I’m a career coach for women changing direction AMA

[Angliski]

Hello

I’m a career coach with 15 years experience of heaping women find the right rile and change direction. I also have a newborn cluster feeding so am pretty bored. Ask me anything!

Gotta tend baby for a bit - I will come back!

This is fascinating thanks.

I want to ask you something but my brain has already nodded off.

Going to look out my highlighters tomorrow! Currently studying English with a view to go into teaching once the DC are wee bit older. I worry that I'll be mid-40s by the time I qualify but I'll still have 20 years or so working ahead of me so hopefully not too late to change career (currently run a cafe with DH although I'm mainly a SAHM atm).

Same firm, same people but my manager is now here (previously I was doing her maternity cover during a takeover period) so basically I got a load of shit during the year she was off and she came back to a sparkly new world she thinks is great but didn't see all the hard time I had to go through in that year. I have told her many times about what happened but she's never really said to me "god that must have been awful" which is what I would like, just goes on about how we need to look forward etc. I understand that but feel no one really cares that I was killing myself in that year and for no reward - I didn't even get a payrise that year whereas I put in for my team members to get one and they did!

Manager has got promoted and I then had to either go for her job which after the last time I wasn't that bothered for or risk someone much more junior becoming my boss which was equally unattractive. So I went for it and got the job. Started yesterday. So far have been left with some monumental problems by someone who went on annual leave and hasn't left enough detail behind. This sent me into a complete spin because it just reminds me of the bad year - which also included a lot of staffing issues which I had told had been resolved. I am sat here thinking what have I done? I know I need to knock it on the head and get over it but I feel that I can't and whenever I try something like this crops up!

Thanks for starting this @Angliski

Purely for selfish reasons your timing couldn't be more perfect.

Spent the last 18 months while on maternity gaining 3 qualifications for a role I'm passionate about and cannot wait to start. Used to work in very busy media role pre kids.

Pretty much everything is set up for my new self employed role, hugely excited about it yet have been feeling like an imposter with lots self doubt.
Plus after 3 children in 5 years I feel my confidence has taken a huge knock plus the amount of sleep deprivation probably not helping.

Any tips with your experience on how to overcome this and come across like i know what I'm doing?

Hey OP I hope you can help a mid 40s previously professional women who has taken a career break and job hopped constantly in the last year!
I hate people. I don't mind short term but having to see the same people constantly just kills me. I don't care if Sandra from accounts had a run in at the water cooler with Sharon from payroll. I don't care if the manager's picking on Alan in HR. I just want to do a job without all that shit and Never having to talk to co workers

@Hillocrew this is an environmental factors issue. My digital marketer hates people too. So she works form home, remotely and speaks to people as rarely as possible.

Let’s turn it round- what would your ideal work environment be? What do you love? Numbers? Silence? Delivering results?

In what subject area?

Then go find that.

The world I’d work has blown up - you can do all sorts of fantastic work at a massive distance from office politics. You’ve just got to be good enough at something that I need you and will take you on your terms. What is that value that you provide that I need?

@nuggles go you for designing your new career and taking charge of your destiny!

It would be super weird if you were not a bit daunted! Everything is changing! You are taking a bold step into the unknown! However it is also exciting to really commit.

I was once told, 99% is a bitch but 100 is a breeze. If you are really committed you focus entirely on making it work.

Plus it is ok to feel fear and keep going. We all experience fear, it’s just we must not allow it to stop us.

Tell us three reasons why you are the right woman for this move and this work! The keep taking little actions every day to move toward what you want. Celebrate small victories- kept aking action. Know you have a larger reason for doing this- freedom for you and your family, satisfaction in your work, pride in yourself etc.

It always takes a bit longer than you think. Decide to enjoy it! Also find a network or like minded self employed types on or off line and be accountable to each other- check out wishcraft - a book by Barbara sher. Consider attending the insight seminar in london next weekend - life changing, confidence rebuilding, personal development- totally changed my life and it’s only £150 for the whole weekend! Insightseminars Uk I think it is.

I wrote a good book on this . It’s called your life plan. Get it off amazon second hand for a quid or two x

Good luck!!!

@jakeyboy1

You cannot control others and their responses and behaviours. Even if they suck. You can only control yourself and your response. You may be right or you maybe wrong. Would you rather be right or be happy?

At the mo, your resentment is making you super miserable. These folk won’t change. All you can do is change your response.

Either

1. Accept the whole situation completely as those you totally chose the whole thing.

Or

1. Work to change it without being attached to a result

Or

1. Leave.

These are the only three choices we ever have.

Don’t let yourself suffer because of how you feel. See if there might be a more useful way to think about things that makes you feel happier and more free. Then decide if you would prefer to live your life without that thought.

@soloula

Lots of my clients are in 40s and 50s and changing direction.

Teaching is very rewarding. It also has a massive drop out rate. Consider teach first- they are really into mature applicants at the moment and they support their new teachers much better than the general system. Make sure you go in with eyes open this is true for any career change. Before you invest energy and money, try to do a simple and cheap pilot - have you shadowed anyone who teaches? If not, do!

I saw a career coach recently who told me I’m worth more than what I earn based on my experience. I gave up teaching a few years ago and was prepared for, and took, a pay cut. I’m about to start a new job due to redundancy - the pay is about the same as my current salary. My question is - what’s the best strategy for moving onto something with better pay after this job? The area I now work in isn’t known for high salaries.

I have been in the same company for nearly 15 years now. Before I started this job it was so easy to find work - I had four job offers within two weeks of searching. I badly need a change but I literally have no idea where to start job hunting nowadays. How do I do start a job search? I am so fainted and clueless that I’m frozen and not doing anything!

