Quo Vadis Opinions

TD Olwyn Enright will not be standing for re-election for the next Dail, citing pressures of a political  life and a young family. The life of a politician is not for those who want to have some kind of balanced life.
A friend who was once a politician told me  people expect you to be available all of the time even on Christmas day for the most mundane of matters. It got to her eventually as did the amount of time spent in endless meetings where nothing was really achieved.
I think this is one of the reasons why the economy is in the mess it’s in. People working very long hours tend to lose the ability to question the status quo, and notice something’s badly wrong. In the politicians case they seem to be disconnected from the reality of many people’s lives with their ongoing claims to unvouched expenses and failure to see the Dail and Seanad needs urgent reform. (Watch or read any Dail proceeding and it will prove this point)

A political example
Dermot Ahern, Minister for Justices is obviously suffering from the long hour’s syndrome as he called for higher fees for ATM transactions to discourage bank robberies, only to retract when saner voices protected. (Incidentally I ended up withdrawing €500 cash this week to make a payment because the electronic payment had not been processed by my bank within the standard 3 working days. In England a similar payment can be in the other person’s bank account within twenty minutes! Maybe addressing this issue will go towards solving the high cash levels in circulation)
Anyhow I know when I worked seventy to eight hour weeks my decision making ability became weaker and weaker.

A medical example
A really tragic example of the impact of long hours is this week’s medical council review of the Stewart/Conroy case where a consultant (Martin Corbally) noted incorrectly that the left kidney was to be removed on a then eight year old boy rather than the diseased right kidney. Despite the parents raising concerns on four different occasions, the operating doctor (Sri Paran) removed the healthy kidney, without reviewing the X-rays.
Both doctors worked very long hours of up to 80 hours a week. Both come across as caring and responsible professionals who immediately admitted the mistake and are now putting together a joint document to see what lessons can be learnt from this fiasco and to prevent it happening again. The Medical Council review does not appear to have addressed the issue of doctors working long hours though.

Impaired decision making
If you are working very long hours over an extended period of time, be aware your decision making ability is probably impaired not just in your working life but in your personal life. If you’re stuck in a rut and don’t feel able to take action to change the long hours seek professional help. If this is not an option do make sure to get some physical exercise at least 3 to 4 times a week as this is known to help. 

Keywords 
career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

Fancy a career as a doll fashion designer?
Only in America, where they can earn $68,000 per year.
Full story here

Career builder app for iphone.
Currently only in Canada but depending on uptake they will make it more widely available.
Full story here

UCD to attract more mature students
Full story here

Programme for Graduates with Disabilities/Specific Learning Difficulties:
“WAM (Willing Able Mentoring) is a FÁS funded programme which aims to promote a more inclusive labour market for graduates with disabilities. It is led by AHEAD, the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, which seeks to promote full access to and full participation of students with disabilities in higher education and to assist with their transition from education into employment. Participating employers in WAM offer paid and mentored placements to graduates with disabilities and specific learning difficulties for up to six months duration. Work Opportunities Now Available!
Deadline: Friday, 14th May at 5.00pm.”
More details here

 National College of Ireland Change Your Life Education Fund
“National College of Ireland has teamed up with Metro Herald and Ireland AM to offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change your life, upgrade your skills and acquire the qualifications and confidence to succeed.  The winner will earn an amazing prize package including an educational fund worth €20,000 and €15,000 in other supports, like personal mentoring, computer equipment and even a style package worth €1,000. Contestants just need to answer one simple question: Why do you want to change your life, and how could education help?
Deadline: Friday July 23rd.”
More details here

Keywords
career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

How to safely quit the day job- retiring early in economically tough times

I enjoyed reading this book as the author Ian Mitchell has a funny light hearted approach to the complex area of financing your retirement in Ireland.
The book is divided into three parts. The first is about defining what you want. While it talks about portfolio careers it does not go into a lot of detail on this. It uses a nice simple example to show how to look at your life, what money you’re spending and how to make savings. It does not go into much detail though on looking for alternative careers with a better work life balance. Ghazi and Jones “Downshifting, the guide to happier and simpler living” is probably a better guide to choosing how to get to a better work life balance.
Where Mitchell really does well though is making the very boring and complex area of pension planning clearer using plain language which is easy to understand. In part two he shows how to work out the numbers, in part three he gets in to the really complex stuff, but again tries to keep it simple.

