| Career Advice and Help Australia CareerNav

How to make career enhancing decisions

About the Author

Anne Parker

Anne Parker has an Arts degree and post graduate diploma from Monash University and is a registered secondary school teacher with 30 years of teaching experience in French, History, Career Education and Psychology. She has held positions of Coordinator of Languages other than English (LOTE), Coordinator of Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE)and Coordinator of Career Education. These roles involved implementing major curriculum reform of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development(DEECD). An elected committee member of the Career Education Association of Victoria

(CEAV) for 2 years including 3 months as interim Executive Officer, Anne was involved in significant change management, setting of standards of training of Career Development Practitioners and the ethics governing Practitioners in line with the national peak body the Career Industry Council of Australia (CICA). In 2008 she commenced Careertactics, her own consulting business.

By Anne Parker

The choice is yours or is it?

You would hope that your career choices would be your own but this is not always the case. You could be faced with changing employer or even your occupation because you’ve been made redundant or the industry you work in has collapsed. This happens with economic downturns and changing technology.

At times you may choose to change your occupation or employer to get out of a rut, to further your career or for lifestyle reasons. Also, opportunities may arise from time to time: an offer to work in another department, a chance to work in another location or a promotion.

In each of these situations you come face to face with choices. Sometimes the choice will work in your favour, other times in hindsight you may regret your choice and that’s life. But you would always be aiming to further your career.

Personal beliefs versus career decisions

Our career decisions are influenced by personal beliefs and attitudes and at the end of the day you want to feel comfortable with the choice you make at each turning point. For example you may hold the view that city living is not for you. This attitude reduces your employment opportunities considerably but it satisfies an attitude that’s important to you.

Religious and cultural beliefs may dictate some of your choices and decisions. For example if you are not permitted to work certain days or hours of the week this could also restrict your career opportunities.

These beliefs and attitudes are not an issue unless they are in conflict with your career goals and there are some strategies for overcoming these conflicts of interest:

Be up front with your employer about any religious or cultural traditions you are bound by and try to negotiate a mutually acceptable arrangement. For example if you can’t work certain days you could offer to work late a few times to compensate.
Combining work and family needs can sometimes be overcome by working from home part of the week or working flexible hours.

The career magical mystery tour

It’s amazing the twists and turns that a career can take. How many people end up doing what they originally planned I wonder?

Here are two examples that show how choices and opportunities have altered the career course of two people.

Sam is 42. He chose to leave school at the end of year 10 and he obtained an apprenticeship in carpentry which he completed but didn’t particularly enjoy. One reason was that it didn’t satisfy his creative needs, something he realised was important to him when visiting an art gallery.

He decided to complete year 12 then go to university to study visual arts. At the end of his studies he realised that making a living from his art was not feasible so he chose to complete a secondary teaching qualification. He quickly discovered that teaching wasn’t his thing and after some searching he got a job at a tertiary institution in the Department of Architecture as a technician assisting the students with making their models thus combining his carpentry skills, teaching skills and his creativity to a degree. His art is on hold as family and work commitments prevail.

Nikki is 58. She completed an Arts degree and a teaching qualification. She taught for 3 years and then took a year off to travel and work around Australia with her husband. She didn’t particularly enjoy her first 3 years of teaching but after working in a pub and then a prawn factory returning to teaching wasn’t so bad after all.

Nikki changed schools 5 times in 30 years which included moving from the city to the country. Once change of school was because of a redundancy the others by choice After teaching French and History for 20 years some opportunities presented themselves to do further study, teach Psychology and to take on the role of careers advisor. Nikki is now semi- retired and works in the field she loves best as a private careers practitioner.

Do you take the chance?

When presented with work and learning opportunities which will surely happen consider the following:

Will it enhance your career in some way? Sometimes an opportunity will lead directly to enhancing your career. Other times you have to go back a step in order to go forward as Sam did.
How will it impact on your work/life balance? Can you manage this opportunity and still have a satisfactory personal life?
How will it impact on others that you need to consider? If the impact is negative like working longer hours is it worth it?

At 7 I wanted to be .......

From an early age you imagine yourself in various jobs and as you grow up the job often changes as you become more aware of yourself and what’s out there. If you have a persistent vision then it’s probably right for you to pursue it. If you can see yourself on a stage performing Shakespeare then perhaps you should try to make it happen. If stripping down and rebuilding cars is your preferred future then follow it and see where it takes you. There are no guaranteed jobs for life anymore so don’t die wondering.