About Me & Job Search Mentoring

Hi and welcome to Job Search Mentoring.com

My name is Anthony, and I'm the developer and owner of this website. I'd like to share a little of my story with you....some of my own career history and experiences, how and why I became a careers adviser, and what motivated me to establish this website.

Background

Being a job search coach and careers adviser, you might expect that I've had a perfectly planned career, and that everything turned out exactly as I planned. Sounds good, right? But the reality has been somewhat different.

It's true that at various times in my career I actually had a career management plan, without necessarily knowing that's what it was. At times I've set some quite specific goals about my career direction, and I've also identified and taken action on professional development opportunities to enable me to progress in my career. And.... in most cases, I was reasonably successful in achieving what I set out to do.

One thing for sure is.....I've had a lot of jobs! So, rather than offer you text book ideas about career management planning and job search, what I'm happy to share with you on this website is my own personal experience in job search, and the insights I've gained about effective career management.

Anyway.....back to my story!

I've also made some really rotten career choices, in particular those made on impulse. I've certainly been guilty on occasion of jumping into a career change opportunity, more than once in fact, that proved not to be as good an opportunity as I'd thought. Had I done my due diligence things may have turned out quite differently I'm sure.

Please don't get me wrong here. I'm not having a whinge about my life and career. On the contrary, I've been blessed in my life. And..... I've learned a lot along the way (and am still learning) about things that can contribute to my understanding of how to enjoy a rewarding career, and more broadly to how to live a truly fulfilling life.

A snapshot of my early career

When I finished school I had no idea about the type of job or career that I wanted. I definitely had no idea at that time about what was involved in making informed career choices.

My parents advised me to go to college and study, and then get a secure job with a good employer..... working for someone like the government, or one of the banks.

I chose to study part time and did in fact start my career in a bank right after leaving high school. At that stage I wasn't thinking in terms of career, it was just my job and it was sort of ok - boring at times, but hey the pay was regular!

In my late 20s I was transferred into the bank's training and development department and this proved to be a major turning point in my life and career. Note: The decision for me to work in this area was made by my employer, not me!

Without giving this any major thought I chose to go along with this - in effect handing over responsibility for my career to others!! This is completely contrary to the beliefs I have now about career management.

I was initially very reluctant to go into the training and development field, mainly because I was a little shy, and had a dreadful fear of public speaking - this of course being a key requirement of the job.

The first 6 months in that job were just awful, and even today I'm not sure why I stuck it out. Developing the skills of helping other adults to learn proved to be enormously challenging, as was overcoming the fear of standing up in front of groups of people, large and small, and facilitating training sessions.

Bit by bit however things began to change.....I started to enjoy what I was doing. A lot of the training I was required to conduct related to helping others to develop many of the key skills required in life and career. Things like:

• Interpersonal communication skills.
• Techniques for providing customer service, as well as sales, negotiation and conflict resolution skills.
• Leadership and team working skills.
• Management skills.
• Strategic planning and goal setting skills.

I began to take a deep interest in the field of psychology. I also started to extensively read success literature; I was intensely curious about success principles and attitudes, and began to incorporate these sorts of concepts in my courses, and also began to apply them in my own life.

The whole area of marketing was another area of keen interest, and in particular the "how to" of influencing and persuasion. I recently heard someone describe the field of marketing as being the art of influencing people's perceptions. This of course is directly relevant to self marketing and job search.

In summary, I found the field of training and development to be stimulating and exhilarating - being able to play some small part in helping others to be all that they could be in their lives, getting actual feedback from people that I'd helped them in some way, was enormously gratifying for me.

The result of all of this personal and professional development, which happened in my late 20s and early 30s, was that I took my first ever, conscious, career decision - which was to leave the security of banking, and to make the field of adult training and development the focus of my career.

Where to from there?

Training and development became my area of professional specialisation. I had training jobs in a number of industries, except for a stint as a recruiter in a professional recruitment firm in the IT sector. I worked as a trainer fields such as:

• Tourism and hospitality
• Retail and wholesale
• Government and local government
• Manufacturing
• Higher education
• The banking industry
• Self employment in training and development consulting

In several roles I also had senior management responsibility for the training/human resources functions in the organisations that I worked for.

Along the way I relocated my family several times to pursue my career, so I also have personal experience with some of the issues that can arise as a result of that decision.

My move into job search coaching

In the late 90s I decided to acquire formal qualifications to enable me to practice as a personal counsellor. My intention originally was to set up a private practice as a relationships counsellor.

While attending a professional development course for counsellors, and as a result of networking with another participant, I was given the opportunity to work in the career transition field, working as an outplacement consultant.

Not familiar with the term outplacement? Well it means this.....organisations like the one I worked for, exist to assist people to find a job. Our clients were exclusively people who had lost their jobs due to redundancy or retrenchment to find another job. The organisation that I worked for however didn't find the work for our clients. Rather, we coached them in how to find work for themselves.

What's the saying?

"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life".

This approach of teaching others how to be self sufficient in managing their careers and job search is central to my philosophy as a careers adviser.

And that's how I got started as a job search coach, more than 10 years ago.

What am I doing now?

Since then I've worked full time as a careers adviser for a university working with graduates and post graduates, including PhDs, and assisting them to prepare career management plans and to coach them in job search techniques.

I also have my own part-time business as a careers adviser and job search coach. This involves working with clients face to face, and since March 2010, establishing this website. Click on the link to see how I did this with the help of SBI.

So why have a website?

Well......my own career management plan involves setting up a source of income that will leave me financially independent, so that I don't have to rely on the whims of an employer, if I don't wish to, for my financial security.

My time working in the outplacement field provided a continual reminder that there is no such thing, really, as job security. I met and assisted many honest, reliable, terrifically talented people who gave their heart and soul to their job and their employer.

In return for their effort and loyalty, these people, for reasons not of their own choosing, were 'let go' by their employer.

I'm not suggesting, by the way, that their employers were acting unjustly or dishonestly in making jobs redundant; often the bosses were equally traumatised in having to let their people go.

But it reminded me, that even with the best intentions of an employer, there really is no guarantee anymore of job security, for anyone.

That's also why I am so passionate about helping people to become more self sufficient in managing their careers..... to show them how to make informed career choices and be able change their job or career if they wish to do so.

My career management philosophies

Some of the beliefs and philosophies that underpin my approach as a job search coach and careers adviser are:

• We have the power of choice in our lives - it is therefore possible to plan for what we want in a career.
• Setting goals is extraordinarily empowering for an individual - our goals provide a focus for our attention and effort.
• Preparing action plans to achieve goals, and implementing the action plan are also essential success factors - as someone once said "If it is to be, it is up to me!"
• What we are capable of achieving in our lives is limited only by our imagination.
• Life is far too short to put up with a job or boss that you hate.
• If don't have the confidence, or self belief to implement positive change in your life, it is entirely possible for you to change this.

In Summary

To summarise what this website is about, and my approach to job search mentoring, I'd like to paraphrase "teach a man to fish" - find a person a job and they will have work for today, teach a person how to find a job and they'll always have the ability to find employment.

My goal for this website is to provide you with comprehensive information and access to resources that will assist you to prepare your own career management plan and the tools to implement your plan, which would usually involve preparing a job search strategy.

Thank you for taking time to read my story! If you would like to contact me about a career related or job search strategy question, please use the form below.

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I'm more than happy for people to contact me with questions about career management and job search strategy.

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Questions that others have asked

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