How I got my job
I suspect that in many ways I was a typical baby-boomer skilled employee - I had always easily found jobs, I was highly paid and I took my ability to work for granted. Then came the high tech crash and although I stayed afloat with less satisfying jobs for awhile, when the choices completely ran dry I was bewildered by my inability to work out how to start over. I kept thinking "I'm smart – why can't I figure this out?". I tried retraining – that at least was easy and comfortable but had nothing to do with finding a job. I considered unskilled work, but panicked at the thought. I called my other unemployed friends and got further depressed. Finally I decided I was too old and unemployable. End of story.
Until I called Marjorie Allison, career coach and trainer. With our simple weekly calls she rebuilt my self-esteem, focused my attention on approaches that actually are productive, and taught me new habits about networking and connections. I had always focused on the technical skills I had, she showed me that my research and people skills were the important piece to finding work.
Not that it was all easy even being led by the hand! I was depressed, unsure of my ability to find a job that apparently didn't exist. Each week we would discuss sequential easy tasks that built up productively. I would feel encouraged and upbeat during the call and think "this isn't hard, I can do this". And then during the week I would work through the list and gradually convince my self this was useless and I wasn't doing it well enough and I wasn't making progress. The next phone call Marjorie would help me see how much I had actually accomplished and help me to come up with ideas to further the work. I began to see the groundwork I was building and was able to stop beating myself up as badly.
She sometimes challenged me to things that made me quail "Find three contacts and invite them to coffee to talk about what they've done and what they recommend I do; ask them for further contacts." AGGGHH! How could I do that? I was an unemployed nothing! These people had JOBS! They were categorically different from me! I would be bothering them!! And of course it wasn't like that at all. I called the first one and met with him. He enjoyed talking about himself and giving advice. He didn't bite my head off or anything. Whew. Without Marjorie's common-sense voice in my head letting me know this was normal business behaviour I would never have done this. And I would not have carried through even then if I didn't know that my next phone call with her was coming up – what would I report?
It's a simple package she offers, when seen from the outside. She supports and encourages. She helps you extract the specific business knowledge you do have and puts it in a constructive framework of research steps. She teaches you about "normal" business relationships and networking and how that's part of your life from now on. She encourages again and reminds you that one conversation that doesn't result in a job is still a job well done, a contact made, a brick foundation layer started. Piece by piece, call by call, she builds you and your network up.
And yet this simple package would have been completely impossible for me to do by myself. I was too intimidated by my apparent failure, too easily focused on the skills I was comfortable with and not extending myself to the skills that actually make the contacts that get jobs. Marjorie made that possible in her supportive and "this-is-all-possible" tone of voice. She made it possible with functional, acheivable steps. She made it possible by keeping me focused on the steps to the goal.
The result? My dream job as webmaster of the university. Three years later I'm still here and get calls from the people that I contacted when I was out of work. And I gladly talk to them and tell them about Marjorie.
