are aptitude tests helpful?

Trudy is 26 and has a secretarial certificate that has not helped her much on a career path. Faced with another job search after a short-term contract expired, Trudy decided to use the between jobs period to consult with a few career advisers and take as much time as she needed to examine her life and what she wanted to do with it.

"Rather than frantically riding on the stressful job merry-go-round, taking on more and more qualifications in order to become more and more versatile and employable," says Trudy, "I thought it was time I stopped for a while and considered my options."

"The most important thing I learned from talking about my problems is that rather than reacting to changes that other people force upon me, it is so much smarter to be initiating a new direction of my own," says Trudy. "I accept that the ultimate solution to all the misery of job loss and forced career change lies in changing my attitude. Rather than waiting passively for the next corporate takeover or restructure to change my life, I am seriously considering a career change - but what?"

"Anyone seeking advice from a career adviser," laughs Trudy, "had better make sure that he or she works in the real world rather than in some ivory tower. Even career advisers are in turmoil these days. They cannot give the measured advice that they were once able to give their clients."

Because Trudy could not make up her mind about a new career direction she thought that career advisers would have good advice for her. Some of the advisers she saw were helpful, but Trudy is finding that the process of doing nothing, weighing her options - yes, even asking for advice - is in accordance with what is right for her at this particular between jobs time.

Also, it may not be a career adviser she needs to see, but a Life Strategist or a Personal Coach.

"The third career adviser I saw gave me a battery of tests," says Trudy, "at the end of which I was advised that I would make a good glass blower!"

"Okay, I realize that the test results were supposed to indicate a type of profession that best suited my aptitudes," says Trudy, "but I consider this type of career counseling to be totally out of touch with reality."

"Had the tests indicated that I would make a good nurse, or a good hairdresser, I may have been happier with the results. The options I was given were crazy. Glass blowing? Masterpiece restoration? I mean, how many openings do you see for glass blowers or masterpiece restorers? Get real!

"I suppose that when we don't know which way to turn - or when we cannot choose between two options - then the signs are quite obvious that doing nothing is the way to go," sighs Trudy. "I don't feel pressured to choose an option that a career adviser finds for me. There are many, many more directions I can take."

"Friends and good with advice, too," says Trudy, "but when someone advises you to follow a certain path it is probably what he or she might do in my situation, but they're not me and the ultimate decision rests with me."

"Seeing a few career advisers was a good learning experience for me because I learned that no matter how much I trusted or admired a professional adviser, and no matter how much I paid for the advice, I cannot act upon that advice unless I had a clear inner sign to do so."

"Professionals such as doctors and lawyers earn their living from giving advice. Mostly it is sound advice, sometimes it is not. When their advice is mistaken, the consequences for you and your loved ones could be devastating. Same goes for career advisers."

"I have learned that the best advice anyone can give you - or should give you - is to follow your own inner direction," says Trudy. "Do what feels right for you. Do not concern yourself with being stuck, not knowing which way to turn. Just flow with it, be patient, and allow the universe to work its magic for you. A solution will arrive in time, but only when you are ready for it. That's what being between jobs is all about."

"Often, just one sign is enough to cause us to act decisively one way or another, but sometimes - especially when we are too busy to stop and take notice of what we are hearing, seeing or feeling - the universe throws us sign after sign to ensure that we keep safe and take the right track."

"And sometimes, too, the universe punishes us when we perversely refuse to pay heed of the signs - when we do not take time to listen and to act according to what is right for us. There is much to be said for the callous remark: Serves yourself right!"

"I can remember many times when I suffered some minor misfortune as a result of ignoring sign after sign in my life," says Trudy. "We are all guilty of being so wrapped up in ourselves at some particular time in our lives that we fail to see what is going on around us or, if we do, we rationalize it, or take someone's advice on it because it is too much bother to stop and listen to how we feel. And then we are sorry."

"We reflect on what happened and moan: if only I had done this, or that, I would not be in the mess I am in now. Sounds familiar, right?"

"The purpose of setting aside plenty of time preparing for a new job or a new direction is to give yourself time to monitor your feelings and to be absolutely sure that you are ready to plunge into the murky waters of a world outside of your comfort zone."

