Quo Vadis Opinions

Sean Mc Loughney’s new book, “slave to a job master of your career” has a nice catchy title and makes some excellent points. There’s a section on how to know when you are a slave to your job and a very good checklist to see when you have an “employee mindset” on page 12.
Chapter one is about managing your career the way you would manage your own business. You need to take responsibility for your own career and not expect your employer to lalways look after you.

Great advice which I give to all my clients. There’s a nice table on page 18 highlighting the entrepreneur mindset versus the employee mindset.
For example
“I’m passionate about my clients” versus “I do my job well”
Or
“I take pride in my appearance” versus “Sure I’m fine the way I am”
Or
“I earn my wages and give value for money” versus “They should pay me more for what I do”. 

Or
“I love to smile and bring energy to my workplace” versus “First thing I do is smile to get it over with”.
However I can’t agree with
“I love to wear bright colours” versus “I wear grey, that way I won’t stand out”.   This won’t work in some workplaces, for example if you work in an undertaker.
A business slant  runs throughout the book, which can be a little grating. For example- “build your business empire around delivering extraordinary results”.  But what if I don’t want a business empire, what if I just want to make a living and enjoy my job?

 There are interesting chapters on networking and developing your personal brand which would be useful to anyone developing a career. Unfortunately the business language will put off a lot of people not working in business, which is shame, because otherwise it’s well presented  and is a useful reference book, particularly for anyone at mid management  levels  wishing to develop their career further.

Disclosure
Sean is a Chartered Accountant as am I, and this book is published by Chartered Accountants Ireland, who are a client of mine, but I do not know Sean and am not being paid for this post.

career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

Happy new year to you all.  Hope you had a good break 

Increasing your value at work and reducing your chances of being selected for redundancy
I wouldn’t agree with all the tips, but some are pretty useful such as as acquiring skills that work across multiple business units
Link to article

Are  you are an employee or self employed?
Guidance from the Irish Revenue Commissioners
Link to article

 Working in one place and living in a different location
Link to article

Succesful entrepreneurs
Free lunchtime talks with leading entrepreneurs has been captured on video and podcasts by DIT.  For access to the collection simply click here

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career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

Was at an interesting talk by Mick  Rock of ACT now. 
He was talking about the power of beliefs and how important it is to understand our own beliefs.
He cited the example of the lotto winner who thought he was unlucky because the day he won €4 million some else picked the exact same number- he felt he should have got €8 million !
This was contrasted with the person with a broken leg. He felt he was lucky, because he only broke his leg falling down the stairs not his neck! Guess which guy was happier?

Henry Ford made the following comment
“if you believe you can, you’re right, if you believe you can’t, you’re right”

This does not mean that if you follow your dreams or set targets, you won’t experience failure, what it means is you won’t let failure stop you.
Reading the “The new Alchemists”  by Charles Handy which is all  about people who create something out of nothing shows that.  All of the people interviewed had experienced failure, whether it was failing exams, or even not sitting them, going bankrupt,  being made redundant.  What they all had in common was they used that failure to learn and keep going. They believed  they could.
Do you believe in your self, or do you hold beliefs which hold you back?

For a limited time, Mick and the Institute of  Business Analysis and Consulting have provided a questionnaire to help you analyse some of your own self beliefs and an explanation of why these beliefs can cause trouble.
This is free, no registration required and you can download here
(PDF files at bottom of screen)

The higher your score, the more likely you are to have that particular  belief.

Hopefully if you do have beliefs which are not helpful to you , this can provide some insights.

The new Alchemists book is also worth a read if you need some inspiration. It’s not too heavy.
 
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career coach
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self employment

Papers are very gloomy these days, with all the talk of redundancies. Even Diageo so long seen as the  “cradle to grave”  employer are making people redundant. At least though, they’re providing career counselling services for people being made redundant.

It’s bad news, not just for the people being made redundant in the breweries, but also people based in James gate, but not working in the brewery. They have to move to a yet undisclosed location.

Rumour has it that this will be Grange Castle in Clondalkin. If you’re living North side, then this could add another 3 hours per day to your commute.  The consequence of our poor transport systems. Transport 21, yet another transport plan, is still that- just another  plan.

A previous employer of mine, once put on a private bus for staff when they moved out to Clondalkin. I can’t remember whether the job start time commenced when you got on the bus or when you arrived at Clondalkin! Could be a negotiating option for the unions though. At least that way you can use the bus lanes, save time and relax a little.

Many people currently working in Diageo can have 20 to 30 years service and have great conditions. Diageo does invest in staff training and development so hopefully redundant staff can get jobs elsewhere.

Here’s some areas where there’s shortages of people in both high and low skill areas.

Financial- high skilled accountants and paperwork processing
Engineering- all skill levels including technicians
Information technology-all skill levels
Scientists-all levels including technician
Healthcare- all levels including care workers and child minders
Transport and logistics- heavy goods vehicle drivers, paperwork processing
Sales- managers and assistants
Catering- chefs
Manufacturing- some specialist areas
Services –private security, waiting staff
Labourers

From the “The National skills bulletin October 2007”

You can see more detail on the report by clicking here to go to the Agency’s website. Go to section 7 starting on page 29.

Interesting there are shortages of labourers  and waiting staff, vacancies mostly filled by immigrants. It also shows the lack of joined up thinking between the social welfare systems and minimum wages. As an Iraqi asylum seeker told me

“it’s ridiculous,  welfare systems are far too generous and make it financially not worthwhile to take on minimum wage work “!

Losing the medical card, once the back to work allowance runs out is a huge disincentive to work. Despite having significant medical problems and suffering racism, this lady went on to retrain and now has a good well paying position, proving some people never give up.

So if you’re being made redundant, don’t despair. There’s always options.
You might find the following excellent easy to read documents very useful.

From The Irish national association for the unemployed. (INOU)
Working to work
A very useful guide to social welfare as it relates to working. Good advice on job hunting and the wide range of free supports and training available to help you find another job.

From Aontas , the National Association for adult learners
Aontas Information Booklet
A booklet for people thinking of further training. Also contains details on the various schemes available to help people get free training.

These free booklets will save you hours of chasing information.

Other posts  you might useful 
Facing redundancy

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career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

The Institute of Career Guidance Counsellors invited IBEC to make a presentation to them on careers in industry. The presentations (most of which were made by individual companies) are now available on the Institute web site.

They cover the following areas:

Another presentation gives an good  overview of how companies recruit.

Interestingly the Small Firms Association  also presented on encouraging entrepreneurs.

Career guidance has improved enormously in schools but the option of self employment is still not getting enough attention, so nice to see some progress being made. Students need to hear more about young entrepreneurial role models - like John Beckett who at 25 has a mini empire of business interests. He started at 16, designing a web site for €20,000 for RyanAir!

I once worked with students who had to develop an online trading web site and business plan. The ideas and focus they had were fantastic and there’s no doubt that for many young people setting up their own business is a realistic career choice. When Denis O Brien came to talk to the students it was standing room only in the lecture theatre- a very unusual event, so the interest is there.  

If you’re interested in being self employed, click here for some further information.

Click here  to go to the presentations on the Institute web site.

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