Helping and creating: Two factors that lead to career happiness
A few months ago, Nancy and Tom (disguised names and story details) came in for separate career counseling appointments on the same day. It struck me as interesting because they worked in the same building in Hartford and both complained about their jobs for similar reasons. Each felt they were not making a difference in […]
Is Your Career Blocking Your Creative Potential?
“I don’t mean I want to be artist but I don’t just want to do tasks all day. I want to create something, anything.” David said. “I love writing music so much because my creative juices flow. But at work, I just follow procedures.” David commented further, in a refrain I’ve heard before, “and now I […]
What are you building? Twentysomethings, career drift, and brand building
“My older brother’s friend helped me get into this company…” Brittany said. “I never heard of them and didn’t even know what they did”, she continued in her vague descriptions of a company in North Haven, Connecticut. Brittany graduated Fairfield University in 2012. While the recession had lost its vigorous grip on the nation at […]
Twentysomethings: Creating the dream career
In my career counseling work, I don’t help create starving artists. But I do help idealists create realistic dream careers. It is far easier to do so with my twentysomething clients than with my fortysomething clients who live in big houses with a couple of children in the Connecticut suburbs. That whole pay the […]
Time poverty: Another reason to invest in career transformation
“I never have time to do what I want.” Linda said as she described her 6 day per week job. On her 7th day, she didn’t rest. She did errands, housework, and, often more work. A 28 year old from Fairfield, Connecticut, Linda’s temp job as a twenty two year graduate from Conn College in New […]
Parents of Twentysomethings: Your work never ends…!
My original company – The Learning Consultants – remains focused on helping high school students gain admission to colleges of their choice. Due to thousands of clients from that work through the years on the Connecticut shoreline, it seemed natural that most of my career counseling clients would be twentysomethings. Surprisingly, the age range of […]
Career Coach? Counselor? Guide? What do you do?
There are many ineffective career counselors. That’s unfortunate because they give the whole profession a bad name. It reminds me of my days as an attorney. Routinely, someone at a dinner party would make a joke about the ethics of lawyers. Not all lawyers are unethical and not all career counselors are ineffective. The ones […]
You can escape your job
“I feel trapped.” Jim told me. Jim had a conventionally good job, in terms of both pay and prestige, at a financial consulting firm based in Fairfield, Connecticut. Indeed, one of his friends wondered why he would seek career counseling. “You make more money than me”, the friend said. Jim was 38 when he met […]
Career Change Process: Step by Step
“It seems so overwhelming,” Marlene said as she started our career counseling session. “Every year, I go through this cycle of getting more frustrated about my job to the point where I update my resume and start looking at Monster and Indeed. And, then I stop.” When she came in for career counseling, Marlene was […]
Career Choice and Free Time
Dianne told me that she was burnt out. A mid-level manager at a large company in Hartford, CT, she had come in for career counseling because she realized that she needed to change her career in order to improve her life. “My work has taken over my life. I work all the time. I can’t […]