"If you have been recently laid off, or suffered a relationship breakdown, you need time to get yourself back on track. Rushing into a new job or a new relationship before you are ready for the hurdles and pitfalls of what lies ahead can cause you some costly mistakes and misfortunes."

"When it's a minor misfortune, we get over it. We learn a lesson we needed to learn and next time we will know better, hopefully. But sometimes our perversity in failing to stop, look and listen to the signs causes us a major misfortune. I didn't want to let that happen to me again.

"In many respects, being given two crazy career directions was a great wake up call for me," says Trudy. "Had I been given two sensible career directions, I might have felt pressured to choose one and then I could end up regretting the decision."

"A good career adviser will point out the pros and cons of a decision that can only be made by you," says Trudy. "To influence you into choosing Option A over Option B when neither feels 'right' can set you back years."

"Undoubtedly aptitude tests can be helpful for some people," says Trudy, "and if nothing else being told that I would make a good glass blower or a masterpiece restorer tells me what I already know -- that I need a job that offers more creativity than secretarial work."

the party’s over!

Jasmine is 24 and back home living with her parents after she and many more young people lost their jobs when a local company folded. At first, she thoroughly enjoyed the between jobs period - partying every night - but as the months ticked by she got scared about having to find another job.

"Because I was part of a mass lay-off I spent many drunken evenings with my friends," says Jasmine. "The first two stages of getting back on track - being angry and in denial - were energizing and fun. We were angry at losing our jobs and cursed the company and at some level even denied we were jobless - but it was a great time!"

"Anyone who has ever experienced being the sole person laid-off must be green with envy at the camaraderie of my situation," says Jasmine, "because there is nothing like being in the same boat as everyone else to make you feel better, and there is nothing like a celebration, or wake, to ease the pain of any loss."

"The bailiff may soon be knocking on doors to repossess homes, cars and television sets," points out Jasmine, "but what laid-off people need more than anything else in the world is plenty of company and good friends to share their denial and anger."

"Just like the card companies started printing ‘Happy Divorce’ cards when divorce became so prevalent that nobody could ignore it any more," laughs Jasmine, "I'm sure that some marketing magician at John Sands has drawn up the prototype for a ‘Happy Pink Slip’ card."

"I understand that permanent jobs were a 20th century phenomenon and accept that everyone these days can now expect to be pink-slipped on a regular basis," says Jasmine, "but it's still a sad event, possibly a cause of suicide in some cases."

"Let's face it, lay-offs are becoming such a common occurrence in workplaces these days that it's no longer a stigma to be unemployed. And that’s good news!"

Jasmine makes the point that in her parents’ generation it was often the case that just one or two people got laid-off. The hapless guys who were the first to get laid off when the arrow on the company profit chart started to turn downwards had to suffer the ignominy of going home alone with their pink slips, often with nobody but their immediate family to console them.

Sometimes even families turned against the jobless, especially if it was the family breadwinner who had been pink slipped.

"You see," says Jasmine, "it was once such a terrible stigma to be laid off. Your hale and hearty workmates who were still in jobs no longer wanted to know you. Your best friends who were still in jobs no longer wanted to know you. It was as if nobody but your mother wanted to know you when you had lost your job."

Jasmine explains that it was not that all of these people suddenly disliked you. They merely felt uncomfortable being around you. They feared for their own jobs. They felt that the pink slip you carried might be contagious.

"Looked at positively," says Jasmine, "the mass lay-offs that occur around the world these days are effectively changing our attitude towards the jobless. There is no longer any shame in being pink slipped. It happens to the best of us, not just those who were last to be hired or those whose last performance review was under par. And quite a number of CEOs lose their jobs, too, when the companies they captained hit the rocks."

"Okay, CEOs do not get pink slipped," Jasmine adds, "but a forced resignation renders one just as jobless as a pink slip. And have you heard of any informal CEO pink slip wakes - where all the jobless CEOs get together and drown their sorrors? So pity them, sort of. They may be rolling in their ill-gotten gains, but they lack the camaraderie that their pink slipped former employees can enjoy and their chances of re-employment are not as good as ours. Who wants to hire someone who captained a business into bankruptcy?"

