Changing careers?

Question

I've been in retail since I graduated high school. In fact, I graduated H.S. in Jan of 1999 and got my first full-time job at a retail change that February. Now since then i've been in and out of different retail jobs. In February of 2004 I decided to get into an Office Administration program. It's been a year later and I haven't heard anything from any jobs in the field I spent 8,000 dollars to work in. Most of the jobs I seemed to apply for find me unqualified. But my sister in law who was going to school to be a paralegal (not office admin) gets a temp job for a law firm doing receptionist work. I still haven't found anything that suits my needs in Office Support/Clerical/Typist or anything like that. Tell me, why is it so hard to change careers? Why do you have to go through the ringer just to find *some* work. And why is it so easy for others?

Answer 1

Start your own business as a VA (Virtual Assistant). You will find plenty of people that will pay you a nice wage to do work for them. VA's make $25 to $50 an hour. Think about it long and hard.

Answer 2

Sometimes, it's about being in the right place at the right time, which explains why some people (like your sister in law) find a job right away, while others it takes a while for.

Don't give up. Keep on sending out your resume. You might have someone look over your resume to see if it's highlighting your skills and education and career goals in the right light.

If you paid $8,000 for this education, perhaps the place where you paid so much money to has a career counseling center or job placement center. If so, try looking into that.

It's hard sometimes, too, to get a job in a new field when you don't have any experience -- the old 'catch 22' of 'you need experience to get hired, but since you don't have any experience we aren't going to hire you, therefore you can't get any experience'. You might try doing some volunteer work where you can use your office admin skills and thus be able to put them down on a resume.

Another idea is to go to a temp agency and get a temp job. They will skills test you, and send you out on assignments. The assignments will be sucky and low-paying, but probably not any lower paying than your retail job. In this way, you can get some office admin experience for your resume, and you might even temp at a place that you find you like and they like you and they end up hiring you!

Good luck in your career search! It can be hard, but you've just got to stick to it and try different things till the right thing comes along. And please believe that the right thing WILL come along eventually, because really it will!

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Answer 3

suggest you find a copy of '48 days to work you love' read digest take notes and apply what you learn.
one problem with all schools or colleges is 'no real world experience'. suggest you find some company small that you may want to work for and approach them on volunteering (free) to work part time with them for experience.
note this is what the working poor will not do but the working rich learn to do so they can get in to a field. if this is too radical for you , volunteer at a non profit for experience.
as for past applications , if they do not call in 45 days they will not . keep putting out applications until you fingers bleed and a day more, that's what winners do.
as for ' anything that suits 'your' needs' remember you are Selling your body and skills for their needs, at this point you really do not count. Beggars aren't choosers.
go with knowledge not arrogance.

Answer 4

there are a lot of factors involved in finding a job. timing has a lot to do with it. also, if you know someone who can tell you about an opening before it 'gets around', that helps a lot. i assume you know about 'networking'. make sure the people you associate with know that you are looking for a job. since you are having difficulty, i'm assuming that your school didn't help too much with job placement. i hope something turns up for you soon. (pray)