Locals Gather to Find a Career

What would you do if you found out that 24% of your week was spent at work? Wouldn't you want to make sure that you were doing something that was worth it? Jamie Beck, a well-respected career counselor and educational speaker, gave a workshop Wednesday, May 28th, at the A.K. Smiley Public Library on identifying and starting a career. For the unemployed, searching for a job can be quite daunting. Going on different job search websites or knowing who is hiring is not always as easy as it seems, but it doesn't have to be so scary. The problem is not necessarily that a company is not hiring or that there aren't many jobs for those with specific skill sets--Beck pushes that the reason for not finding the job is that there is a severe lack of information when it comes to job searching. As kids, we say that when we grow up we want to be firemen, police officers, doctors, astronauts, and lawyers. The truth though is that sometimes those dreams don't come to fruition. People change their minds, circumstances change where the job is not possible, maybe you go through the formal training and then once you graduate you are unable to find a job--the job pool is too competitive. Beck's solution is instead of saying we want to be lawyers and astronauts, we should be saying that we want to work with law, or that we want to work with space. This will then open the mind to looking into the multiple jobs that go under each of those categories instead of looking at it as one dimensional or two. Beck states,"We can't become what we don't know." During the workshop, attendees were asked to choose from specific topics and in a minute write everything they knew about that topic. Next they were given another minute and had to write all the jobs they were qualified for or jobs that were interested in. Beck then asked select participants how many they picked for their first topic and then how many for the second. It turned out that people were easily able to write down 10-15 items on the first trivial topic while most wrote only 2-3 of the job titles. This shows that we as individuals are more likely to spend time on the trivial topics while the important topics like job options is not taught or given much thought. Beck's workshop introduced the idea of Career Vision (the premise of her whole approach) as a tool in which parents and job seekers can get a better understanding of the jobs available in any given career as well as the possibilities of having a successful and fun career. For parents, exposing kids to different jobs each day builds a bank of jobs that later on will be available to them when looking for the right career. For job seekers, looking at alternative views of careers, not looking at the normal well-known career paths gives them the opportunities to find something that is fulfilling not just during the 24% of the week but during the non-work hours as well. Beck's approach was a unique look into how careers should be viewed, as well as how the future for the unemployed is not so dire. All they need is a more broad vision and the thirst to see it through. If you have the time and want to learn more, check out Beck's website, www.careervisionbyjamie.com. There you will find more about her approach as well as future lecture events.