CASE STUDY 19 - Growth Opportunities in a Puddle

Case Study 19 – Growth opportunities in a puddle

One thing I have spoken about a few times in the past, is ‘The Hobo Syndrome’.

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A belief that a person moves from job to job out of a habitual trait/impulsive behavior like how birds instinctively migrate.? I have learnt through my own experiences that the psychologist that came up with this syndrome has a lot to learn about people.

There are some people who have a vision of exactly what they want to do when they leave school. Some of those go to Uni, TAFE or start a job only to change courses or jobs because it wasn’t what they thought it was. For some, it’s not about knowing what they want to do, but rather the pursuit of status and money. While there are also those who don’t have any idea what they want to do while at school. Sure, teachers ask but what does a 16-yearold know about careers? What do most teachers know about careers? Afterall, most teachers leave school, go to Uni, then go back to school.

I myself was aimless upon leaving school and all the places I worked were quite small. No growth opportunities and simply not where I was meant to be. Puddles that stagnate.

I did get a job in a nursery and enjoyed it to a degree. So, I applied to study Horticulture. My application was rejected and the pay I was getting as a Nursery Hand was too merger to be sustainable. A role that would also later become only seasonal work. Far from a career option.

I had to find something better. Thanks to ‘The Lima Trade Agreement’, big industry that once had lots of growth opportunities had left Australia. One more recent example being car manufacturing, but this exodus had been going on since the eighties.

In the nineties I found my niche, but I was not in the role. It was just a vision of where I need to go. I had a proclivity for HR, but the realization of this being where I needed to be also coincided with the ‘Lean work practices’, movement. So, HR opportunities were shrinking. AI also started to reduce HR options too.

My platform was shrinking and I had to once again reevaluate. Every effort I had made resulted in push back and the windows for HR were shrinking rapidly. I did look to doing a Diploma of HR, but didn’t have the funds to do so. I needed assistance from an employer, even if just to have sufficient income to enroll. But there was also the matter of the HR world becoming a non-viable platform.

I thought of what HR options I could leverage my way into. Employment Services seemed like the right path. I applied for role after role for years with no success. For a time, I resolved myself to just getting a job that was pleasant and found one with an art supply warehouse. Good people, great boss. We were even asked to contribute during our monthly meeting. I had provided a couple of product design ideas; an artist mannequin (with an outer latex skin) that flexed its biceps and a wax modeling kit that enabled kids to make their own toys with the ‘lost wax method’.

However, the work was not inspiring. I still wasn’t doing what I should be doing.

I was still applying for roles in the Employment sector, but without anything to leverage entry, I couldn’t get the opportunity. Until a point of leverage presented itself via a sales role. A role I did for almost two years before getting a chance to get a job in Recruitment, but the Recruitment role was only brief as a consequence of the nature of my employer’s clients. If their client’s tender for contracts failed and their contracts expired, so too did the need for me. The experience though, was invaluable and did open some windows to other opportunities.

Concurrently to me working in Sales, I was also doing on-line study. I had a plan. I looked at our modern world born of lean processes and thought that if I did the Diploma of Leadership and Management, it would give me the ability to pivot. Get me into a role, then build skills and training upon it that could help get to where I wanted to be. Acquired the Diploma, but it didn’t lead to much. Consequently, I was left leap frogging in stagnant puddles in the hope of moving forward. Causing irreparable damage to my resume.? Seen as a Job Hobo, when all I was ever trying to do was move off the bottom rung of the ladder toward the role where I should have been years before and there was no opportunity for growth where I had come from.

For many years, I have been working as a casual and applying for job after job. As a casual, I could attend interviews without impacting on my employer. As a contracted laborer I had the ability to assess companies from within for viability to stay. The problem with most companies that lean heavily on a contracted workforce is that they see the resource as highly expendable and succession planning isn’t high on their list. While other clients were simply too small and too lean. They used a disposable workforce because of their size and didn’t have the management structure that promoted suitable options for me.

The HR platform has shrunk so much that many companies don’t have their own HR, instead they get contracted partnering companies. HR has become a separate entity. To get into this role now demands years of HR experience. Where can we now get this experience if all HR is contracted?

I have been trying to build on my training with modules of HR, but I simply don’t have the income to sustain it. So, for me, the Diploma is intermittent. Now, I have been submitting my damaged resume to recruitment agencies in the endeavor to get small windows of opportunity in the HR sector. You know; Diving off a tall tower into a shot glass.

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The underlying point here is, how does one get to where they belong if the platform is shrinking and to step onto it, one must have years of experience in it and when the applicant is seen as non-viable as a consequence of their attempts to push forward?

I have the aptitude, skills and desire, but destined to stay at the bottom of a dark pit where I am left underutilized and unrealised. My true nature and talent left to decay.