Career Change Specialist & Consultant in London Career
change calls for analysis My advice as a career change specialist would be the same as anyone choosing a first career, although, transferable skills and experience play a greater part. It is
vital to first consider motivation, ability and personality….what one wants to do and what one is able to do in terms of natural talent and skills, and personal qualities. Then, place this in the context of lifestyle, choice of location, what one’s true needs are, and what one’s partner’s needs and wishes might be.
To ensure maximum fulfillment, drive and success,
Other considerations may stem from external factors, such as a need to pay school fees and support a family, or a desire to live in a certain area. Values may fuel a desire to ‘give something back’ or to have greater ‘life-work balance’. It is not true that everyone is motivated by money; some people would take less pay to have work which is more interesting, creative, meaningful or intellectually challenging. Some people do not want the headache/challenge of responsibility. This could all be explored with the help of a career change consultant.
Motivational mismatch As a London based career change professional, I have assessed many clients who have no belief in the cause. One highly successful City Economist was not motivated to ‘make money for rich companies’. He felt stressed and unfulfilled, commenting that he was prostituting himself daily in his work, and his values clashed with the culture. He further felt pressured by his wife’s desire that he should remain a highly paid position to maintain their lifestyle! It is not always necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He was well matched with figure-work and an advisory role, but motivations pointed to his working for a more worthwhile body, in Development Economics. When last in contact, he was contentedly working for a Development Consultancy in South America.
Someone’s ability to perform a task depends on natural talent, training, knowledge and skills. Some clues regarding aptitudes can come from academic and work
successes, and people tend to like activities they are good at. What did
subjects you did best at have in common? Are you stronger at logical, verbal,
numerical or visual/practical activities? Could you have undiscovered talents? How
do you compare on a task with peers and is this a talent relative to your other
strengths? Obviously, a career change specialist will be able to help identify occupational matches.
Often, through determination and training, people have
proven successful against the odds, but it is obviously much easier to play to natural talents!
Aptitudinal mismatch Working in career change in London, I have assessed clients who thought themselves to be strong in a certain area, but who were found to have different talents. One Oxford graduate and Barrister, was shown to have a very low score for Verbal Reasoning. Through hard work, she had passed her Law examinations, but knew it had not come naturally. The Aptitude Profile was, actually, a relief, in that it confirmed her thoughts. She thought that she was good with words because she had done well in English at school. However, she had been inspired by a good teacher, and her success was more a reflection of a creative and sensitive personality, than natural verbal ability. Her highly academic family had encouraged reading at an early age, and had pushed her towards Oxford and Law. Several years later, this client was enjoying studies in in Architecture and winning student prizes.
As a career consultant in London, I have seen how personality can be mismatched with a career or role. Do you prefer dealing with people or things, and with objective or subjective subject matter, and do you fair better in a maintenance or change-oriented
position? Are you a leader or team member? Do you want to work independently or in a team? Can you multi-task and handle the pressure and responsibility of management?
Is your personality mismatched with the organisation? Do you thrive in the structure and bureaucracy of a large organisation or would you be more suited to a dynamic, unstructured and unpredictable small firm. Should you be self-employed? Should you work in the commercial or not-for profit sector?
What personal qualities, traits and skills are strengths? What are weaknesses? Where could this actually be considered a strength (e.g. a software developer may not need to be extraverted)? A career change specialist will be able to help with this matching (recognizing that personality factors do change with time and can be situational). Stress can be a predisposition or externally evoked. If stressed, someone may be more impatient, irritable and even bullying to others; what was the person’s usual behaviour previously? Has it changed? Are they straining to put on a mantel and play the part every day?
Personality mismatch As a career change expert working in London, I have assessed many individuals in jobs they did not match. One ‘superwoman’, managing a high-powered position and family, had an excellent track record when she landed the position of International Marketing Director with a National Public Sector Body. She had prided herself on a dynamic, ‘can do’ style, but found resistance from others in her new role. She told herself she was imagining things when others seemed to be excluding her, being obstructive and withholding vital information. It became increasingly hard to do her job, but she wondered whether ‘an early menopause’ was contributing to stress. One day, she crashed; she was an emotional wreck, unable to get out of bed or perform daily chores. Signed off for one year, she took a severance package. Insufficiently
self-aware to recognize the mismatch with her own style and that of a Public
Sector body, she had alienated colleagues with poor emotional intelligence and
an insensitive, dictatorial approach. She did have the outgoing, analytical and
creative personality for Marketing, but was better suited to a smaller and more
commercial firm. She acknowledged that she needed to develop softer people
skills, but that this would have been less of a problem if better matched with
the organisation .
Self-assessment is necessary if to consider the best matched career, role and organisation is the (sometimes only the role or organisation needs to change). Once the goal is clear, the change can be planned…..what practically needs to happen? Employers tend to favour those in work, so do not hastily resign and then decide. Is further study required? Could a leisure interest become a career (one client, a 47 year-old senior PA, had already studied garden design for interest and actually tended to all her neighbours’ gardens, so she was able to quickly transition to landscaping)? Are you able to finance a change/study (could someone subsidise, could you work part-time, could you sell or rent your property or would it be possible to downshift or relocate to a cheaper area?)
As a career change consultant, I am told by many people that they have found positions through contacts. Who do you know? Would they offer work experience? A career assessment should make clearer why you want to change and why you are
right for this new field.
Speak to several experts
and all will have a different view on how a CV should be written! Your CV should
be a sound self-marketing document, fostering an image of what type of person
you are, flagging skills and what you have to offer. As a career change
consultant, I have seen people visibly grow in confidence once they have
created a compelling CV. They rediscover what a valuable contribution they have
made in the past, and they have clear evidence of what they have to offer to a
future employer.
Are you looking at a career change in ? Worry no more as Sherridan Hughes provide Careers by Design throughout and the surrounding areas for anyone looking at changing their career.
As a qualified career consultant, I hold more than 28 years experience as a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. A lot of my work has been with career counselling and advising those looking at career changes and with most clients coming from recommendations, you are getting the finest career guidance in the area.
Ripple Effect The ripple effect that I am proud of often results in my services being used across whole families, friends, work colleagues and even their offspring. I have a solid track record with clients in and with competitive fees, you will not find career change advice like this elsewhere. My services have even been recognised by BBC News 24, Radio 4 and The Times for being professional, reliable and at an expert level.
Career Change Advice When it comes to changing careers it is important that you get professional advice from those in the know. That s why I provide my services to anyone looking at changing their career and ensure they ask themselves the important questions before making the change. These include:
Is my CV up to date? What are employers looking for? How can I shine in an interview? How do I make sure this career is right for me? And more
Contact Me Get in touch to find out more about career change advice in by calling 020 8769 5737 .