career advice?

[cupcake_girl]

hopefully I'm posting this in the right section (my first thread.) Can anyone recommend a good career consultant?

I am 7 years into the career I went straight into after university and I am really not enjoying my job. There are lots of consultancies out there who offer the pyschometric testing and give advice on alternative careers and work environments, but I'm not sure how to tell any of them apart. I've read different books and done on-line tests, etc, but think it would be useful to talk to an impartial third party. I have tried "life coaching" but it is not really me - I want to talk to someone who can give me practical advice and suggestions.

[felt-tip]

sounds like you might be a lawyer.

try this: http://www.moretolaw.co.uk/

i spend days reading it and sighing resignedly to myself.

[Mark]

What would you like to do? What can you offer people?

[Nero]

The Guardian's 'Work' section on Saturday has a careers Agony Uncle you can write to. If that sounds a bit long-winded, I would suggest listing what you like, what you don't like, what you are good at, what you are bad at etc and seeing what broad conclusion you can reach. It is also worth remembering that 'having the best job in the world' is a pretty recent ambition and that pretending you have to love - as opposed to like/tolerate - your job is a 'must have' only in the realms of Sunday supplements and glossy, high-end women's/men's mags. I don't mean you shouldn't strive to do something that's right for you, but don't fall into the slavish trap of having to have it all, including a wonderful, enriching, soul-enhancing career.

[womanofdulwich]

It might be that you can keep to the same kind of career but work for a different type of operation?

For example you might find working for a private practice/ public/third sector is a better place to be. Sometimes it is the people you work with that drag you down. If you think it might be that then you might be better of talking to an agency that specialises in your area of work, a touchy feely type of conversation. It is very hard to get this kind of advise,as you may find that you know more than the person you consult, although they may put a fresh light on it. Do you have a professional body that might be able to assist?

Can you ask co workers if they ever feel like this?- what have others done about it? You have a long working life ahead of you,and when my partner was 7 years out of uni he felt the same, and ended up doing a 3 year masters degree after work and eventually changed job. It is a bummer though because if you change dramatically you may have to take a paycut, and you probably have reached a point where you do not want to change your income too much.

I agree about life coaches, but maybe you could try and find someone by personal recommendation. I suspect a lot of people feel like you at about this stage of their career. Good luck.

[cupcake_girl]

Thank you all for your suggestions which are really helpful. It is good to get other people's perspectives. I was always quite good at most things at school, but never excelled in one thing so it's hard to work out what I could do. It's proving quite difficult to think of what I could do well and where the good days / fun bits are in higher proportion to the bad days / dull bits. My dream would be to do something cake related (and have been going to cake dec classes and trying to develop skills and experience in that area) but I can't see how that could be anything other than pocket money to subsidise a hobby.

I've booked a week off at the end of the month to focus on all this and aim to get a proper plan in place.

felt-tip - good guess, you're not far off!

Nero- I completely agree with you that there is no such thing as the best job in the world, I just need to find a better fit than I have at the moment. I'll give the Guardian a go.

woman-of-dulwich - yes, there are some right "mood hoovers" where I am! thank you for the suggestions.

thank you everyone! appreciated.

[genwilliams]

I'm also a bit lost, career-wise - left my last long-term job at Xmas and decided I didn't want to work in that industry any more, after 3 yrs working in it (and 6 years trying to get into it!). Long hours, night work, much commuting, and I just didn't enjoy it anymore. And now I have to find a viable replacement.

I have no idea what I want to do in the long term - I'm not looking for the dream job because I know I change my mind a lot - I just want something tolerable with reasonable job security that will allow me to maintain my current living situation. I guess I'm trying to find a balance. Temping as much as possible, mainly PA/admin stuff, and starting to think about little creative side ventures I can pursue that make use of what I studied at uni and might at least give me some pocket money if nothing else.

Meanwhile a friend has offered me a job that on the one hand could be really fun and a great learning curve, with pretty good job security; on the other it would mean a pay cut (though a regular income would be still better than what I have right now), a long commute and put me at the bottom of the ladder again (effectively a paid apprenticeship, abandoning the experience I've spent this year trying to build up) - it would be a total change of tack. I'm tempted by it but not sure if I'd be doing the right thing.

I could really do with talking to a career adviser of some kind, to get an idea of how realistic my options are and what on earth I do next!

[Brendan]

I used to have all sorts of delusions about career fulfilment and satisfaction and stuff but I have been much happier since I to changed my priorities to having a nice place to have lunch and a comfortable chair.

These things are more important than we give them credit for.

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[sophiesofa]

I'm also thinking of a career change and have recently set up 3 days of shadowing a design & technology teacher to see if that's the job for me. If you did find a career you were interested in it might be worth approaching someone to see if they'll let you shadow them (although probably quite hard for most professions) or at least a quick phone call to discuss what it's really like. Best of luck