7 Foot

(I realise this has been done a fair few times but it can be bloody hard work finding a job at the moment and I'm working on the theory that current information is probably better than old.)

I need a new job.

I've spent over ten years, since I left education, working in sales/account management and as a commercial agent and I'm pretty good at what I do.
Unfortunately now I'm not entirely sure if I need a completely new career path or just a change of company and challenges and I am ideally hoping to get some sound career guidance as well as advice in finding the right position.

I've been pretty lucky in that it's been over ten years since I really had to look for a job and whilst my CV is basically written I've no idea where really to send it. I've not really got any companies that I am dying to work for and in my experience recruitment consultancies try to put you forward for any position that even loosely fits your criteria and then lose interest if you start rejecting their offers. I also get the impression that a lot of recruitment sites use fake positions as a way of gathering as many CVs as possible.

I'm not ruling out recruitment sites and agencies but are any better than the rest?

Possibly my biggest problem is that I'm a bit wobbly with regard to the direction I want to head in and I could really do with some professional advice.
I'm sure there are countless careers that I could either transfer my skills to or get excited about enough to consider starting from scratch; I could just do with someone helping me discover what they are.

I'd really appreciate any advice from people who have been in the same boat and can speak from experience or from anyone involved in recruitment and or careers guidance.

I realise that's not the greatest thread starter but I'm rushing out of the door. I'll try and improve upon it later.

Thanks for now...

Richard_P

I work in recruitment, we aren't all bad but there are some real cowboys out there too!

Find consultancies that specialises in your area if possible and register with a few of these.

What type of products do you sell?

A recruiter isn't really a careers adviser though, our knowledge tends to be restricted to a particular field!

rifleman

british army.....get to see the world(well afghan) and blow **** up!

gpssti4

iTrader: (6)

too true!

MattW

Edited for accuracy.....sadly

7 Foot

I realise you're not all cowboys Richard and recruitment is something I was thinking about getting into until the economy nose-dived. I've got a few friends in the industry and they were until recently making a killing and really enjoying themselves.

With regard to products, I mainly worked with flooring and decor products. Introducing European manufacturers to the UK market and setting up a distribution network and getting them in with the big retailers. Nothing very exciting but the market is enormous.

Leslie

Everyone has his own talents. If you find a job to exploit your own, whatever they might be, you are likely to enjoy the job as well. Can't tell you what a difference it makes when you enjoy what you are doing.

Les

Boost II

iTrader: (1)

I got 10 years down the line in my career in pharmaceutical research, I was good at it, well paid and it was an easy life - but I was getting no job satisfaction.

I wanted a change but didn't know what to do. When a chance came up to take redundancy and leave with a years salary I did, also my wife earns enough to pay all the bills so there was no immediate pressure on.

I decided to retrain to be a patent lawyer which started well until the recession started - I got booted out of my first legal job in a small firm as the work dropped off. Then it was impossible to find a new one because there were lots of others with way more experience appearing on to the job market due to redundancies elsewhere.

I was forced to admit that my career change was going no where and go back to research. However since I appeared to have had originally held to a senior position with a top company and suddenly binned after 10 years because I was bored, nobody would take me seriously. The result was I had to settle for a much worse paid job, in a much worse company doing the same crap I started out getting no satisfaction from.

So my advice is to stick with what you are doing unless it is making you suicidal - it
just isn't a good time to try and do something brave

Boost II

iTrader: (1)

Just to add there is a book called "what colour is your parachute" - a really useful guide for career changers and job seekers. It is a bit "american" in places but very good - get the 2010 edition from Amazon......

Hysteria1983

Nice way to show support.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

What? The fact that if you go to war there is a chance that you will get blown up? I'd call that being realistic fella.

Hysteria1983

Very realistic indeed, as much as it's a fact that whenever I set foot out of the door there is a chance that I might get ran over, get robbed, buy some bread.

I was just trying be a bit sympathetic to the lads and ladies that serve our country, fella.