"I remember hearing about the pink-slip parties organized by recruiters that happened after the dotcom bust a few years ago," says Jasmine. "Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs and the recruiters moved in looking for easy prey - vulnerable people likely to jump into a new low-paying job out of desperation."

"The only parties that I went to after my company folded were the informal parties organized by my former coworkers," says Jasmine. "You know what I mean, the type of party that just happens when there is a local lay-off. The type of party where a group heads for the nearest bar and you can vent your denial and anger among people who are going through the same experience as you. No recruitment company threw a pink-slip party for us!"

"The first two months of being between jobs was spent in a drunken haze," laughs Jasmine. "And, because I didn't have to get up early for work the next day - or the day after, or the day after that - I partied on till dawn and plotted with my former coworkers all manner of dastardly revenges on our former employer."

"I believes it's a healthy process to hold wakes and to plot revenges after losing a job," says Jasmine. "It helped me over the initial anger and denial phase and channeled my anger into harmless talk. It is more likely to be the sole laid-off person - or someone without supportive friends - who is actually capable of carrying out revenges."

"After the denial and anger of job loss dissipated," says Jasmine, "I started to feel sad and it was during this period that I decided to return home. Luckily, my parents saw my depression as perfectly normal and natural and were willing to support me until I'm ready to face the world again."

"I’m not really in any hurry to find another job," confides Jasmine, "I remember too well the hassles of going to the salt-mine every day and I'm happy to stay between jobs for as long as my parents can put up with me!"

market research

Chelsea is a market researcher and a happily married mom of 27 who is fed up with job hunting and wants to start her own internet based business.


"My first job coincided with the economic downturn that started with the dotcom demise in 2000 and was pushed to the edge by the tragic events of 9/11 and everybody was saying that the Internet was dead," says Chelsea, "but I predicted that it was going to pick up and expand further than ever and I was right!"

"There are now tons of jobs for all industries connected with e-commerce," says Chelsea, "and all my friends who were predicting doom and gloom are now enjoying the fruits of an incredible rise in e-commerce."

"Right now, nobody seems to be investing too heavily in Internet based businesses,” says Chelsea. "but small businesses are thriving on e-Bay. I guess it is going to take a while longer for the dotcom crash to recede into history and when the investors come back it's going to be like a second golden age, but much better!"

"With so many PC savvy and superannuation-rich Baby Boomers retiring in droves I believe that online buying is going to increase exponentially in the coming years," says Chelsea, "and I'm thinking of going it alone, starting up my own internet based business."

”My husband is bringing in a good income so I can afford to take time off to plan my new career," says Chelsea, "and with his technical experience and my market research experience I believe we would do well starting up an Internet based business - but I haven't yet decided the specific area to concentrate on."

"Now is the time for me to think and plan and research," explains Chelsea, " and that's what a lot of people like me are doing."

"I predict we can look forward to seeing 'e' preceding a lot of existing and New Age job titles in years to come," says Chelsea. "There will be e-doctors for online cam-consultations with our aging Baby Boomers; e-real estate agents for selling the old family home and buying the ideal retirement villa in a totally virtual environment; e-investment advisers for managing the Baby Boomer's retirement funds; e-lawyers for settling their disputes; and a host of new 'e' enterprises springing up to meet their needs."

"I know that a lot of IT jobs are going offshore and nobody is advising their kids to get into IT," says Chelsea, "but IT skills are going to become as important - if not more so - as reading, writing and arithmetic in the years to come."

"For someone considering a career change who possesses not only the aptitude for this type of work, but also the patience to wait until an e-business picks up, I believe you can't go wrong with IT and e-commerce skills."

"I'm drawn towards the travel and hospitality industries because I believes that the ageing Baby Boomers are going to have a huge impact in these areas."

"The first thing they will want to do when they retire from work," muses Chelsea, "is to take that long-awaited world trip, and many will just take to the road or the seas as a way of life. The travel and hospitality industries are going to boom!"

