Career change expert for advices

[fahbb]

I have always wondered why anyone would trust a career coach anyway.

Unless they always wanted to be one (jeez), how have they ended up being one and still be qualified to advise others on how to get where they want to be.

A bit like the book on 'How to get rich' where the only conclusion is that writing a book on how to get rich is probably the easiest way to get rich.


I always remember career advice at school. I was good at Maths and Physics and computers.
The advice I got was to be a scientist, accountant or bank manager ("a job in computers? Don't be silly there aren't any"). Which was bloody useless advice and only shows the idiocy of people who's career is other people's careers.

I partially agree. If you have chosen the right career coach, he can give wider view of what you could next and of things you might not be thinking about, based on their experience of course. I agree this is not an easy task and not straightforward, but it can help having a different perspective. If you have got a top professional, you definitely can't compare with teachers at school or parents advices.

[fahbb]

If the OP wants career advice, he could do worse than reading

Creating You and Co

It shows you how to see yourself as a company in your own right.

It certainly helped me before I became a contractor, by helping me to think like a business.

Thanks a lot, not so sure if it can really help me but I will check that out.

[fahbb]

If you want to enhance your career and get new skills, but also have to endure irritating "performance reviews", the promises of yearly pay rises followed by the disappointment when they don't arrive, the carrot of a bonus dangled in front of your nose to only yet again be disappointed, go perm. If you want to be in proper control of your rate and not have to put up with the aforementioned, stay contracting.

In terms of being "on the right path" no-one can really tell you that. Not even a career coach. The main question you have to ask yourself is are you happy doing what you're doing and where do YOU want to be in a few years time? If you don't know the answer to the second question, keep calm and carry on invoicing until you do. When you know what you want to do, then start to make moves toward it. Until then, stick to the status quo, keep building your warchest and gaining valuable project experience in your current and or future contracting gigs.

I will re-iterate; only YOU can know what YOU want to do. Don't pay for someone to tell you, anyone on here can do that and you'll be just as unhappy once you've poured your heart and soul into it for a worthless return at the end. I spent my early career following my Dad's advice over what I should and shouldn't be doing in IT and it got me a bag full of unhappiness. Just do whats best for you at the moment and you'll work the rest out.

Definitely agree with everything.
The only point for me is that contracting will let me stay for next couple of years in the same job basically, doing the same thing.
This is cool in terms of what you said before, but I am still struggling understanding how my career progression could look like if in 2 years I am not in the UK anymore. Will I be still a "technical person"? There are countries where contractors don't exist and there are only permanent jobs, that means for me that if for some reasons I need to move to those countries then I will be a technical person with a permanent job.
So basically would like to stay contracting but making sure that I could progress in my career if I need to move elsewhere. Otherwise after 2 years contracting the bottom line for the recruiters could be something like this is a technical person, can't be our PM for example, which is not true as I was PM in the past. So, need to understand what could be the best for me to do it. If I move to permanent jobs, potentially I will not be stuck in the same role and that could be more appreciated and valuable later on if I will move elsewhere.

[fidot]

Yes, please! Do you know anyone you want to recommend?

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