Empowering you to take charge of Your Future Working Life.
I work alongside you in a collaborative two-way relationship to help find the right career for you.
About Me
Individual support that helps you to succeed.
Are you thinking of moving jobs? Looking for a change? Company redundancy? Not sure what you want to do?
That’s where I can help. Hi, my name is Sharon Watson. After 25 years of working to earn a pay cheque, I finally found a job I love, a job I am eager to get out of bed and do. By giving you individual support, I will help you to work in a job you enjoy going to every day.
For me this started with a conversation over dinner with someone doing Career Counselling for me to realize this was what I wanted to, so I started studying completing my Advance Diploma in Careers. Since then, I have used what I have learnt to help many people into jobs or study they enjoy and put them on a career path they love.
More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
How it began
After talking to the woman who was studying Careers, I was sitting on a river whitebaiting one day mulling things over. I wanted to show my daughters I could do more for a job than what I was doing, and I wanted to be personally challenged. This led me to study via distance and get my Diploma in Careers, and then later my Advanced Diploma in Careers. It took a while for me to find the right sort of job where I could apply the skills I had learnt, and I eventually did with Ashburton YMCA where I helped long time unemployed people find their job of choice.
Many of the people I helped are still in the jobs they started with or have moved onwards and upwards. I then went on to work for Primary ITO and my careers training helped rural people discover how they could upskill in their area of passion.
I have had success working with The Ministry of Social Development helping unemployed people into work; ACC supporting injured people either back into their jobs or because of their injuries helped them find a new path; I have worked alongside companies and employees when redundancies have occurred to assist the staff made redundant with their new adventures; I have worked with high school students to help them start in an industry they are eager to be a part of, or to help decipher where they should start; and I have worked with many individuals who want more….more money, more challenge in their work, more responsibilities, more work/life balance and facilitated their next job.
“Being happy and fulfilled at work is so important, because on average we spend 1/3 of our lives working.”
My Process
How I work
As our lives change what we need from our work also changes. I will take you on a journey of self-discovery exploring your personality, experiences, anxieties, and your vision of your future. From here we will work together to find how you can move forward with confidence in your choices. Once this is done, we will look at crafting a personalized CV to help tell give account of your capabilities, and get you interview ready for the role you have chosen.
Collaborative
I work alongside you in a collaborative two-way relationship to find out as much as I can about you to find the right career for you.
Confidence & prepareness
I ensure you have a robust CV, can write strong cover letters, and how to have confidence to go into an interview prepared.
Empowering you
My goal is to empower you to take charge of your future working life, and to help you into a career path you love.
Book a free 20-minute consultation with me.
The next step
Where do I begin?
Have you reached the point where you want to change your career path but don’t know how to get started or which way you should go? Changing careers can be a period of immense frustration when you question your self-worth, skills or expertise.
How to successfully change careers
The key to changing careers is to set specific goals. That may seem obvious, but people often avoid doing this without realising that they’re sabotaging themselves. You might wonder why anyone would deliberately stand in their way, but many different thought patterns can undermine us.
A typical thought pattern that can hold us back from success is the fear of failure. If we don’t set realistic goals, then we don’t have to worry about failing. We can also be just scared of success. If we achieve our goals, then we will have a new set of problems.
It can be tough to venture beyond our comfort zone and begin again as we risk losing everything we have worked so hard to achieve.
Setting realistic goals
The goal of wanting to change career is not specific enough by itself. I recommend thinking about the skills that you have and what you like doing. Consider what motivates you and be honest with yourself. For example, are prestige and money necessary to you, or do you feel fulfilled helping people and the community?
Once you have worked out what is important to you, you can research how the job market can deliver on that. Analyse job ads to see if there is a gap between your education and experience that will hold you back from where you want to get.
This may mean that you need to do some formal education or online learning. When you apply for jobs, you can show that you’re serious about changing careers rather than just testing the waters, which some employers may look favourably on.
Why is it hard to change careers?
It’s common to feel conflicting emotions when switching careers, particularly if dissatisfied with your job. This may mean that you’re thinking about escaping from your career instead of moving toward a new one, negatively influencing your thought processes.
Applying for jobs takes energy, and if you’re not in the right frame of mind, it can become more complex. For example, if you make it through the application process to a job interview, you may struggle to put a positive spin on your past work experiences.
“This is hardly surprising as how can anyone tell positive stories when they’re unconsciously trying to run away from something? ”
Other issues arise when people head online looking for solutions with no clear purpose. Have you ever taken a career quiz and found that it has suggested something that doesn’t match your experience? Or perhaps you started researching the job market to see what choices you have but find yourself endlessly scrolling instead? Rather than solving your problem, it just leaves you feeling more demotivated and stuck in your current career than you were before.
Conclusion
You may find that when you go through this process that your current career already delivers and that a career change may not be the answer to whatever problems you are experiencing.
When I coach with people who have this realisation, we dig deeper to find the root cause of their dissatisfaction.
We then create a plan to help them fall back in love with their career.
Quite a lot of people, once they start being happy at work, decide to stay.
Testimonials
What People Are Saying
We have used Sharon’s services for both our job applications. She was friendly, approachable, professional and very easy to deal with. She helped us develop our CV’s and cover letters to a very high standard as well as coaching for interviews, with very successful results. We would not hesitate to highly recommend Sharon.
Highly recommended – I used Sharon’s services for my students she built there confidence to be work ready, she worked alongside them to reach there goal of gaining employment.
She went above and beyond my expectations with positive results.
Sharon works with you through the whole process from CV writing to interview skills and suitable interview clothes.
Sharon can see the potential in you and I would definitely refer more of my clients to Sharon.
Ready to Make a Change?
Get in touch with me to discuss your future career options and by giving you individual support, I will help you to work in a job you enjoy going to every day.
Sharon Watson – 027 291 6343
