Good professional career counselor -- How?

[smandoli9]

This is titled similarly to my post of a week ago, but is specific on the point. How do I locate an effective career counselor?

Right now my idea for finding a career counselor in Austin TX is (a) use the yellow pages and (b) demand live references I can call on the phone.

Are there any recommendations otherwise? I haven't been able to Google a career counsel clearinghouse. I haven't even found an association credential. I reject US Dept of Labor data. I know today's hot niche is likely to be tomorrow's overcrowd, but I feel sure intelligent project might be available to make reasonable projections. And if that's true, it's worth 300 bucks (or more) for a few hours on insight.

Background info: In essence, I can choose between GIS (Geography) certificate with VBA; a GIS Masters with VBA; and continuing in Access with VBA (and no college degree). My only criteria is which leaves me with the most money in eight years. Relocating is attractive, which makes the validity of the counsel more important.

My GIS friend is afraid I'll be sold into a Masters. It has a realy luster to it -- because I don't have a Bachelor's but can slip in to the program anyway. And is GIS being oversold? Its practitioners tend froth at the mouth with enthusiasm.

[purple]_______________________________
[sub]Never confuse movement with action -- E. Hemingway [/sub][/purple]

 

[mmorancbt]

I’ll take a stab. I have had coffee with a guy who owns his own career coaching business. I met him when I spoke at a career event. Having met several of his clients I recognized that he is very effective. I will ask him if he has a peer in your area.

However, I will also state that a good career counselor is often less concerned with specific industry trends and more interesting in your interest, natural and easily developed talents, and transferable and transcendent skills.

They may have interest in your income goals both short and long term.

I have counseled many technology professionals (I don’t do this professional, it is simply of the result of articles, books, and friends and peers) and will explain my point of view.

I believe it is extremely dangerous to look at a specific technology for its long-term stability. Technology changes rapidly. The good thing is that the changes are really incremental and only require slight retraining – in most cases. Of course, if you learn nothing new for 20 years, you are bound to struggle at some point.

Given your desire to get to the $50K/Year range, I would take the shortest training option available to you. The reason. I believe, with some directed focus you could easily turn your Access based skills into a $50K/year job in 12 months. The additional training may help you find a niche but you have to be sure that niche doesn’t define you. Instead, you define the niche.

For instance, you would not want to be a GIS VBA expert as much as you want to be a technology professional who, as one of your specialized tools, works as a GIS VBA expert. Why is that important? Later, when they need the data expert, the conversion expert, but the application is a manufacturing application, you are ready to walk into that position.

Your ability to learn and adopt the GIS specialization shows your versatility, not your limit.

I hope this makes sense.

I have worked in the IT industry since 1987. I have never taken a computer course or gone after any certifications. My education is English and Philosophy but I have had the pleasure of providing employers and clients with network scripting in Perl, VBScript, and Kixtart. I’ve done application development in dBase, Clipper, Foxpro, Access, Visual Basic, .NET (ASP & VB), SQL Server, Sybase, Informix, RPG, CL, and even Apple basic in an earlier era. The most important thing I learned is that they are all the same thing.

They are simply tools meant to solve a carefully defined business objective.

Of course, the challenge is how do you get the exposure to the variety of project? This is where professional networking, possibly presenting on the subject, working in smaller companies that are less concerned with specific roles and more concerned with someone who they trust to solve their business challenges, etc.

You mention money as a primary concern. This is, once again, where I would point you to small business. When I say small, not 4 people but 40-250 people. These organizations will often long-term contract with their technology professional. It would not be too difficult to generate $70-$130k/year.

This, of course, requires both a marketing and implementation mindset. If you can position yourself as an expert, consulting and contracting can be an excellent way to get exposure, meet business owners and executives, and become involved with a variety of projects – further enhancing your career prospects.

In any case, if George (the career coach) knows someone, I’ll get you the information.

Matthew Moran (career blog and podcast below)
Career Advice with Attitude for the IT Pro

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career

http://techcareerconsult.blogspot.com

 

[smandoli9]

Thanks Matthew for your informative post.

I will frame up some more specific questions based from what you wrote.

Is the Net ripe for a true jobs clearinghouse? More on that later too ... my library quci-login is about to expire!

[purple]_______________________________
[sub]Never confuse movement with action -- E. Hemingway [/sub][/purple]