Career Doctor Articles

With the kind permission of the Career Doctor, jfo is able to bring you a series of articles to help you in your work situation and longer term career management

A Career or A Job?

As a career consultant, I should be supporting the theory that everyone should be doing their utmost to find a career path and develop their career. Get a profession, study and become qualified, and grow into it, becoming recognised as a professional, that sort of thing.

This theory is well supported by many people, and is a “self-evident wisdom”. But is it the wisest thing you can do? My target audience for this article are readers in the 18-30 age range, but there are many people who come to my consultancy in the 30-40 age range who have started in a job and now wish they had followed a defined career path. Is it too late for them to get a start in a new career? Most definitely not is my answer, but of course it is more difficult.

The regular readers know that one of my favourite themes is to find a career / job that you are suited to temperamentally, and not one that is fashionable, your parents want you to follow, all your friends are following / studying for, or you think is merely very lucrative.

The IT industry is a classic example. It is seen as modern, “sexy”, lucrative and has a high status. The fact that you may not be suited to it doesn’t always enter people’s minds. There are many IT professionals who have come to me to help them escape from IT, or who have been made redundant and know they have to change career. From these clients I have formed a clear picture of a rapidly changing industry which is very ageist, where 38 is considered “too old and past it”. Many IT clients have told me they are tired of trying to keep up with the ever-faster rate of change and the ever more complex technology.

So, if this is the case, should the younger reader even contemplate going into IT? My answer is to find the most suitable career direction to take, and follow that, be it a career or just a job. If IT would be wrong for you, irrespective of my comments about it, why try to get into it, just because you enjoy playing with your computer, and a job in IT would be “cool”.

My starting point would be to get every piece of advice, from every source, before deciding which career / job to aim for. We use psychometric tests as a starting point, but even they are only a small part of the system we use to help people identify target careers / jobs. It really is essential to define your strengths, weaknesses, preferences, abilities and aptitudes before finding a career / job which takes all these factors into account.

Given that you have really put a huge amount of research and thought into your future employment, should you opt for a career or a job? Some definitions would be in order here.

A CAREER PATH

Some careers, such as doctor or solicitor require a practitioner to be suitably qualified, by law. You simply have to follow a certain course of study and pass the exams before being able to work, there is no other way. Other careers, such as HR or marketing, are so tied up by their respective institutes, that unless you have MCIPD or MCIM after your name, the chances of getting employment in these professions is almost nil. That’s not 100% true, but at least 90%. Adverts for these vacancies are in the institutes’ magazines and the minimum requirement for applicants is “part-qualified” - half-way through studying for the institutes’ examinations. The more senior vacancies specify full membership of the institute. And rightly so.

Careers such as sales or customer services are not so tough to break into as they do not, as yet, have institutes which require examination passes for entry into the profession. Only a matter of time, in my opinion.

So how would I define a career? That is not easy, and doubtless some readers will challenge me, but I would say that a career is a line of work which has a specific entry requirement (often by examination) where the person can put letters after their name. There is often a defined promotion path and for some, this will lead to directorships. Such a career would have status in the eyes of most people, and the financial rewards can be quite reasonable. Examples of careers not already referred to above would include engineering, surveying, purchasing, accountancy, teaching, architecture, etc.

Of course such a sweeping generalisation will have exceptions. For instance I have had several research scientists as clients where, despite impressive qualifications, the financial rewards are derisory. They could have earned more selling secondhand cars. What an indictment on this country!

Just because you have been able to break into a career, that will not guarantee the work you will be doing will be exciting and varied. I have had highly qualified clients who worked in laboratories doing what, in essence, was quite routine and repetitive tasks. They were bored, frustrated, and under-utilised. What a waste of their hard-won qualifications. And their salaries were very low.

If you are not the most academically-gifted person, then why beat your brains out studying for a degree or qualification if this is a step too far? I have lost count of the number of people who have dropped out of a degree course because it was too difficult, then come to my consultancy, tail between their legs, wanting me to rescue them and put them on the right track. I can, and do, but their self-confidence has taken a real hammering and it can take a lot of work to identify the most appropriate future / career direction for them.

JUST THE JOB

After all that the word “job” seems so small. Not even a four-letter word! Most peoples’ concept of a job would include clerk, hairdresser, driver, shop assistant, labourer, parking warden, store / warehouse operator, factory worker, etc. But all these tasks have to be performed and there is no dishonour in working in a shop. So the status thing may be missing, but often the financial rewards can be as high as for those people in a career.

A supermarket manager (with only 4 “O” levels) can be earning in the mid-£50,000 range, (as I know from one of my clients) and I also know some drivers who are earning well in excess of that!

So a job will not require the employee to have passed exams, and from that point of view will be easier to get into. Promotion prospects may be limited, and most job-holders will recognise that they may never be able to become a director. But so what?

A job can be more mundane, repetitive and not very challenging, but there are usually more jobs available than careers and so there can be more choice. The downside of a job is that they can be easier to lose, too! When redundancies are necessary, it is often the unskilled workers who get chosen first. They will be easier to replace than qualified people if the company’s fortunes improve.

THE SKILLED ARTISAN

There is an in-between category of employment that must be examined by the young reader wondering where his / her real future lies. The skilled artisan - plumber, electrician, carpenter, locksmith, car mechanic, etc, are all jobs where the holder has undergone some formal training, such as an apprenticeship. Examinations are usually “City & Guilds”, and are often extremely desirable, if not essential. I’m sure there are some car mechanics out there who have not studied for a City & Guilds. I think one of them tried to repair my car recently, and failed to find the fault.

Skilled artisans can earn serious money. A carpenter I know clears £45,000 a year, pure profit. Not so much status as an HR manager, but status doesn’t buy much in the supermarket.

The career path for an artisan may be limited and few will make their way to the Boardroom, but if you are a “hands-on” type who gets great satisfaction from making or fixing things, then such satisfaction has a value that money cannot replace. Everyone who comes to my consultancy wants to find “happiness” in a job they will enjoy, and they all recognise that such a job, or career, has a value that a greater salary will not compensate for.

BE HAPPY

In conclusion, place a great value on finding the most suitable career / job which will give you all the things you are seeking. Identify those things and try to find the role which will give you most of what you are seeking. Happiness and satisfaction figure high on the lists of my clients, as well as being able to look forward to going to work on a Monday. Do you do that now? If not, then rethink your future, for you are almost certainly in the wrong job, the wrong company or the wrong career.

Good luck!

The Career Doctor is Eric Hearn, Chartered MCIPD and Managing Director of Milverton Career Solutions Ltd, Ascot, Berkshire, UK.

Contact details:
Tel: 01344 624383
Email: milvertoncareers@btconnect.com
Website: www.careerdevelopment.co.uk