*fainted = daunted

So a “high 1:1 rate” and workshops paid for by large companies. Fair enough to target lucrative markets. But these services are not affordable/accessible for most women.

Thanks for this thread , marking my place so I can read through and ask some questions later from a lost 40 +1 who has no idea what to do for the 28 yrs of working life left!

Hello! Maybe you can help :)

What do you do when where you live there are very little opportunities and my previous roles were very niche?

I worked in online content moderation for 7 years. I climbed the ladder and ended up being one of the managers of the outsourced teams (BPO). Can speak 4 languages. No marketing not sales experience but I have online customer support one. I was able to find a job in a similar role (moderation) but pay is MW. My previous role was £50k, any ideas?

What qualifications do you have? I'm a CIAG professional in Scotland, so the CIAG system is more universal and consistent for young people than in England.
What career management skills do you think are most important in young people entering the world of work?

I have a question, but it may be a little off-topic.

I'm a copy and content writer and would like to move my business away from travel writing, and more towards working with coaches who are focused on supporting other women. I'm interested to know how your digital marketer approached you, or how you approached her, and how you see her work adding value to your business.

Do your clients come to you because they enjoy the blogs, videos, etc. or are they finding you in another way?

Thanks, and enjoy your lovely new baby ❤

@OlafLovesAnna that’s a really good question I left my Digital Marketing did something particular impressive which was that I was there advertising for someone to work on marketing and comms social media and she was able to offer a really integrated approach. So actually she doesn’t really do copy we work with a copywriter to help me I am to devise original material but her what she does do is the full service service and digital branding website social media com is an engagement and real life and marketing events as well. So when I first met her I asked her if she would develop a newsletter and a Facebook ad to demonstrate his skills and she actually said no she don’t wanna do that she didn’t think that was worthwhile instead what she would do with B to devise me a full digital strategy. And to my astonishment a week later she cameBack to me with a full digital strategy with everything from taglines to ideas for comms and campaigns that we engage my audience and a calendar of engagements. Now while you might not be in the market for necessarily a full service digital strategy I’m sure that there are ways that you could use your copywriting skills to offer some insightful feedback about the clients you want to target their current brand and how might they improve their approach or their angle. I thought this was an incredibly valuable way of demonstrating her skills because talk is cheap and I hide her immediately and we’ve been working together very successfully for the last three years. If you want to learn moreAbout our marketing and strategy PM me and I’ll send you a link to to our website so you can see what we do and how we do that if that would be useful wish you all the best of luck with your career change sounds great. Excuse the poor grammar and punctuation I am I’m voice recording this while baby is feeding.

@weebarraHello we Barrett thanks for your message I am I’m qualified as with the diploma in life coaching which I acquired about 15 years ago and over the last 15 years I’ve also quite a huge amount of range of qualifications within the personal development space all of which are kind of integrated and help me to systematise an approach. I actually train career coaches myself including careers advisors and I’m a member of the CGI the career development Institute that the body for career development professionals. The programs that I run for a coach is the accreditation is International coaching Federation accredited ICF accredited so I’m actually someone who teaches a lot of coaches these days rather than requires more credentials. One of the reasons I designed and the method that I did the career equation was because I found that there was a significant gap in career development education where if people don’t really know who they are and what they’re looking for is actually quite difficult for them to access and make best use of careers advisory services. So my workforce is very specific gap niche that kind of falls between coaching careers advisory and and I guess psychology and personal development hope that helps

Sorry for typos! I have to voice record these as my hands are full! Hope it all makes sense!

@Mariagatzs12 the great thing is - the world of work has changed massively. Talent is now being recruited from all over the world to form virtual teams using the best people. This means you aren’t limited to roles in your local geography as long as you are happy to work from home or from a coworking space/ remote office.

You sound like you have a huge range of skills and language capability so are very employable. What kinds of firms need your specific niche? Do you have some ideal firms you would like to work for/with? You cna approach them direct even if it a role isn’t advertised. Additionally remember that people looking for you might not be in the same country even. So widen your net! One of my clients is a freelance branding designer. He works for clients he has never met in India, the US and Romania and is employed remotely by a company in London too- he is Sussex based and works at home, juggling the kids school run etc alongside his projects in different time zones.

Does that help?

That's really interesting, thanks!
I wasn't trying to imply you weren't qualified, more the sort of background you had.
A new strategy in CIAG has just been published by the Scottish Govt, and one of the focuses is career development for career coaches themselves!

@Dozer you mean apart form the free advice I’m offering here and on Quora and the talks I give at Womens networks? Yes it’s true- because I am a thought leader in my space my rate is really high- I tend to focus on training other coaches to deliver 121 work as it’s Better to write books and give talks and thy deliver the one to one- that’s how we connect with the most people and scale.

We are also working on an app at the moment that will open source my work to not just women but also teens ( I ran a social enterprise in this space for ten years and feel passionately about bringing accessible career education to young people). The app will be free to use and so will explode access to the work. I learned the hard way that it was better to adopt a Robin Hood business model where the corporates fund the accessible work than try to make everything funded/free.

Anyway this is not a thread about my business model- it’s about careers support for mumsnet users. For free. So let’s Focus our energy on that!

@weebarra sure - it’s good to discuss qualifications though isn’t it- because it is a sort of new space that falls between advisory and other modalities. Like my work isn’t ‘pure’ coaching- it’s not just asking questions- we do teach a model for self understanding in my method and we do give information- because deciding how to navigate your career is a skills gap so it need filling with both education and self discovery.

I’d be interested to see a link to that strategy- could you send me one? We also have an accreditation running this year so interested to see the agenda. I went to uni in Edinburgh- Scotland is often way ahead in these education agendas. Plus I was up in Glasgow last year working with uni librarians on their career direction! Always keen to get back up there!