He makes it crystal clear why because of tax relief that it really is a no brainer to invest in a pension.  Even though my pension funds value are way down on their previous values, because of tax relief my pension fund is still worth more than I originally invested.
Even if you’re not thinking of retiring now, would it not be nice to reduce the tax you pay by saving some money?
In the next edition, he could usefully cover the impact of expenses within pension funds as this has a huge effect on investment returns and also how to choose a qualified financial adviser. (QFA;s) Although QFA’s are regulated, I’ve noticed a huge difference in the quality of the advice they give, so you do need to be careful about who you take advice from.
April’s consumer choice has a good article on choosing the right QFA.

There has been lots of noise about the Government reducing the tax relief on pensions, so now is a good time to think about planning your future finances, even if you’re broke at the moment. So unless you are a TD with multiple pensions, this book is a must read for the non expert. Any one from their late 20’s onwards should read it.

Keywords
career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

Top foreign firms put off by our ‘dumbed down’ college courses
“International companies are being put off locating here due to the ‘dumbing down’ of our education system according to Dr James Robinson, chief executive of the Kepler Institute. Dr Robinson would like entry points for pre-engineering courses set at 450. He believes this is the only way to reverse slipping standards” (Irish Independent, 15th February 2010)”

I think it’s not just a question of dumbing down, but the overall quality of our courses, lately I’ve had a number of  complaints about course quality, from lecturers constantly missing classes , lecture rooms too small to hold entire class, to assignment dates constantly changing.  Yet I’m not hearing any complaints from the students unions?

This website was launched in a blaze of publicity, a forum to help unemployed people find jobs, but there seems to be very little happening there.
Go to website

Not enough training places (Irish Independent, 16th February 2010)
Youthreach centres  and PLC courses are turning people away. Crazy stuff, why pay people to do nothing on the dole, when they could be training?  According to  an EU report I’ve seen,(sorry can’t find the link) demand for low skilled occupations is estimated to decrease by 2% with demand for high skill occupations increasing by 2% so we need to invest more not less in training.

Only 17% of new welfare recipients back to work in 6 months. (Irish Examiner, 23rd February 2010)
A good reason to use a career coach to help you get back to work quicker. If you can’t afford a private coach like me, try making an appointment in FAS or contact your  local VEC who often have adult education guidance services.

career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

My job as a career coach is not to recommend one career over another but to help people find work they’ll love by providing information on the pro’s and cons of different careers and how they relate to their individual personality, values and motivation.
However, I was asked a few months ago was there any career I would not recommend in any circumstances. My immediate reaction was well- just  anything that’s illegal such as a terrorist or badly impacts people’s health such as prostitution.

Not a church career
Lately though I’ve reluctantly added another occupation for those under forty years. Becoming a priest, nun or brother in the Irish Catholic Church.
I have huge respect for both spirituality and the many good church officers doing very valuable work such as Fr Peter Mc Verry who provides support for young homeless boys and Sr Stan Kennedy who set up Focus Ireland.

The church is  sick
I know individual religious who are deeply upset and angry at the official church response to the Murphy report on abuse of children but are unable to do anything about it as they are stuck in a broken organisation. It is very unlikely this situation will change as with the current leadership the church will remain “in thrall to status, titles and insigna… and distant from human intimacy and suffering”. (See here for the full article). So a young person with a strong spiritual motivation is likely to find themselves unhappy in the current church.

Don’t join if you’re under 40 years old 
This is the key reason why I would not recommend a career as a religious to anybody under 40. The leadership in the Catholic Church both in Ireland and the Vatican have totally lost sight of their spiritual purpose and operate to all intents and purposes as a normal business organisation. -A not very good one at that.  A normal business organisation would have gone broke or it’s leaders would be in jail or heavily fined at this stage and would have dealt with its problems.
Just one example illustrates official church  incompetence and lack of integrity. Despite the fact that sexual abuse in the church has been known about since the 1930’s, the church still does not have a centralised one church database of complaints about clergy & religious. So even at this point they cannot say whether there has been an improvement in identifying & removing abusers or whether any new entrants in the last ten years have been accused of abuse.

Contrast this to Eircom - not a particularly efficient organisation, but since the mid 1990’s they have a centralised database which tells them the location of every motor vehicle and its service history down to miles per gallon. They also have a separate database for staff which tracks all staff movements.

