Career Coaching - 1st session

So part of my career shift involves some career coaching. To get a fresh set of eyes and an experienced brain to help me work on a problem I've been struggling with for the past few years. Tonight I saw a Career Coach and tonight I have a lot to think about.

I attended my first session with a University of London Career Coach this evening. It was only an hour long, and I'd say the first half hour was talking about my histroy: what I didn't like about previous jobs (oh so much, but so little time...) and what I had liked.

Dislikes ran thus:

1) Rigid environments working on tasks with seemingly unbreakable rules. Proofreading was probably a bad choice then.

2) Work environments where I share little/no passions, interests or values with colleagues. C of E isn't for me then!

3) Just generally working on subject matter that didn't move me in any way.

Likes and interests listed as:

1) Recycling, the environment and sustainability and understanding ethical business. Have no experience but read the New Consumer, passionate about recycling and have a real belief that better business practice is the key to helping producers in developing countries to make a fair living.

2) Writing. I used to write for a staff magazine in my first job and I enjoyed that. I think I'd like to write for the general public, breaking down complex issues or raising unchampioned topics and bring them to people's attention. Why? In order to inform, inspire and motivate people to take action, comment or to further inform, inspire and motivate others. A bit like dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples spread (Anyone seen 'Dragon: The Bruce Lee Life Story' :)

3) Working with a website, especially in functionality and design. I'd had a little and limited experience working with copy for the web in the past but I'd like to expand on that. Get more creative and more in control.

4) Though nothing to do with any work experience, I have a great passion for music, especially how music makes people feel and move. It's a little difficult to explain this one, but I'm more of a person who feels music. When I hear something I love, it makes me want to move. Not necessarily dance, but move. Maybe my fingers; maybe just my head. Depends on what it is.

Lyrics have a tendency to produce images in my head and it would be really cool to have an exhibition with art depicting those images with the lyrics written underneath. No explanation, just the verse so people can come to their own conclusions. Not sure how I'm going to make that one work, but if there are any budding artists/photographers out there who want to bounce ideas, let me know.

I can't believe my Likes have outnumbered my Dislikes. That has to be the first time ever!

The conversation then went on to what my ideal job would be. Forgetting about job titles, what kind of environment do I want to be in and what work would I want to do. Well:

A) I'd like to be in a comms or related role in a role where I feel like I'm improving the world in some way.

B) To write copy and put it on the web, and be involved with creating the links, images etc.

c) To work with like-minded people who share my values and passions. To bounce ideas off them, knowing they are likely to improve upon them rather than shoot me down.

To finish, the Coach suggested new ways to research jobs and look at what I wanted. These included:

i) Writing my ideal job description. This would be pooled from my own interests and passions that I've thought of/written down, but also from the parts of job descriptions I was really attracted to when applying for these positions.

ii) To contact people who'd interviewed me for jobs I really wanted and ask them about their jobs, what they had done previously, what they liked/disliked about their job etc. Also to try and contact those people who'd got the jobs I'd applied for and ask them what it is like working in that position for that organisation.

Basically it's a way of researching these jobs in a new way. Previously research consisted of reading the organisation's website and any news I could find about them. It was based on inflexible text, which isn't necessarily complicit with how it works in real life. This new way makes more sense...but only if I can get a response from these people. :)

From this way of fact-finding I can ask questions about the type of people who work in these organisations. What kind of elements of work are involved in these positions. Not just what experience is required. It also has the advantage of creating networks. As I talk to one person I can find out who they interact with, and then ask these people about their jobs. Eventually I could produce a simple, yet fairly accurate, map of an organisation and the positions available there.

So, if you've made it this far I have to say well done. Your reward (if you can call it that) is to find out the big question: would I go again? The answer is most probably, but only after I've done this research. When I first had the idea of going to Career Coach, I thought I would be seeing them every two weeks. That notion's been thrown out of the window. Every month more like. But if the advice is as good as that I've received today, I'd definitely return. I mean, this is my life I'm working on: I have to give it a shot!