"The early baby-boom generation covers the period 1946 to 1955. So, from 2011 to 2020 when these guys reach 65 the world is going to witness a movement akin to the swinging 1960s and 1970s."

"Our hip geriatric Boomers are going to impact on the same areas they once changed during their youth," laughs Chelsea, "Everything New Age is going to come back into vogue, and that includes the fashion industry."

"Look forward," predicts Chelsea, "to flares and psychedelic gear coming back into style and being worn with a vengeance by a generation that aims to grow old (young?) disgracefully."

"Actually fashion would be my second choice for a business," says Chelsea, "but I don't believe there would be as much money in it as the travel and hospitality industries - and that's what it's all about - money, money, money!"

ethics v. desperation

Jaime thinks that it’s very important in preparing for a job search to examine your values and how you would feel about working for certain companies or industries, because to accept any old job in desperation could end up making you feel miserable.

“There are many people who have no moral dilemma working for potentially harmful companies,” says Jaime, “but I feel there are many more who are forced to work for such companies against their principles because they are desperate for a job – and this is so wrong.”

"I feel that when we are searching for jobs we often place far too much emphasis on money, location and hours," says Jaime. "Instead, we need to start looking very closely at the ethics and values of our prospective employers. We need to find an employer whose values and ethics match ours.”

“For instance, if you don't smoke, and feel very strongly about the evils of tobacco, would you work for a tobacco company?" says Jaime. "Probably not if you had other alternatives, but what if the tobacco company was the only employment available to you?"

"What if you were offered work by a bank that was ripping off disadvantaged groups by charging exorbitant fees? Would you go home and sleep well at nights, or would you feel uneasy about being part of such an organization?"

"I would be ashamed to earn heaps from a prestigious firm that the rest of the world hates because it is harming its workers with dangerous materials, polluting the atmosphere or the seas, monopolizing industry, ripping off the poor or leading children astray."

"I would prefer to be on a living wage but working for an organization that did good in the world," says Jaime, "but unfortunately I have yet to find a place for myself in such an organization."

Jaime wants to be proud of her job. She doesn’t want to be a party pariah. Of course, she accepts that there is no such thing as a totally bad company or organization. Someone must collect tax, drill for oil and bank our money; and it is not altogether wrong to want to be the biggest and the richest company in the world.

By maintaining her value system, Jaime is severely narrowing her employment prospects. Yet her argument is valid if for no other reason that by accepting a job from such a company she would feel insecure about her job. She would not feel confident that if the economy got rocky down the line that she would be retained rather than fired. She would feel uneasy every time the arrow on the profit chart tips downwards.

Read more about Jaime:

conflicting values

happy wife, happy life

ethical employer becomes greedy pig

untouchable managers

Rosemary is back home being a stay-at-home mom after six months of working in a high pressure, high stress job with a manager who pushed her around like she was a bit of dirt and she's so upset by the experience that right now she's not sure how long her 'between jobs' period is going to be.

"I suppose that manager treated me badly because he thought that with my qualifications I would be coveting his job one day," says Rosemary, "and I suppose I was - that's natural - but when I couldn’t bear it any more, I was in a dilemma about the correct protocol for resigning."

"We all know what the employment gurus advise about resigning," laughs Rosemary, "but all that crap about a desire to expand one's horizons and regret about leaving such a wonderful job with wonderful managers and co-workers - is absolutely and totally anathema to me."

"Because of this admonition to tell lies and protect future career prospects," says Rosemary, "nobody will ever know the truth about why people quit jobs and nothing will ever get done about removing the problems that cause resignations."

"Why are these lies perpetrated? asks Rosemary. "Why is it not okay to tell the truth?"

Rosemary makes the point that when relationships come to an end, it is very rare that two people have anything good to say about each other and that is perfectly acceptable.

"If the two people still liked each other, they would not be splitting up, would they?" asks Rosemary. "So why is it unacceptable, for instance, to resign a job on account of 'irreconcilable differences' with one's boss or co-worker?"

Rosemary feels that irreconcilable differences is a wonderful explanation for job quitting, expressing a perfectly understandable human condition, without getting down and dirty about the specifics.