The frog in the saucepan 
If you join the current church at a young age, you are indoctrinated, a vow of obedience is required and the rigid church structure effectively becomes your family.
The old story about putting the frog into cold water in a saucepan on a cooker applies. The frog gets nice and comfortable as the water heats up but too late realises the water is life threatening.
However if you put a frog into hot water, he will immediately try and jump out.
When you realise you’re in trouble, you’ve learnt a way of life that’s very difficult to leave, as your entire working and social life revolves round the church.  If you’ve joined an order with a vow of poverty, you may have no money to fall back on. With just the bare number of priests available (e.g. for the Dublin diocese there will shortly be one priest per diocese,) you’ll also work long hours and days which again reduces your opportunities to reflect. I spoke to one priest who had one day off in eight months and was working seven days a week

 Express any doubts or have any issues such as alcoholism which is reasonably common amongst priests and you’ll get limited support as one ex-priest colleague discovered at huge personal cost. You’re like the frog who suddenly realises the water is killing him but it’s too late to get out.
When even it’s own members are calling for a suspension of new intake, you know you’re dealing with a sick organisation.

What’s needed to consider joining the church?
So unless you’ve

Established your own independent support networks with plenty of friends outside official religious life

Have financial stability with some independent assets or income

A home to return to if things go wrong.

Learned how good organisations operate, with experience in a range of different business and caring organisations

Developed your own self confidence and belief in your own abilities

Developed your own skills, preferably with a professional qualification.

Avoid becoming a priest, nun or brother.

Generally people won’t have completed all this before 40 years old. At that age when you join the church, you’ll be like a frog putting a flipper in to the pot of boiling water and you’ll know straight away whether it’s too hot for you and be able to jump out of the saucepan. You’ll also be able to make a stronger contribution to helping a broken church.

Note
I’m not saying that the work of the church is not worthwhile or valuable; I believe it is essential and we don’t have enough of it. I believe there is just too high a personal price to pay for becoming a priest, nun or brother in Ireland. If you feel you simply can’t wait to follow your vocation, then train abroad in a church which has actually started confronting its weaknesses. For example the Chicago diocese in America. But be aware that the Vatican still calls all the shots. 

 If you’d like to read one priest’s story click here (subscription required)

Keywords
 career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

Watch out - biased words can affect your  performance evaluations.
“ Mary, the group leader concluded, “is an excellent trial support person who can be relied upon to get the job done with minimal supervision.” John, her less-experienced colleague, was described as having improved in a number of areas and the evaluation concluded: “John can handle significant legal matters without supervision.”

One word in each of these evaluations had a tremendous impact on their future paths — and disclosed an unexamined bias of the group leader. Mary, who was described as needing “minimal supervision” despite her considerable skills, was relegated to being viewed as a support player. She could never progress beyond that view of her abilities and ultimately left her firm”
 For the full article click here

Accountant’s pay declines 
Even the accountants are affected. A survey reports a decline of between 10 and 20 per cent in remuneration  between January 2008 and January 2009. Don’t feel too sorry for them though, the average salary was still €126,200, still way above the average industrial wage.
Click here for full article

Useful tips on persuading your boss to let you work from home
Click here for full article

Everybody needs a future career plan
Interesting article  from Rugby professional Bob Casey on the need for rugby professionals to have a plan B career, as they can’t afford to retire after finishing rugby. Also talks about how the best coaches are constantly learning and introducing techniques not just within rugby but from other sports. Check out his paddling pool full of rugby players !
Seriously though this constant need to learn and improve applies to all successful careers managers.

Key words
career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

A bad experience with a recruitment consultant. These days with blogging and discussion boards it is very easy to wreck your reputation or to use the new terminology  “damage  your personal brand”
Whilst the recruitment consultant behaved badly according to Sean’s post, all calls from recruitment agencies or potential employers should always be returned the same day or the next morning. Otherwise the message you’re sending is you’re not really  that interested. 

A spoof job advertisment for the Ceann Comhairle’s job.
John O Donoghue’s  (or the clown comhairle as he’s been nicknamed ) speech yesterday defending his expenses indicates just how far politicians have strayed from reality, and shows why we’re in the mess we’re in. When some body like Tom O Higgins,  audit chairman resigns,, you know there is something wrong. I dealt with Tom many  years ago and he always appears to be  an intelligent, fair and hard working individual.
I’m beginning to see a trend of demanding increased accountability from those in power. Just listening to the anger over HSE chief Brendan Drumm’s €70,000 bonus for 2007 on the radio to-day was interesting.

