Career Advice

[Jon C C on a Bianchi]

Sean

I know the feeling!!!

Ever thought about teaching?

Pay = pretty rubbish, stress = high, holidays = lots

Despite everything still a rewarding and enjoyable job (most days) but don't tell anybody I said this!

Cheers

Jon

[Marky Mark]

Can you ride a unicycle up stairs while drinking a yard of ale during humming the national anthum

[Marky Mark]

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"] Anyone out there in the club that can help look inside my head any help me find a new path?

Sean

[George]

Sean have you thought about a manual or tradesman job like electrician, plumber, plasterer etc you can take a training course to learn the ropes.
Sean remember you can do anything you want but if you work for yourself you can choose your work hours and you get to see a different workplace every day.

[John the old'un]

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"]:lol:
I had, but that would at the start be training and not well [paid if at all. I need to switch careers in the short term and then think about what the long term holds (probably in Taiwan).

Sean

[Snoop Doug]

Sean. This is an important concliusion that you have come to. In a way, it's the easy bit. Take the time to develop the next stages carefully. Coming up with options and then playing with them is good fun.

My story - for what it's worth.

I worked succesfully in the same field (sales and marketing) for a number of years and kidded myself that by doing ever bigger, more complex deals, I was somehow developing. Maybe I was but in a very linear fashion. I could sense the boredom train a comin.

Doing something different.

I began to look at stuff BT did that interested me. I felt it would be easier to broaden my horizons within the current organisation rather than look to make a career and employer change @ the same time. Once I had found some areas of interest, I began to apply them into my day job. Two examples. I saw corporate responsibility and business improvement as exciting and interesting areas to be in. BT practices both to a good standard. I began to learn about them and then to apply them to my sales environment. Very quickly I created value for BT and the customer by integrating stuff that both companies were doing. We began to learn from each other and create some common purpose. I looked for real tangible business benefits to help silence the critics and win folk round. I shared freely at all times. I did not want to follow the old knowledge is power brigade - for me that concept is dead (baby).

So what?

I continued to weave all this stuff together and I became known as a subject matter expert in a couple of areas that I really connected with. My customers responded to me in a way that I could barely get to grips with. It was so positive. Trust, openness and this sense of common purpose accelerated things. Cut a long story short I concluded my most succesful year in sales (by a looooong shot). By finding the measurable benefits in other areas I created the right to ask BT for something different. Basically the business wanted me, I told 'em it was the end of the line for sales (sharp intake of breath) then I told 'em how I could add value in other ways. I took a risk that the "how" I do something was as, if not more important than "what". I spent 30 months building and running the corporate responsibility plans for one of BTs directorates. It was fun, hard work, and hugely satisfying (it's amazing how doing something that lights you up just......takes things to another level). End of last year I was approached by the global division of BT and was asked to go and run a change programme for the UK. I was nervous at first - however it was very nice to be asked and now here I am learning, challenging, failing, succeeding, inspiring etc etc all over again.

I spotted connections and found ways to make them happen. My career has broadened and begun to fit me in ways I couldn't have believed possible a few years ago.

Most things are possible, when you find your strengths and interests, and play to them. I have loads of weaknesses for sure. I don't waste time trying to correct many of those. The real gains come from finding the good and working to make it great.

The Importance of Coaching.

I have two coaches. Let's focus on cycling. I took to TTing beacuse it meant I didn't have to go down hills and I wanted to find a kind of racing I felt I could cope with. I wanted to push myself a bit, share the experience and encourage others to have a go (I'm nothing special, simple as that). Last year I felt like I took the final point a long way. I wanted to take it further but how...? In 2006 I became an enthusiastic, and crappy time triallist. I was the bloke who gave others the confidence to turn up safe in the knowledge they wouldn't come last. That was fine. Where to go from there?

Richv approached me and offered to give me some coaching. Being familiar with coaching in a work and social sense, I jumped at the chance. Richard has helped me evolve all the way from last place to the giddy heights of mid-table mediocrity. He has advised, planned, measured, listened. Yes I did the hard work turning the pedals through the winter. He gave me the motivation and responsibility to turn them. In April 2007 my 25 TT time was 1.15.41. Whoop de doo. In May 2008 I did a 1.4.50. Do the maths - I could not have achieved this without Richv's support. There's more to come. Apply the theory to work and such like and hopefully you see where I'm coming from.

Lastly - we only get one crack. Work is a big part of what we do and so it is VITAL that it's got a good mix of pleasure, pain, learning, growing etc built in. You owe it to yourself, your family, your mates to think carefully and build some considered options up. Take the time to do this well and I think you will learn loads.

I'm happy to expand on this stuff either 1:1 or as a group over a few beers.

Nuff said - Snoop

[Snoop Doug]

d'oh!! Took me so long to write the last piece that things appear to have moved on a tad. So - option 2 is to take existing skills, overlay those onto a company you like the look of. Move there and then see above.

Snoop

PS - the temporary option can look inviting. I have tried it a couple of times - it has risks, it also has uses if you are really on the ragged edge.

[Marky Mark]

I got my present job through an agency, I went in there not knowing what the hell I wanted to do, they sat me down and taked it out of me because I'm shy and had my first job from leaving school for 16 years.

The advice I got was free and I did not have to take it, it's good to get somebody elses piont of view who does not know you, Snoop sounds like a good man to sit down over a beer and talk things through.

Sorry about the path thingy, you shoud know me by now, I'm a child stuck in an adults body.

Good luck... Marky Mark

[MJ_1993]

Import export. Choose what you want to import etc etc. seems pretty flexible to me, i read a book on it last year, seems alright stuff. Jeremy J. Fox has some good books if you do want to set up your own firm.

wait. why dont you set up your firm importing taiwanese goods. carbon bikes out there are pretty good. use sage winforecast (yes its long but its a necessary evil) to do up a business plan and have a look around.

what are you doing at the moment?

[MJ_1993]

I see. Well you could always set up your own management firm, and create a cycling team have a few sponsors and become a DS...

Well i guess your career path depends on what you want to do and where you want to go...

[Dombo]

I once had outplacement provided by a US investment bank that let me go, about 6 years ago. The advice, which I ignored, was to consider my outside interests and whether a career could be made from them. While owning a bike shop, becoming a professional photographer or mountain bike guide had attractions, the reality of mortgage, school fees and eating meant that I remained a banker (quiet at the back, Finbar). I had however taken a series of extra qualifications that let me move from the sell-side to the buy-side, which I prefer.

You need to consider what you would REALLY like to do and whether you can make a decent living from it. If not, then look at whether your skills are transferrable to other businesses or fields of work. Often you can feel as if you are in a rut because you're simply in the wrong firm and just get demoralised. It' s never too late to change - an old college mate of mine has just qualified as a clinical psychologist, having done a business degree over 20 years ago and worked as a money market trader for several years.

As others have posted, you can often get good advice from headhunters or perhaps even pay a career coach to have a detailed discussion with you.

[Dombo]

Somebody mentioned sourcing carbon frames from Taiwan and importing to the UK - you have the perfect name to put on them, sort of a cross between Sean Yates and almost Barry Hoban
Whatever happened to Ken Bird?

[Mike I]

Sounds like a mid-life crisis to me Sean. I recommend a new bike or at least a groupset upgrade. What's that? Oh!

Seriously though, I know just the person. I've sent you a pm.