The Career Journey. You’re first job won’t be your last.

This year I am very fortunate to watch my third child finish his secondary education. It makes me remember what it as like when I was finishing my high school years. What did I want to be, what kind of industry did I want to get into, what sort of education did I want to pursue?

How on earth can we know the answer to all these questions when we are still so young? We have career advisors at school, these days we have the world wide web and the endless possibilities of what we can be and do. But no matter how much choice we have, it is still inevitable that we need to decide.

I loved learning about the body and science and so I studied an Associate Diploma of Applied Science in Myotherapy. It was way before Myotherapy was a household name. Needless to say, my Myotherapy career was short and sweet. I hated it. A classic case of love the learning but not the job. I still love the learning!

At 26 years of age I ditched the Diploma and decided to go back to University and study a Bachelor of Business in Human Resources and Industrial Relations. This came on the back of working in retail management and loving the training and development element of onboarding of staff and succession planning.

The moral of the story is that the choices you make can change. They can evolve and grow as you discover and learn more about yourself and what resonates with you. You might start your life on a pathway that twists and turns and at times feels so natural while other times you can’t wait for it to end.

Over the years I have worked as a Myotherapist, a bistro manager, a retail manager, a recruitment consultant, a health and safety representative, a sales person, a scrap metal dealer, and a behavioural profiler. Every job has created new opportunities for me and provided me pathways to move into another part of my working journey.

Your first job out of school probably won’t be your last. The reality of it is, the average person will change careers five to seven times during their working life – that’s careers, not just jobs!