Welcome to GPS

When you first crack "What Color Is Your Parachute?" in your generic 101 college class, you are led to believe many fables. The biggest being that the book itself will help you shape your destiny. I transferred into the final two years of my degree from a community college to a university, believing writing was my destiny. I was strongly supported throughout my degree acquisition by faculty, staff, and a high gpa. When I graduated, I had experience writing professionally in corporate communication and was ready to enter my career. What I didn't count on was that there were few writing jobs available in my locality. Furthermore, the advisor in Communication reminded me that Creative Writers didn't generally get jobs, and Communication writers did. That's why I should change my major from English to his department. What he didn't tell me was that writing Corporate Communication sucked. The primary goal is to write about the sun shining out the companies ass, and how grateful the employees are to bask in it, as they get their two minutes of fame in the company newsletter.

Fewer writing jobs could pay the rent. So like many others, I went into sales. I hated cold-calling. I sold computers. I liked computers. So that led me into computer graphics, which I related to writing in that layout and text went together. I made progress writing and laying-out pages. But most managers wanted to hear their voice in the text. Sometimes it was hard to use a superior's text, epsecially if their voice was from another country and I could not find a valid grammatical reason why it sounded cludgy. I became very good at computer graphics, and later web design, but I had to force my brain to learn programming. But the salary soon eclipsed what I could do as a writer. So I surfed the tides of technology. Learning what terms to use in my resume, and getting deeper into the mechanics of the web, without having the predisposition for technology, but learning enough to make my way. Luckily, I feel that brain is like play-dough, not in a drug sense, but in the sense that I can mold it to work like a programmers, technologists whatever. Being creative might have helped, but being a sponge helped more.

To be successful in technology without being technical meant learning words that change salary. A Web Designer does virtually the same thing as a Web UI specialist. The difference is about double the salary. Making web sites "Accessable" is a buzzword that sounds complicated. It isn't its just knowing about 14 rules to add attributes to HTML tags. So here I am sitting next to people whose parachute color was always technology and computer programming. I have a feeling that many suspected I was an imposter. I sensed resentment from quite a few.

I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I stuck with writing and figured the gig out. How good of a writer would I have become? Would I have written books? Or would I have had a miserable struggling life writing spec-sheets and product guides for statistical software.

I get laid off a lot. I'm not always the first to go, but I am sick of going. I am now 44 and without a job. I am sick of programming. So now after making a decent career in the wrong parachute color, navigating the changing currents of computer graphic design and web technology, I wonder, is now the time to get back to my original dream of writing? Blogging can be lucrative, or so the bloggers say. I suppose I'm a decent writer, but am I prolific enough to make a go of it?

Even if the parachute book was right, I'm still in better financial shape than many employed people. I think the journey so far has been a somewhat pleasant one. It has been a challenge and a struggle to learn things that were not native to my natural strengths and talents. And to compete with those who were given a talent by god. But was it wasted time or a wrong path because my strength analysis didn't say I'd be good at it? Maybe, maybe.

So here I am a career GPS with about 16 jobs under my belt at 44. I get interviews. I land jobs. I am not as genetically qualified as others for the position. So add to my experience another skillset, "getting hired".

And so we come to the reason for career GPS. Here my skill for maximizing hiring potential in the wrong color parachute, can help you get a job in your target, whether it matches your color, strengths, weaknesses, or whatever buzzword is used to pigeon-hole you into a career category these days.


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