afan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 2:54 pm
Not in Chicago, but I had a career coach years ago.
...
This has given me a negative view of the entire "profession", if it can be called that.
It's not surprising to read this. I'm sure there's no shortage of yahoos such as you described. What little I've seen, it seems most will do a free initial consultation. So I'm thinking that if I come to the consultation armed with my questions, I can get a sense of whether or not they are full of it, or have some practical knowledge/experience.
WildBill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:39 pm
You have a long list of requirements. In my experience a single person probably does not exist with this set of skills and experience that is available for hire.
Do you think there's anyone for hire who can answer at least a couple of those?
afan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 2:54 pm
If my pay were dramatically above market I am not so sure I would be looking to change jobs. What you do sounds sufficiently specialized that it seems unlikely to pay to change fields. Why not milk your current job for all it is worth?
I've been here for over a decade. Milking it has been the plan, but I just don't think I can do it any more. It's hard to explain the situation concisely, but I'll summarize and say the culture is just a bad fit. Everyone is kept on a super-short leash, no one is trusted, people are fired without any reason or explanation, the owner is paranoid people are stealing from him... I could go on, but in short, I just don't respect the owners (I report to them). They have mastered the art of managing by being vague so when they backpedal, it's not
quite a lie.
WildBill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:39 pm
There are experienced senior executives around, likely some at your firm, who might.
Do you have some credibility/experience as a “special projects” or “trouble shooter” kind of guy within your firm? If that is the case, you may or may not be overpaid. I had that profile for several years and some of the projects I delivered were worth orders of magnitude whatI was paid.
I have done for the owners things that are
artificially hard. Because the owners do not understand technology, they want things done in ways that make them
feel good, but are technically inappropriate. In other words, there is almost an easier, established industry best-practice way of doing something, but they don't understand it, so it instead has to be done in a convoluted, usually fragile way. These aren't innovations or solving new problems; it's re-inventing the wheel in cringe-worthy ways. An analogy: it's as though they don't understand hammers, so I've used screwdrivers to hammer nails for them. For my tenure and trust they place in me, they pay huge. But I am certain no one else will pay anything to hammer with a screwdriver, because everyone else just uses a hammer.
A former colleague recently left, and is already finding it hard to find a new job. He was there for a few years, and almost all those years were wasted in terms of career experience. He has kind of been the canary in the coal mine for me, exposing what I long suspected: all the time I've been milking the pay, my career has been moving backwards. I really think that every year I've been here, I've made 2-3x what I would anywhere else, but my career advanced the equivalent of a week.
afan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:24 pm
You are probably going to do better by talking with people you know who are in your field. Friends or acquaintances who can give a perspective on your current situation and career options. Someone who purports to be a a general career expert is not likely to know much about your line of work.
I agree, the problem is I don't have any network on which to lean. I moved to the area for this position, the only people I know in the field/industry are at this small company. Everyone else I know is in a completely different field/industry.