Slow but steady wins the race


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Aesop’s fable, detailing a race between seemingly unequal contestants, the Tortoise and the Hare, is a folk favourite. As the Tortoise plods over the finishing line ahead of the overconfident Hare, the moral of the story is clear: slow but steady wins the race.

My name is George Broke and just over a month ago I left my last job, working for a small start-up. This was my third full-time job since leaving University and means that I am still looking for that dream job at the age of 27. But all is not lost.

Because by talking to others my age and in a similar position, I’ve realised that I'm one of many people yet to identify exactly what it is they want to achieve professionally in life. Just as there are those infuriating people out there who've always known exactly what they wanted to do and/or slipped straight into the perfect job after University or College, there are also us "tortoises". Recently released stats suggest that the average career involves roughly 10 job swaps, so tortoises, stay positive; with perseverance and application we will all get there in the end.

But why I have started this blog? to share all the experiences and advice that I have had over the past 5 years of job hunting with other twenty and thirty somethings who are out of work and/or still looking for the right career move. No one said it would be easy, but by plodding along in the right direction (which I aim to help you identify) we’ll give ourselves as good a chance as any wretched hare out there of reaching the finishing line.

So remember, slow and steady wins the race.

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Monday, July 20, 2009

Wife Swap

I've just come off the back of watching Channel 4's Wife Swap and am surprised that it actually through up a few interesting ideas. Not about swapping wives, although given that one of the families in question was from Norfolk you wouldn't be surprised...No, it was more what one of the daughters said after her surrogate mother for the week had started to impose her own rules on her adopted family.

The daughter had been brought up on a busy schedule of academia, sport, music and drama with a little bit of time left for socialising. Her surrogate mother decided that this was too much and didn't leave enough time in which to "chill out". After a couple of days loving the new regime the little girl concluded that, while fun, the new regime was going to lead her into adopting bad habits. She thought that you could end up forgetting "...how to walk, how to drive and how to breathe." Whilst a bit extreme, you could see the underlying point: you've got to go and get it.

At Durham, where I was at University, I studied Social and Biological Anthropology. Now whilst it hasn't been of direct use in any of my subsequent careers, it has helped me understand many aspect of human nature. At our most basic level, humans have survived and still do today in some culture by being hunter-gatherers. Now I doubt the hunter-gatherer that doesn't actively go and get his food and water survives long. Well the same is true of western society today, especially where the job market is concerned. If you don't ask, you won't get. You need to make the running; you need to be keen. Nothing is going to fall on the lazy man's lap.

Which begs the question: why was I slumped in front of the television watching Wife Swap? Well, what else is there to do at 11 o'clock on a Monday evening other than sit back and chuckle at other people's problems. Tomorrow morning and reality will strike again...

Remember, slow but steady wins the race...

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