Free Career Consultation

As regular readers will know we’ve been trialling SHL psychometric products. As part of this trial we are delighted to offer one lucky person the opportunity to participate in a totally confidential and personal career consultation.

So what’s the benefit to you?
You’ll get a much broader insight into how you behave as well as an understanding of what drives you. The SHL product we are trialling provides measurements across 32 different personality dimensions ranging from relationships with people (persuasiveness, outspoken, control etc) to thinking styles (evaluative, conventional , conceptual etc) to feelings and emotions, (relaxed, worrying, tough minded etc). We’ll also provide an occupational interests assessment. This is a great opportunity for you to identify a variety of areas that suit you from a work perspective. Experience tells us that those who enjoy their work are more productive, happier and have a better life balance.

Some examples of how we have helped people are given below:

One client could not understand why her safe, family friendly, not too pressurised, well paid job was so stressful for her. We helped her to identify the reasons and supported her to take action without necessarily moving job.

Another client didn’t understand how he might be seen as dominating any groups or teams he took part in. We helped him to recognise this and how this would impact his future management success as well as relationships with family and friends. We suggested ways he could change his approach.

A third example is of a client with very high caring tendencies. She was considering making a change to work as a Counsellor. However, very high caring tendencies can sometimes mean too much involvement in other people’s problems, so we suggested ways of managing this issue. As she also really liked working in teams, the idea of working on her own a lot of the time may have been a problem. So we also identified some other suitable options. She also found particularly helpful, identifying how much of a worrier she was and the strategies we put in place to help her manage these (See direct client testimonials by clicking here)

You hopefully can see there is no right or wrong or measurement of ability in the assessments we normally use. The assessments are a starting point for discussion rather than an end in themselves. We don't judge, label or tell people what to do, instead we ask useful questions in a very supportive and safe environment.

So what’s involved in this free career consultation?
Attendance at our office in Mount Merrion(near Stillorgan) on two separate occasions, (each session between one to two hours) and completion of an on line questionnaire. (maximum 50 minutes required) as well as a pen and pencil exercise. In the first session, we discuss your work experience, values, motivations, review your CV and discuss any issues you want to raise in addition to the questionnaires mentioned above. In the second session we feed back the results of the assessments and discuss options on how you can get more from your working life. You'll note from our web site that we operate a strict confidentiality policy and secure paper control.

So what strings are attached?
None, there is no publicity, no ongoing commitments, no subscriptions to newsletters etc All you have to do is
1. Sign a confidential form confirming you have received the service.
2. Attend the 1st session before Friday the 9th of November 2007
3. Attend the final session on or before Monday the 26th of November.
(If you can’t do this, please do not enter the draw)

How do I enter?
All you have to do is email us at drawcareer(at)quovadis.ie (replace (at) with @ when emailing) on or before Sunday the 28th of October and in no more than 100 words tell us

1. Why you want to use career guidance services
2. What are your primary concerns at this moment
3. What end result you expect to get
4. What is your biggest concern about using career guidance services

You must be 17 years or older, but you don’t have to be currently working outside the home. For example you may be considering returning to work.

All entries will go into the draw and one will be pulled out at random. The lucky person will be notified by email or phone on Wednesday the 31st of October and will have 24 hours to confirm acceptance of the prize. Should we not hear from you within this time, we will repeat the draw.

So as you can see entry is very easy and you have the chance of winning a very valuable prize. All entries will also be acknowledged. If you have any queries please email info(at)quovadis.ie. (replace(at) with @ when emailing) Sorry we have to present email addresses like this because of spammers!

Other areas of interest

Career assessments- do they work?
What is psychometric testing?

Key words
career builder
career advice Dublin
career guidance Ireland
career training Ireland
free psychometric assessment

Life coaching compared to career guidance

With the emergence of life coaching, there appears to be considerable confusion over the difference between this and career guidance.

Life coaching is defined by the Irish Life Coach institute as
“ the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of others. It is about improving effectiveness and achieving results. It focuses on measurable steps of success. Perhaps, most importantly of all, it facilitates personal transformation for people within the work environment & beyond”

Career guidance is defined by the OECD as
“Career guidance refers to services and activities intended to assist individuals of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers”

So even within accepted definitions, an overlap can be seen. To complicate matters there are also executive and business coaches. These tend to focus on business growth, management and leadership skills and are usually engaged for a period of months. Because this is a relatively new field, there are quite a number of different professional institutes in the coaching arena.

A key difference with career guidance counsellors though, is they are normally qualified to perform a wide range of psychometric assessments, either personality, interests, motivation etc. These assessments can be very useful if you are uncertain about future career choices or where your strengths lie. Often there is an initial session with assessments, then a feedback session with a written report, which enables the client to take action. Life Coaches do not usually specialise in performing a range of assessments and will often meet with the client on many occasions.
In Ireland the major professional institute is the Institute of Career Guidance Counsellors in Ireland. The majority of their members work in secondary schools and 3rd level colleges and are focused on young students.

