Fallen off your career ladder? Help’s at hand

Most Canadians still turn to family, friends and co-workers for career advice, but more and more are also seeking outside help, as working life becomes more complex.

“The world of work is not a straightforward career ladder as it was years ago. It’s more like a jungle gym,” says Robert Shea, president of the newly created Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling, and director of career planning and experiential learning at Newfoundland’s Memorial University.

University and college students make heavy use of career-planning resources, as do displaced employees who have been offered “outplacement assistance” by the companies that fired them.

But in the past decade, Mr. Shea has also noted a dramatic increase in the ranks of currently employed Canadians getting independent advice on matters that might be politically unwise to raise with their current employers: they’re bored, they’re stuck, their jobs are consuming too much time.

Indeed, two-thirds of working Canadians surveyed in a recent Ipsos Reid poll report that “if they were to start all over again,” they would get more career-planning advice and information than they actually did at the outset of their careers.

The poll was released this week at the launch of the Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling (http://www.ceric.ca), which was formed to conduct research, share information on best practices and improve the quality of career counselling services in Canada.

The survey of 1,000 adult Canadians found that one in 10 had sought assistance in making career plans or in selecting, changing or getting a job in the past year.

The majority (68 per cent) sought advice from relatives, friends and neighbours, while 67 per cent turned to colleagues or newspaper articles for information and advice.

“But fully half of Canadians also point to a number of other potential career-planning assistance resources, including a career specialist or counsellor in an educational setting,” Ipsos Reid said in its summary of poll results.

Canadians 35 and younger are far more likely to seek advice than older Canadians.

However, Donald Lawson, who has spent 54 years in the investment industry, says there is no age limit on the need for advice.

“There is never an end to when people can use help,” says Mr. Lawson, who was chairman of Moss Lawson & Co. Ltd. when it merged with the brokerage arm of Hongkong Bank of Canada in 1998, and who stayed on as honorary chairman and an investment adviser to private clients after the merger.

Mr. Lawson is also chairman of the Counselling Foundation of Canada, which founded the new research institute to support and expand the provision of career counselling services so more Canadians will have access to “productive and fulfilling careers.”

Mr. Shea has talked to people seeking more balance in their lives, and to others seeking more challenge in their work.

“Career advisers are seeing more and more people in mid-career who are saying, ‘this is not what I signed on for, this is not what I thought my career was about,’ ” he says.

And by mid-career, people often need help repositioning themselves. “I tell people that just because they are in an organization where they have plateaued, it doesn’t mean they have to be plateaued for the next 20 years,” he says.

“Let’s see what you can do inside and outside the organization to allow you to move forward with your career.”

Unsure of where to go for help, many of these mid-careerists are returning to their alma maters for guidance. This boomerang effect has come around so often that career counsellors at some universities are asking to see alumni cards, just as they request student cards, before dispensing advice, Mr. Shea says.

At the entry level, graduating students need help finding careers they can be passionate about. “Don’t become a pipe-fitter or a teacher just because you have read that there’s a need for pipe-fitters or teachers; it has to be right for you,” he advises.

And at the other end of the spectrum, as they approach retirement, older Canadians are also seeking advice on what to do next, whether in a paid capacity or in a volunteer capacity, Mr. Shea says.

He believes all the requests for help make sense. The current work environment, he says, is too precarious to manoeuvre alone.

“People used to be able to work their ways up a career ladder. You can’t say that any more. People are finding that the rungs of the ladder have been kicked out. They have to jump over a few gaps if they want to move up, or they find themselves plateaued.”

Mid-career, after a downsizing, is not the best time to finally learn how to write a résumé. “I feel so badly when someone comes to me in that situation,” Mr. Shea says.

‘People need to know that they should reach out and get advice. Career-planning is a life skill now.”

vgalt@globeandmail.com

Career-planning help

Here’s where Canadians look for advice:

Relatives/friends/neighbours: 68%

Co-worker/associate: 67%

Newspapers: 67%

Government Employment Centre: 55%

Workplace human resource specialist: 54%

Career site on the Internet: 53%

Community based employment agency: 51%

A community/business association or network: 49%

Educational career specialist or counsellor: 47%

Instructor, teacher, or educational staff: 43%

Private career specialist or counsellor: 39%

On-line support and networking groups: 29%

Note: Based on a survey of 1,000 people

SOURCE: IPSOS-REID

Similar Posts:

• Top 5 Employment Trends for 2012
• Getting A Recommendation From A Past Employer
• Using LunchMeet to Advance Your Career
• Staying Motivated at a Dead-End Job