Career Counseling

I feel you. My main issue is I can't even think of a career I'd even want to pursue. That seems important for putting together a resume. I just backed into my current career after graduating college.

10 years later, here I am.

I'm seeing a counselor right now. It is very helpful as a motivational tool and for touching up what is a very thin resume and coaching me on the elevator speech. THat said, he clearly thinks along traditional, corporate lines and prob won't be a huge help in sealing the deal for me. Once I feel like he's coached me up, I'm basically going to move on to work personal contacts. I heartily agree with what someone said upthread:

It's totally worth it if it makes you confront answers you already have.

I have found that sitting face-to-face with basically a stranger, knowing i'm paying well for his time, has pushed me to get past BS personal barriers that have held me up in the past, and just go for broke. Very helpful in that sense.

Always liked Ehrenreich's articles when they appeared in Harper's Magazine, so I looked her up on Amazon to see if she wrote any books and voila.

― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Monday, April 21, 2014 7:16 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she lives in my neighborhood! i moderated a little talk she did on the new book at my house back in september.

My main issue is I can't even think of a career I'd even want to pursue. That seems important for putting together a resume. I just backed into my current career after graduating college.

Oh boy, can I relate. Except I didn't graduate, and it's been over a decade since I dropped out, and I still haven't worked out what I really want to do, or what I might not feel so horribly bad at.

But I'm lucky to have a job at all, I know. And it pays decently enough considering how bad I am at it. But is this really the best I can hope to feel over the next 30+ years? I dunno. I'll be watching this thread just in case inspiration comes.

When I had been out of the job market for about six years and needed a fresh start I had difficulty thinking of what kind of job I could even imagine doing. I spent some time at the career development center at my local community college, took a few tests and did a bit of research before I decided to direct myself at training to be a technical writer. It worked out well for me. But it was around 1993, just before the tech sector really heated up. I was lucky.

Just looked up technical writing as a profession. The sentence: "Although technical writers work in a variety of industries, they are concentrated in the computer and engineering industries" lets me know I could not do this job, lol.

I've been thinking about going back to school to get a masters in social work. I've read a couple of books on the field and I think I'd find it rewarding. Two big drawbacks seem to be pay and the somewhat high probability of burnout.

Off to search ILX to see if there is any threads on social work as a career.

Oh hai I am just finishing my first year in an MSW program; I can counsel u

Oh boy, can I relate. Except I didn't graduate, and it's been over a decade since I dropped out, and I still haven't worked out what I really want to do, or what I might not feel so horribly bad at.

trying to jump ship to a pm job

any thought on these 12 week dev bootcamps? javascript, ruby etc?

You know when you sign up on a jobs website, and in addition to the daily or weekly listings, you get emailed directly from recruiters? Ate those jobs even worth replying to?

BTW, my tablet autocorrected recruiters into terrorists.

makes sense

the second thing. i don't know about the first

They're only emailing, not calling? You're lucky. That said, if I can generalise from my UK IT experience, yes they're worthwhile. They're often clueless, offering opportunities that aren't a good fit for your CV. Even if they're friendly and keen (and less clueless) on the phone, if they don't get a positive response from the employer after submitting your application or even after an interview they won't get back in touch with you, even if you ask how things went. But they do represent you directly so you don't have to bother with tiresome cover letters, they will do the tedious work of finding opportunities, and employers do seem to value them. I'm looking at the moment and I've had three or four interviews via recruiters, none via my own applications. Oh one major downside, once you get in touch with them they will be contacting you for the rest of your life.

Another downside, sometimes they won't leave you alone. Maybe I shouldn't be listening to music through my phone (albeit plugged into a decent amp) but come on, four calls during Fear of Music. My usual strategy is to shout "fuck off" then try and be polite when I actually pick up.

My main concern with these unsolicited emails is identity theft -- am I being paranoid?