So how to choose who can best help you if you’re considering some support? Well there’s not a lot of information available, but research in the related counselling area, suggests the biggest factor for success is the relationship between the client and the coach/ guidance counsellor
So the key issue to focus on is whether you feel you can “get on” with the coach/guidance counsellor. Do you like their personal style? Do you feel you can talk openly to them?
Try to assess this in a telephone conversation, but it is difficult so an initial meeting might be required. Normally you pay for this, but some life coaches may offer an initial free session. This rarely happens with executive/business or guidance counsellors.
Fees also vary widely from €75 an hour, to €1,000 per month commitment.

For some questions to ask when choosing a psychometric tester click here. For more general questions on choosing a counselling/coaching service click here.

Finally don’t expect the coach/guidance counsellor to do the work for you. They can give you expert feedback, insights and objective opinions but they won’t get you, your dream job. Only you can do that!

If you are interested in career guidance, I’ll be posting details of an open draw for a totally free, personal “no strings attached” career health check consultation, so don’t forget to check out next weeks blog.

Other areas of interest
Career assessments do they work?
What is psychometric assessment?


Key words
career builder
career advice Dublin
career guidance Ireland
career training Ireland
free psychometric Assessment

Blog Action Day

Over 15,000 blogs, with twelve million readers are participating in blog action day on the environment. So am I, with this post.
The majority of scientists are now in agreement that human action is the cause of increasing global temperatures with its consequent impacts on our environment and economy.

I often get cheesed off, with the Irish approach to the environment. Being lectured to leave the cars at home and take public transport is fine- if there’s good public transport. However our approach to this area and overall environment design reflects a lack of “joined up” thinking. For example, recently our 15b bus terminus was moved three miles up the road, but the newspaper adverts stated bus departures would be doubled. Sounds good. However the reality is that instead of buses leaving every 10 minutes as before during peak hours, the buses now leave every 15 minutes with the result that buses are often full by the time they reach here. So now people around here are more likely to take the car!

But as the Dalai Lama says

“if you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito”

Both as individuals and as employees/entrepreneurs we can make a difference to the environment, save money and be happier in our working lives. A win win proposition despite lack of public sector joined up thinking!
I’ve blogged before how our obsession with possessions, restricts our choices and can mean we stay in jobs we don’t enjoy or commute long distances to earn extra money than can be earned locally. So reducing the number of possessions we need can have a positive impact on the environment.

But every single day, we can decide to make a difference without making life changing decisions. Working in big organisations means many people don’t care about costs. So lights are left on in unused offices, waste paper is not put into the recycling bin, but into the ordinary bin for land fill.

Recently, I attended a meeting where three managers travelled out of town in their separate cars to Tallaght for a meeting that could have been easily conducted over the phone using teleconferencing. (Teleconferencing suppliers now provide facilities with no set up charge and you only pay for what you use) This would have reduced carbon emissions, travel costs and freed up valuable manager time.

When we used teleconferencing in a small nationwide charity, it made such a positive difference to people’s working lives as it meant less travel and improved communications. Sure we still had the face to face team meetings, but teleconferencing meant we could tackle urgent issues quickly and effectively and meant staff felt more connected to their work which in turn benefited clients.

Self employed people can also make their businesses more profitable by being environmentally friendly. For example Fujitsu Siemens will perform a free study to demonstrate how companies can make 40 per cent savings in their data centre costs. They are so confident they can do this they will donate €10,000 to an environmental charity if they don’t succeed.

So why not examine your working life and see what simple changes you can make that can benefit you and the environment?
Click here for some suggestions on the Power of one web site.

Other posts which may be relevant
Seven day weekend
Accountants take pay cuts


Keywords
career builder
blog action Day
career guidance Ireland
career training Ireland

Parent Coaching in macho City of London.

The Finance sector in London city does not have a reputation for being family friendly.
Think Gordon Gekko, “greed is good” in the film “Wall Street”

So very surprised to see companies like Morgan Stanley, HSBC and Barclays are now offering seminars on parenting skills on issues such as
“How to succeed as a working parent”.


These sessions are not just aimed at women but at men too. The thinking is that if parents are under less pressure at home, they’ll perform better at work. Great to see that workplaces are recognising that employees have lives outside of work. Also good to see that parenting is been recognised as requiring some skills as well.

I wonder will Irish employers start offering these services?

Click here for full details on Times web site

Keywords
workplace parent
career advice Dublin
career guidance Ireland
career training Ireland

Monster Mistake

A big kerfuffle when Michelle reported a Monster marketing manager had send a spam email around to members of IT@Cork. Damien covered the incident when Michelle was threatened with legal action. News of the incident started spreading not just around Ireland but around the globe. Eventually saner voices prevailed and a different Monster representative issued an apology.

