A Career Lost in Translation

By

Janice L Friddle

I never received any clues that directed me toward any specialized career. I had no magical calling or even cultivated ambition. Through eleven summers I was a wrangler at a residential camp. I was never happier than on those crisp mountain mornings when I would set out with bridle and oat bag intent on finding the herd and rounding them up for our day's duties. I still insist 30-years later that I am a horse whisperer.

I started college when I was barely 17. I had been an atrocious, apathetic student and my first semester was no different. When I nearly lost my financial aid, I realized that I was paying to fail. From that moment on, I was a straight A student. I achieved two Associates Degrees and eventually a BA in Communication.

I started working as a program coordinator at the local community college. My assignments took me to ongoing relationships with clients age 60 and older. While my role was recreational learning opportunities, I learned that there was nothing recreational about limited incomes, choosing between food and medicine and the cadre of health challenges that older people face.

I joined all the relevant boards and committees. Eventually I was president, chair or director of every one of them. We sponsored benefit events, raised awareness by producing a live, call-in television show on PBS. I wrote, produced and cast that show for five years. I applied and was appointed by two different Colorado governors to the Colorado Commission on Aging. By my second term, I was appointed Chair. I had climbed a long ladder in a short time.

I was approached by the Colorado Attorney General to lead a start-up project to educate seniors and prevent financial elder abuse. It was a fantastic ego-filling position. I traveled with the best of the best, spoke to hundreds of audiences, wrote, collaborated and surged ahead with my assignments. After the Attorney General, won a seat in the United States Senate, the project started losing momentum. I realized then that perhaps I had hit a career wall. I grew weary of layers upon layers of bureaucracy, micro-management and a seemingly sudden disinterest in the general mission of the project. Granted financial elder abuse wouldn't even make the top ten on the list of things our elder population is worried about. I was forced to walk away.

After a few months of just being a mom, I accepted a job at a very small nonprofit. It is like no work environment I have ever experienced. There is no team focus or leadership. Management is quick to anger and slow to demonstrate praise. The negativity of the place emanates for blocks in any direction. It is this environment that helped me conclude that I need a change. I don't need just another job. I need a new focus, a new cause or project that encompasses all my skills and recharges my passion for work.

It's been over a year of sending resumes and writing creative cover letters. I get occasional thanks but no thanks e-mails, but it is the silence that makes this process painful. I've read all the advice articles about the importance of networking and getting face time with the recruiters and hiring managers but I work long and strange hours. I am taking classes in alternative energy and may seek a project manager certification as soon as I finish. If I am laid off, I'll go networking but I want to control my employment status for as long as I can.

In the interim, I am challenged. I read job descriptions and I see that employers are seeking team players, good communication skills, ability to meet deadlines, be a leader, manage the work and people too and all the general qualities that every employer values; skills that I have.

All my jobs have had a human resources component, marketing, public relations, web design, instructional design, product promotions, program development and a lot of other skill sets that are specialties in many organizations. So, I realize that my generalist abilities are lost in translation in a specialist environment and I wonder how many other job seekers are in the same quagmire.

Recruiters, hiring managers, human resource screeners I challenge you to read between the lines. Your next hire may be the best of the best even if it takes them a few weeks to learn the company lingo or industry jargon. Why should you care? Because many people grew our professional careers around being multi-faceted and capable of adapting to any challenge. I wish I could synthesize these facts into a one-page cover letter but I fear without the explanation, you will fail to translate and people like me will continue to wait in silence because no one seems to speak the language of the qualified, dynamic generalist.

If you want to find me, http://post.resumedirector.com/resumes/jlfridrd/