to think of it, the best advice I got was from an artist: “I had a good paying job and a fancy house that my fancy wife decorated to suit herself. When we split I we had to liquidate the house. She put her share down on a smaller house and became instantly poor. I got this live-work space in an old warehouse down by the tracks. I only have to sell enough for food. And I feel the better off.”
Yeah, I just went to my university’s (Go Spartans!) alumni association page, and they do offer career services. I just hope they’re useful since I’m pretty far away from school now. But it sounds like I wouldn’t lose much money trying them out anyway.
The actual counseling and test interpretation (if they do that) will be just as good. Also, since DC is such an employment mecca, they’ll probably still have some referrals. If you were in some nonentity town, that would be different. Good luck!
Your city’s career center may be useful once you have an idea what you’d like to do. My job is completely different than anything different career aptitude tests recommended, so I don’t know how helpful you would find them.
The career center often has job listings that are unavailable on regular job sites. If you are changing careers, they will have lists of contract or volunteer placement agencies that can give you experience and let you explore different fields.
My advice is to start from scratch. What are your interests? What are you good at? Then do some research into different jobs, no matter how crazy. See if you can shadow or interview someone with an interesting job.
When I did that, I ended up deciding to be a nurse instead of a librarian, and to volunteer with the Humane Society so I could still work with animals. Of course you’re coming from a position of having a degree and a job that pays well. There are books with good advice about financing a career change, going back to school, etc. if you need them.