Carol S. - Green in a Green JobMany of our clients decide to stay in their existing occupations, and primarily need a new job. But our readers especially enjoy hearing about success stories when it involves people who have gone through more than just a change of employers. Carol was a great example of someone who decided to do just that. She had a successful career in manufacturing as a coordinator and process engineer, and when her job ended, she did not want to return to that. She had a strong science interest and, after our exploration with her, Carol decided that she wanted to work in environmentally green industries or services.
Her story deserves notice because she did everything right. She had more interest in green than she did experience, but she had strong interest, and accepted that she would have to come in at a more modest level than the job she'd left. She examined her finances with her husband and decided she could give up some income for personal fulfillment. Carol assessed what skills and abilities she had, from her past work, from her self-education, and from other sources. We rewrote her resume and developed with her a verbal presentation (her "elevator speech") about her background and why she is making this change. We researched opportunities, mostly by getting off of the computer and having conversations with people in the community. At times she became discouraged, but when she had meaningful contacts with key people, it bouyed her and kept her going. In what felt like to her a long time, but was in reality only two or three months, she had developed a list of advocates for her, was in touch with the decision makers, re-calibrated her resume and skill set based on what she learned was important for them, volunteered with related groups, and landed a paid job. Carol was thrilled to be doing something she found meaningful to her, and no longer has that dread of Mondays. She did it by applying the basic principles of self assessment. preparing her campaign, and getting out into the community. |
