Career Change Need Help
I am a college graduate looking for a desperately needed career change. I graduated college with a degree in communications in 2003. Throughout my college career, I spent a fair amount of time doing call center work in sales and customer service to pay my education expenses. I also spent time in radio broadcasting as a disc jockey, until the station I worked on was sold, and the management changed broadcast formats, fired everybody, and hired a whole new staff. Unable to get back into broadcast work after college, I took another call-center based customer service job to keep up with living expenses. After five years of this, I have come to realize that there is no possibility of promotion. I recently took a few graduate courses in English at a local college, hoping to launch a teaching career, but financial difficulties forced me to leave graduate school. I am frustrated with the call center environment, and am looking to get out of the customer service/sales field, and start a new career, but it seems that all employers want to hire me for is the same type of dead-end customer service and sales jobs that I've done in the past. Though I have five years experience on the radio, having been off the air, and out of the broadcast environment for as long as I have, I feel that that is no longer an option for me. I am looking for a career where I can use my education, my skills as a writer, and/or my skills with people in a professional environment with the opportunity to learn new skills, and develop the ones I already have in a professional environment, but, no matter how many resumes I send out (my resume has been workshopped by professionals within the past 6 months), or how many follow up calls I make, I don't seem to get calls for interviews, and my last two interviews were bait-and-switch propositions, where I applied for one job, showed up for the interview and was told: "Well, we're not really looking at you for the job you applied for, but we have a number of openings in our call center, and given your experience, we'd like you to consider one of those positions." I'm so frustrated with both my job and my job hunt I don't know what to do anymore. Any advice?
Well, first, I commend you for working hard on this. I am glad to hear that your resume has been updgraded professionally and that in addition to applying to jobs, you are making calls. I don't know where you live, but I wonder about an organization with an online presence. The web requires writers, producers, podcast hosts, content managers, etc. A lot of these organizations don't come up on the radar of many job seekers, but they are there. (Do a job search with a keyword like Web or Online and experiment with Podcast or Audio) So, instead of looking at your options as Disk Jockey, or Customer service, explore the right turns you can make. Ian Christie Career Changers Coach Thanks for the reply. As far as looking for work in places with an online presence, I can see the possibilities, however, I also have two roadblocks as far as doing work for that sort of company. The first is location. I live in Northwestern Pennsylvania, in an area that provides me reasonably easy access to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo, and these three cities, and the area between them is where I am seeking employment. There is very little work available for these type of jobs, as most companies in this area prefer to outsource their online work out west or down south. The second, and more practical issue is that, despite having taken classes to learn basic computer applications, and Microsoft Office, outside of these basic programs, I have little skill with computers, and lack the technical or computer skills to land one of these positions. I feel that the problems I am experiencing with a career change are largely due to the fact that my degree is in a very general field (Communications), and I lack experience outside a call center or broadcast environment. Employers (even for entry level positions) tend to look at my resume and dismiss it out of hand because I lack a degree in a more specific field, or lack the type of professional experience that employers are looking for. Part of the reason I want to leave my current job is to gain that experience, but until someone hires me, I can't get the experience that employers in this area want. SilvermoonWolf, I just wanted to say that I am in almost the exact same situation that you are in. I went to school and obtained my degree in Communications. I wasn't even fortunate enough to get the radio broadcasting expereience that you did because i was so focused on working my full-time job in college to do anything significant with my internship. However, I have been out of school since August 2004 and all i seem to be able to attract are other companies that want to offer a customer service/collections position. Alot of financial groups and call centers continue to contact me concerning positions and I am trying to stray away from this type of employment. I'm looking to get experience in Fashion Design and Marketing and I have seen so many positions that I could take advantage of but i dont have the expereience in that field to even get my foot in the door. I am in desperate need of getting out of my call center job to find a career that I am passionate about. | |
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