Lots of lessons in this incident
• Key lesson is when in a hole you stop digging. If you’ve goofed, don’t go on the attack. Try and see how you can stop the damage spreading. An apology usually helps

• If you feel you’re under attack, don’t take action right away, sleep on it and talk to some one you know with a logical and calm approach.

• Know what you put on the internet is public. In this instance the conversations were recorded and put on the internet. Lex Ferenda even put it to music- the monster mash!

• When emailing lots of people, always use the BCC option. This means each person only sees their email address, and not the email addresses of 99 other people. As unencrypted email is not secure, using BCC maintains privacy and helps prevent yet more spam.

• With the exception of gmail your email address can quickly be used to find your IP address, which generally gives clues to your organisation. So don’t email from work as our Monster Manager did if you want to remain anonymous .

• If you have responsibility for, or access to personal data, (email addresses count as personal data in many circumstances) Make sure you’re familiar with the provisions of both the Data Protection Act and your own organisation’s policies and procedures.


Job boards such as Monster really help the job search process, but in America there’s examples of boards being used to steal people’s identities. To see advice on how you can avoid this from Careerhub Click here.
Given the lack of understanding shown by Monster of the importance of protecting personal data on this and other reported incidents I’d wait for future developments to see do their standards improve before registering with them.



Key words
career builder Ireland
monster Ireland Spam
career guidance Ireland
career training Ireland

The Spirit of the wild is enjoyable but is it real?

I went to see the Steve Bloom
“Spirit of the wild” photograph exhibition in St. Stephen’s Green. Thoroughly enjoyed it as the photographs are amazing. Well worth a visit. It’s free and runs until October the 7th. Steve actually gave up a very promising career in the graphics industry, to follow his dream of being a wildlife photographer. The commentary on one of the photographs, details how Steve spent two weeks crouching in a boat to capture the image of a dolphin jumping out of the water. The dolphin jump lasted all of ten seconds.
Two weeks of crouching in a boat, for a 10 second opportunity really demonstrates the old adage of success being 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.
Originally this blog entry was going to be about Steve as an illustration of the perseverance necessary to succeed.

In doing the research however, I came across a discussion that many of the Bloom photographs are digitally altered. I was disappointed to hear this, as I’d though the photos were “real” but it seems to be normal these days. For example, Dove who ironically sell beauty products have produced a short video which shows how the super model look appearing on advertising billboards all around us is artificially made up. It’s very short, so worth watching by clicking here .
So much of what we see and hear is digitally altered for an ulterior purpose.

But does watching these altered images matter, if it’s the viewers choice? I think it does, because these images are selling values, images and definitions of success. Advertising works by telling us we can increase our sense of self by buying the advertisers product. Kilbourne believes advertising helps define who we are and who we should be, all of which should be absolutely flawless. I think she’s right and it’s not just Americans being affected. Last week’s Sunday Times reported that a perfectly good looking, slim 29 year old girl went to 3 different plastic surgeons of whom 2 recommended plastic surgery.
A major Irish times survey reports that women put personal care(skin/hair) as their 2nd most important priority, so advertising is obviously having an impact on how people view themselves. Click here to see a 6 minute Kilbourne video on this topic.

Recently we’ve had a few clients, who had great understanding of themselves and were very clear about what they wanted to do with their working lives. I wondered why they needed to come to us. Subsequently, I realised it was because they needed reassurance they were doing the right thing, because they were going against the accepted norms.
We have become so bombarded with images of success that we have started distrusting our own thoughts and feelings, our own sense of self, it’s not okay to make mistakes any more.

So how to ensure we’re not being unduly influenced by all these images?
The answer is we probably can’t.

We can however reduce their influence by critically evaluating what we see and read and not always accepting things at face value. (Also a very useful skill in any job)
We can reduce the amount of TV we watch, or the number of glossy magazines we flick through. All these magazines are selling perfect relationships and perfect lifestyles, which they tell us we can have, when in reality there is no such thing.
Getting outdoors to the hills or parks can be useful. Or talking to people with a different perspective on life to yours on a regular basis.

What ever you do, realise we are constantly being bombarded with images trying to sell us something. Taking an independent view does require constant alertness in much the same way that maintaining physical fitness requires regular exercise. So enjoy the photo exhibition, but see if you can spot the digital manipulations. I know I did not.

Note
If you have a keen interest in the area of staying detached from media/consumer society influences you might find Eckhart Tolle’s book, The power of now“” useful.

Other possibly related posts
Are you handcuffed to money?
Accountants take pay cuts
Mikas true to his career.


Key Words
Photographs Stephen’s Green
career builder Dublin
career guidance Ireland
career training Ireland