"The employment gurus say that you will be branded as someone unfit for teamwork - and will not find another job easily - if you even hinted that you had an interpersonal problem at your last job," says Rosemary, "but I reject this."

"I cannot believe that employers and their HR departments are so naive that they do not understand that just about everybody resigns a job because of some interpersonal problem."

"If it is not the main reason," says Rosemary, "then it is definitely a very close secondary reason."

"Basically," says Rosemary, "jobs are relationships. Forget about the product, the pay, the building and other window dressing. It is the people you will be working for, and with, that make or break a job. And, it is far more apparent now than it ever was because of the increasingly competitive job market."

"These days," says Rosemary, "both staff and management work in team structures and individuality is no longer a prized characteristic. With shared tasks and sometimes being within elbow's reach of adjacent co-workers, we must bury all that primitive individualism that once separated us from the apes."

Very few people are naturally and overwhelmingly 'people' persons - team players - and Rosemary is one lady who knows only too well that it is a very thin veneer of civility that we affect in order to get through the day at work.

Eventually that veneer cracks.

"Most people are smart enough to keep their cool and plan their resignation," says Rosemary, "but it is not always possible to find a new job before an explosion occurs."

Rosemary agrees that married women like herself, with a working husband, are greatly advantaged in being able to quit lousy jobs while they are ahead and still in control of their faculties.

"I have single friends, especially single working mothers," says Rosemary, "who are badly disadvantaged in the workplace because employers and co-workers know that they can't quit jobs easily."

"Some people get a real kick out of making life hell for the poor single mothers," says Rosemary, "and when workplace scenes do occur it is often some poor single woman breaking under the strain."

"There was a single mother who ended up in hospital in her first week at my old workplace because she was too stressed by one of the stinking managers to attend to a medical problem," says Rosemary, "and when she returned to work he continued to harass her - because he knew how desperately she needed the job."

Rosemary admits that she has never yet come across a person who did not resign a job under suspicious circumstances.

"If honesty were a prized characteristic in the workplace," says Rosemary, "then irreconcilable differences would become as common and acceptable in resignation matters as it is in divorce and there would be no more suspicious circumstances."

"The reason for resignation is a stock interview question for both parties," says Rosemary, "and it’s about time it was dropped. Pick up most interview preparation books and the guru will tell you to rehearse the following silly scene:

'Why did you resign your last job?' asks the Interviewer.

You dutifully reply: 'I needed to broaden my horizons.'

Then you ask: 'Why did the person resign this job I'm applying for?'

The Interviewer dutifully replies: 'Ms Smith needed to broaden her horizons.'

It is an utterly ridiculous question for both parties to ask and someone has to stop this madness."

"When interviewers say that the previous person resigned because she wanted to work overseas, or spend more time at home, or broaden her horizons," claims Rosemary, "the truth is that very few people quit a job for the reasons they state."

"Some people may actually go overseas on an extended holiday to justify giving 'working overseas' as an excuse to quit a job," says Rosemary, "but I know from asking around that everyone’s main reason for quitting a job - not the only one - is that they were being harassed by a manager or co-worker."

"Enough of these lies!" screams Rosemary.

"Does it not occur to management that one bad apple - even within its own management team - is often the cause of many good workers quitting?

"If a three-strikes-you-are-out policy were adopted in workplaces - for both management and staff - then these bad apples can be removed legally from their jobs."

"When staff members do not tell the truth about why they are quitting, these bad apples are given carte blanche to continue their bad behavior," says Rosemary. "They thrive and bask in our lies to the point where they may actually believe that they are 'wonderful' managers and co-workers."

"I refused to perpetuate this madness," says Rosemary. "My resignation letter stated 'irreconcilable differences' and if my next employer doesn't accept that reason as being good enough then I'll find one who does."

"As you can tell," sighs Rosemary, "I'm very upset by my experiences in that job and I'm going to need as much time as necessary to recover from it. I can't apply for another job when I'm so stressed out, so it looks like my time 'between jobs' is going to be weeks if not months and that means money lost and this makes me angrier than ever because that jerk of a manager is still raking in his dough."