Your career: What’s your first, best destiny?

I find myself often considering that what I do for a living is not what I was put on Earth to do.I remember in early High School, there was a lot of pressure to pick a career path. They did a horrible job trying to educate us on what was out there. I picked Advertising more out of pressure to fill out a line on a form than to pursue a burning passion.

In college, I actually pursued a dual major for awhile of Marketing and Computer Information Systems while I tried to figure out which career path to begin. Marketing eventually won out. Thus began my agency-side career.

I’ve had several mid-life career path crisisesssess. Every few years I begin to hate my job, hate being abused by clients, yada yada yada. I’d swear to never take another agency-side job again, but alas, I’m always drawn back to the dark side. So, what do you do when you lose faith in your career path?

READ A BOOK
There are many resources to help people choose career paths.
I’ve read several books. One popular book I never liked is called “What color is your parachute.”

TAKE A TEST
There are plenty of tests to guage your skills, such as comprehension, organization, leadership.

I’ve taken a few. One of the longest and most complex I ever took told me I’m best suited for either:
A. Advertising Account Executive

B. Army Munitions Tester

For real, I’m not joking! The test told me I was already doing what I’m best suited for, but if I want to shake things up a bit, I could try not to blow stuff up. I can’t help but imagine that old cartoon where Bugs Bunny whacks projectiles with a mallet.

How come they can’t suggest something sexy, like a wise and powerful Ninja!

TALK TO SOMEONE
Talk with a close friend. Maybe a Human Resources person in your company. Some people seek out mentors, career coaches and “life” coaches.

SEARCH YOUR FEELINGS
What do you truly enjoy? Was there something you maybe tried once? Can you get a job doing something related? Could you start your own viable business that you’ll enjoy and can pay your rent?

REALITY SETS IN
It’s a lot easier for a single person to pursue their dreams. Once you have a family, there are harsh economic realities, stability and responsibility to consider.

What are your thoughts? Are you living your dream? Please post a comment about it. Thanks.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Use common sense during your job hunt

Over the years, I’ve read many resumes. It amazes me what people include.

Suggestion #1:
Do not put your current work email address on your resume and don’t send job search emails from that account.

Think about it. Your employer keeps records of every email sent, and most likely has archive backups of them — even the ones you think you deleted.
Simply signup for a free Web mail account: Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AIM. You can check them with a Web browser and it’s less likely that you’ll leave a trace.

Also, use a name that sounds professional. JohnSmith@domain.com, JSmith@domain.com are easy to recognize. TummyKitten69@domain.com is bizarre and puts a negative idea in my head about your level of maturity.

Suggestion #2:
Please be clear about when you worked at each job. It is so annoying to see sketchy dates. It just makes me suspicious that you are trying to hide something. It’s okay if you have a gap in your work experience. (It’s understandable that people take time off, travel, change careers, etc.) Just don’t try to hide it.

Suggestion #3:
It may be cool, but I really don’t care if you belong to a medieval re-enactment club. Career advisors no longer suggest to put on personal life interests. It’s irrelevant to the conversation and I need to quickly figure out if you are the right candidate for the job.

Suggestion #4:
Things I typically want to learn about you during an interview…
- Tell me about the teams you worked on.
- Tell me about your managing style and tools you use.
- Describe how you’d handle difficult situations.
- Describe how you’d plan a new project.
- Tell me about your project from hell.
- Tell me about your professional goals?
- What will make you happy in a new job?
- What will discourage you in a new job?

I’ll ask these types of questions to help me piece together what type of account/project manager the candidate will be. I’ll want to get a sense of the candidate’s…
- Competency
- Maturity
- Experience
- Common sense
- Energy and enthusiasm
- Response under pressure
- Willingness to learn from mistakes
- How well he/she will work with internal and external colleagues

I hope you find this useful. Please add your thoughts below.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.