Aug 15, 2023
Let me start by saying that I’m about to begin a journey with a career coach.
I’ve not yet begun with him but I’m looking forward to what may come from the experience and having someone help me on my career goals and trajectory.
I have to say that I would be remiss if I didn’t have a tinge of nervousness and anxiety about it. I’ve got a therapist already but maybe having someone that can give me some guidance and direction with my career could be a really great place to start.
I’m hoping to get insight, clarity, and hopefully just simply a better resume that aligns with my actual skills and hits the notes for what recruiters are looking for. But it’s more than that, I’ve been wafting back and forth on whether to stay in Marcom as a Digex guy or go back to where I felt a little more comfortable in the true UX space. Maybe it’s a combination of both.
With the job hunt
To keep count it’s 14 jobs applied, 10 no responses, three rejections, and 1 maybe. I don’t want that to be the yardstick for how I’m measuring myself but one can’t look at it with a real disheartening aspect. Although the horror stories I’ve seen so far are pretty substantial, 100’s of applications only a few interviews. It’s awful. I didn’t think it would be this dire.
But back to the question at hand.
How am I measuring this by success? Is it KPIs, or is it a bright resume that gets the phone ringing? To be totally honest I don’t really know. I’m in a rut. Being let go from my last company still stings. I have a lot of anger and frustration about it all. Feeling betrayed by people I cared for and trusted, feeling like maybe I wasn’t that valuable to the organization, hurt that they could just shut the door and say adios.
It’s all still really fresh and only time will really give me the balance and perspective to look at it in a thoughtful way.
But where can I come out of this in a better place, where will I land in a happier outlook on life. As the saying goes “A job is just a job, it doesn’t define you” but in some cases it does, you spend so much of your time working that finding a place that fills that cup for me from a solid paycheck, team I enjoy spending time with and work that provides learning, challenges, success and allows for the balance with family is the flow state. It’s where you can just be, it doesn’t have to always be roses but if it could just be normal, ups and downs but at the end of the day feeling accomplished and ready to spend time with family and friends and not dreading the next day.
Maybe the success is just perspective, maybe it’s just finding peace with who I am, what my capabilities are, skills I have and skills I want to grow. I think just having a smart knowledgable person to talk to will be a win. Someone that can take a look and provide constructive criticism that doesn’t pull punches and makes me more confident with where I want to go and what I want to do.
