Written by Marty Jaffe, Career Counselor at JFSA...
On this chilly winter afternoon I share my reflections on
2009 and my hopes and vision for your job seeking/ career development goals in
2010. Our Employment-Related Support Program will be here for you. As I begin my 27th year of career
counseling I offer these thoughts to
bring you calm, focus and the honor of letting us continue to serve you during
2010...
JOB SEARCH IS DIFFICULT :
While everyone and his second cousin will tell you their
magical networking technique that will assure you the job of your dreams, or
tell you that all you have to do is read "Do What You Love, The Money Will
Follow", "What Color is Your Parachute?" or go to every job
club/networking event in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why are you not doing what I told you?.....
we won’t!
We know that job searching/career transition is daunting
and difficult. The American economy
resembles the London of the 1840’s that Charles Dickens’ wrote of in HARD TIMES
and some days job seeking feels like being Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the
hill only to see it roll over you at the end of the day.
We promise to bring you fresh methods and rigorous analysis
of what works, makes sense, seems doomed/hopeless, needs to be rethought,
etc. After all, we are not killjoys or
bland cheerleaders. Rather, we try to be
objective, realistic – as well as supportive and caring. As I have said so many
times at our Monday Mind/Body/Soul sessions, we are Jews, and therefore we
agree to debate, struggle, disagree and seek truth and effectiveness. Job search is neither rocket science nor
wisdom of Torah sages—it’s a process with multiple interpretations and
twists, and our programs and counseling will reflect varied perspectives.
A GROUP REVELATION FROM 2009: PASSION IS OVERRATED!
A Mind/Body/Soul speaker in the past, spoke about passion for what you do and seeking your true
passion as the path to success…… as a career counselor working with adults for
27 years let me temper “passion” with
what I term the “reality inventory.”
Imagine you are a 47 year old downsized accountant, with three children, a loving
spouse with no work history, a huge mortgage… and in one of the MBS sessions
where we completed one of the vocational/personality assessments I am so fond
of, your results say to you, “ AHA—my passion is for ornithology, I must go
back to graduate school, then to Tahiti to study rare birds.”
When you meet with me and tell me of this passionate dream
my role will be to work on refocusing to the gritty realities of adulthood,
marriage, mortgages and deferring dreams or finding a vocational way of
expressing dreams (perhaps the zoo needs volunteers in bird feeding in the
rainforest)
AND ON THE OTHER HAND
Our market-driven competitive capitalist economy does not
foster introspection and self analysis among the American workforce. As a career
counselor I am not serving you well if I
overemphasize all the process pieces of
job search/career transition, the networking, targeting employers, resume and
interview preparation and ignore the rich intrinsic search for meaning and
purpose in work--- an occupation integrating skills, values, interests, as well
as providing a means of generating income --- I call this LIFEWORK, and it is a vital cog in our program.
Have you ever heard a career speaker or read a job search book/article that says you are
“selling yourself” in the job search to an employer? My perspective is distinctly opposed to that
view—too many superficial programs for the downsized overemphasize the superficial
“self-marketing,” “networking,” "hidden job market” approach that treats you as
an object, a Willy Loman, to be packaged
and marketed like detergent. If I don’t treat you like a mensch, a human being
of value, integrity and with much to contribute to this world, I have failed you as a
counselor and a job search strategist.
My 2010 pledge to you is to be here to struggle, care,
plan and be present as we confirm the effectiveness of a strategy, implement a
new dream, …. One final lesson from that
great American play, Death of A Salesman that I cited earlier that I hope
informs everything we will do in our
program in 2010.. to quote Linda Loman, “Attention must be paid.”
Martin Elliot Jaffe, JFSA Career Counselor