Is Your Head Spinning From All the Career Advice You've Been Reading?

I read a lot of career advice, and I dispense my fair share of it, too. In the past couple of months I have done both of these activities with above average vigor, and I must admit, tension.

Until I read Eve Tahmincioglu's post yesterday on CareerDiva, I was only vaguely aware of a restless and unsettled feeling I was having reading and writing career advice. Was it the proliferation of gloomy economic forecasts? The effect of hearing too many personal stories of loss and discouragement? Was I just needing a vacation?

Although I wouldn't turn down a trip to Hawaii right now, Eve's post articulated exactly what has been bugging me - the over-reliance people are placing on following advice at the expense of creating their own game plan.

No wonder people's heads are spinning, including mine.

Career advice is general, Eve's post reminded me. It's targeted to corporate employees in cities. It's often geared towards the younger generation.

Your situation may not approximate in any way the typical situations career advice addresses, and this is probably pretty frustrating.

There are fabulous, knowledgeable people giving out incredibly useful career advice for free, on this blog and others. I'm grateful we can get key information when we want it on all kinds of career strategies.

Tempting though it can be, when we make too many of our plans based solely on the advice and opinions of outside experts, we get stuck.

First of all, the experts often disagree with one another. We've got to keep our own critical thinking skills sharp so we can take in what's useful and weed out what isn't resonating. Otherwise we don't know what to do with the contradictions we're hearing.

Secondly, no one knows your priorities, needs, wants, or opportunities better than you. They may not be easily apparent to you right now, or they may be disguising themselves, but you are still the expert on you.

When you make a career decision based on what a magazine article advises, for example, how good a fit is that likely to be? What if you don't have the education, skills or local job opportunities that would make it a good option for you?

So my advice, which I encourage you to ignore, is to limit the career advice you are taking in. Let the advice have a supporting role, and allow your own wisdom to be the star. If your head is spinning from all the career advice you've been reading, stand still for a few moments and regain your balance.

Posted by Heather Mundell

Cross-posted at life@work

Comments

[Chris Bailey]

Thank you, Heather. That's just what I needed to hear right now, too. Far too often, I get caught up in listening to what's out there, instead of listening to what's inside me. It's good to seek outside advice, but I also have some answers. Cheers!

[Candice]

I guess people have to create something like a "career advice collage" where they take the ideas they like most from each expert, then put them together to create something that's all their own.

[Scot Herrick]

If we can get people to be responsible for their own careers and work performance, it would be a great victory.

I delve out job and career advice, but there are too many individual variables to have a cut and paste answer to careers. We can stay in jobs we don't like because our spouse is laid off and we have health insurance. We can leave a job we love and risk poor results to get job skills we need.

It's individual. We just offer up (good) ideas people can use to build their own plan. But in the end, we're all responsible for our own career choices.

[Shweta]

Heather a good point there but as you say I would encourage readers to ignore "limiting the career advice you are taking in". We take in the advice which is relevant to our specific situation and circumstances.. and that you cannot get in one article or website.. one will have to go through a lot of them and as you say find the best that fits your current situation.
For example there are millions of books around and thousands and thousands on career issues and every week more are coming in .. it is not that we have to read all of them but some appeal to some and others to others..

It is not overreliance on the advice but at times when you are feeling down after a layoff one does feel the need for some support and the articles and websites provide this silent support and outline a plan of action.

And in the end as your say "we're all responsible for our own career choices" but of course some advice and help that the internet has enabled free acccess to all is most welcome!
Best wishes,
Shweta