Guest, 16 Nov 07 - 01:08 PM,

I was teaching in Australian TAFE (Technical & Further Education) colleges for about 5 years. (This was the penultimate stepping stone to getting out of library work. This process has taken me over a decade, but I've had some interesting jobs in the mean time.) The vast majority of TAFE teachers are casual and only work during the 36 teaching weeks of the year, and have no sick leave, annual leave or any other conditions, and absolutely no job security, so after a few years of this I was desperately trying to get something more permanent and significantly less stressful.

I had email alerts set up with internet job search companies and one morning at 7 am while eating a quick breakfast before heading out for an 8 am class I dashed off a job application for a training position at a government agency. As it happened I landed squarely into a very bad bullying situation and got the chop 10 days later, but I argued for them to give me some work as an admin officer in the department. That lasted 3 months, and was surprisingly interesting. (Note: not clerical work but administrative processing). It required my full range of skills: communication, customer service, planning, organising, analytical problem solving, etc. After that I was given a bit of temporary (labour hire agency) work here and there and then a couple of months after leaving the government department I was given temporary agency work at the Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages. What a great job!! I loved it and the small, friendly team of people were among the best people I have worked with, ever.

Out of that I landed a temporary contract at a related office to the first gov't dept - with full pay & conditions - Yay!! - which dried up after 9 months, then I was asked back to Births, Deaths and stayed there for almost a year - back on agency money - the pay is peanuts with no conditions and no job security. Then I landed a permanent job back at the first government department, which I was only able to get because I had 2 years of solid government experience by then.

It's been a long saga, but my point is that by taking on temporary labour hire agency work I was able to get work in areas of interest, build up my experience and my credibility in that type of work, and then work my way towards a permanent position.

What I am doing now is issuing speeding fines from speed cameras, which probably sounds dull, but I absolutely love it. It uses almost all of my skills, even my visual skills in analysing images, and it is a great team of people to work with, and the government pay & conditions are unbeatable in any non-profit sector work.

After being a casual teacher, driving from campus to campus, with no office space, having to carry my lunch and tea-making things around with me, not having contact with other teachers except on a random basis, the little things I appreciate the most are working in one office with my own desk, having a place to store my files, having access to a refrigerator and tea-making facilities in the next room, and having a great team to work with. The pay and conditions are fantastic. This week I took my first paid annual leave in 11 years.

So I went from fearing desperately that I was going to die in my library job, to fearing desperately that I would never get out of casual work, to landing in a great job, just by believing that my library and teaching skills could be transferred into other types of work - and acting on that belief.

To me, everything I learned and everything I did as a high school English teach, a librarian and a TAFE teacher translate perfectly into every one of the other jobs I have done.

A further comment: I found that trying to get work with training companies was extremely frustrating. It depends more on who you know, rather than what you know. Learn to market your skills, even in the area of getting teaching work in adult training colleges. My marketing skills meant the difference between eating and not eating, some weeks.

A friend of mine is currently attempting the death-defying feat of leaving casual TAFE teaching. She repeatedly tells me that my "escape" is inspirational. It took tenacity, endurance, a belief in myself and my skills, research to identify a wide range of possible jobs, marketing skills to get the work, and identifying useful resources and people, like the woman who re-wrote my CV and gave me hints on the exacting, very specific, and very gruelling process of applying for government jobs. The list goes on. And it took quite a while for me to find where I wanted to go. If you have specific interests rather than a very broad range of interests like me, then it might be easier for you.

My starting point, way back in 1993, was to start a course of study in an area which interested me. That was a good, solid beginning to my escape from the library because it gave me a chance to use my skills and apply them in a new area of study, and to get credibility and proof that my skills were transferable. It helped me to focus on something worthwhile outside of work and to focus on the positive, and help me to stop dwelling on the negative of my situation at work. It gave me hope. It was a stepping stone.

Try developing a career goal and a plan. Decide what information you need to progress in each stage of your plan, and identify resources which you can use to help you gain information or to move forward towards your goals. There are plenty of online testing sites and career planning resources - most of them free - which helped me to narrow down my choices of what I wanted to do, or to reinforce my belief in my work strengths, personal strengths and qualities, and my skills.

Go for it! And keep us posted on your progress, or check in here and help us to keep you feeling positive and optimistic. If you are a member here you can PM me, if you want.

Helen