So if you draw down company expenses or avail of corporate hospitality, it’s not just a question of following guidelines. When I worked in procurement  a key question we always asked when availing of hospitality was “would it cause a problem if the rest of my colleagues/general public knew about this“. Insisting that all corporate gifts and hospitality were recorded in a book that all staff had access to ensured we stayed honest!
So I would accept a meal with a supplier in a Dublin restaurant, but an all expenses paid trip abroad to a key Ireland football match was a definite no no. I would have been resented by most of the staff I worked with and other competing suppliers would perceive an unfair advantage at a time when we were trying to broaden our supplier base.

career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland

To invest in your future
Top sports people such as Padraig Harrington have their own personal coaches, and so do successful individuals looking to get the most out of their working life.  A career coach will support and challenge you, making sure your skills are always in demand, while recognising you have a life outside of work as well.

To get a job faster
A study by outplacement firm Lee, Hecht, Harrison found that individuals who used a career coach found a job 1546% faster than if they worked alone.

To get an independent and expert view
Some times it’s difficult to get good advice from friends and family. They may be biased or not understand the jobs market. A career coach can give you independent advice and is up to date on the skills needed to succeed in the current jobs market.

To help you with your job search
These days it’s simply not enough to create one CV and one cover letter. You need to tailor your job search and use a wide variety of approaches from networking to blogging. A career coach can help you with this.

To help you be more successful
Career coaches are not just for when you are unhappy in your job or are looking for a job. We can also help you progress your career. . For example, should you take an MBA? Should you stay with your current organisation and look for a promotion. Do you need to improve your team working skills? Do you stay as a specialist or move into a generalist role?   Should you become self employed? Working with an experienced coach will help you make the right decisions for you.

But how can I be sure I’ll benefit from working with career coach?
You’ll get major benefits working with a professional career coach once you are
•    Prepared to accept help
•    Accept the coach can make suggestions but  only you  can put them into practice
•    Prepared to change

Interested in working with Carol? Get in touch

Want to find out more about Carol?  Click here

Went along to the  whichcourse exhibition in the RDS. Very well organised and nice friendly people at reception. It’s organised by Nightcourses which provides details on  part time and adult education courses.

Most of the stands were for private training organisations, but there was good representation from colleges such as the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) and AONTAS, the national adult learning organisation.
The INOU and Aontas stands were doing great business while I was there. Their respective free publications  which I’ve mentioned before Working for work and Information booklet are excellent sources of easy to read advice on social welfare for unemployed and back to education options and supports. They can save a lot of time spent researching.
I also bumped in to Kevin Brannigan who is the managing director of nightcourses and was handing out flyers. (A good example of being hands on and talking to the customer)  I use his nightcourses databases regularly to find short courses for clients. It’s worth looking at if you’re trying to find a course.
You can also post career and education queries on their discussion boards and get some good answers.
 
I was impressed by Kevin who looks a lot younger than his actual age.  Apparently he employs fifteen people and appears very knowledgeable and committed to developing awareness of education options. He had tried to bring some of the bigger colleges such as Trinity to the exhibition but they had said no. Hopefully they’ll be there next year.

One thing that struck me was though was the differing attitudes of the exhibitors. As soon as I said I was a career coach you could see the shutters coming down on many of them as I was not what they wanted – a potential student. One exhibitor simply insisted on giving me a health care leaflet even though they provided other types of courses.
Some exhibitors however were very happy however to talk to me as they realised I could refer clients onwards to their courses.  For example I had a good conversation with Joanne Richards in Respond about their innovative Bachelor of Social Studies degree in Housing and Community Studies which is accredited by UCD.

It struck me that very often we  miss opportunities.  In the current climate, it’s hard to obtain jobs through the traditional route of responding to ads. Talking to other people and expressing an interest in their work is a good way of finding out what’s going on and where there may be possible opportunities coming up.

As networking coach Tricia Murphy states

“You never know who you need to meet until you have met them” “

So when meeting people, always stay tuned in, you never know what might come out of it.

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career builder
career coaching
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A range of free degree and masters courses are aimed at people unemployed or about to become unemployed. Well worthwhile checking out as you’ll keep your existing allowances. You’ll need to move fast though as the deadlines for applications are close.
Go to undergraduate course list

Go to Masters course list

Why you should not have your boss as a friend on facebook. This girl appears to have been sacked!
Go to link

Nice article on getting the most out of mentoring.
Go to link

Glad to see that Abercrombie and Fitch have lost this case. It’s hard enough to have a disability without being made to feel like a reject. At the height of the craze for their clothes, I bought two overpriced hoodies for my teenagers when in London as a special treat. Can’t believe I queued for twenty minutes to pay in their badly lit and laid out London store. Then when my two heard how they treat their staff, they gave out about buying them!
Go to link

career coach
career builder
career coaching
career guidance Ireland