Pigeonholing and the problem of vertical job markets

How can being refused a job that you didn’t really want in the first place, make you depressed?

Well, when you’re me, pretty much anything related to career has the potential to bring you down. I’ve never been very good at such things and although people have always told me I have a lot of potential, it never materialises into anything I would recognise as career success. And I’m getting a bit for potential – people want to see progress.

For some time now I’ve thought I was somehow caught in a catch 22. I don’t have enough experience to get contracts as an independent in Africa. So I need to return to Europe and get some experience. Except that in Europe by my age, employers expect to see 10 years experience in a very narrow field of application, for instance in testing of software for medical applications. What I have is breath but not depth. This works in Africa and to a greater extent in US/North America because those job markets are set up to put value in transferable skills – there is an attitude that if you can run a public sector insurance company, you can probably make a good stab at running a plumbing company. The European job market is more cautious and places emphasis on domain expertise.

And whats the definition of an expert? Someone who knows more and more about less and less. I’ve figured out that I’m the kind of person that gets bored as soon as I get comfortable. As soon as I get a grip on how something works, I like to move on. I’m with another friend of mine who responds to the question “what can you do?” with “What is it you need done?”. I’ve enjoyed the times in my professional career where I get to look at something (a business, an organisation, a team, a project) figure out where the problems are and suggest ways to get around them. It’s the kind of thing that business consultants do most of the time….and you can probably bank on those skills in an African or North American context where being a generalist is valued. Unfortunatly, I need to go back to the developed world for a while, for professional development and for my own sanity. And I don’t have rights to work in North America (H1-B’s being rarer than hen’s teeth these days). So, I’m kinda stuck with where I can legally find work –Europe, where its not so easy to be 10 years are graduation and selling general skills.

But never mind, I thought I’d give it a go and asked an old college buddy in consulting where I should be looking for opportunities. I applied to one of the “Big 5” consulting companies based in Ireland. Not that I was particular about returning to the Ould Sod, but the firm were in the middle of a recruitment drive. That was a few months ago and after finally having a very detailed telephone interview, I got the feedback earlier this week. I was rejected on the basis of not having enough commercial experience in implementing IT systems, and while they recognised I had a willingness to learn, they advised me to reapply when I got more experience (presumably from a less picky company!). Then the HR person told me that the manager who interviewed me said I would be great for an NGO role.

God how depressing! He probably thought that was encouragement…I had experience, I had worked in Africa ergo I must be suitable for NGO work – case closed. Despite the fact that all of my experience in Africa has been working for Government not Non Governmental Organisations. Despite the fact that I don’t have qualifications or major background in International Development or any desire to work with NGOs – much work in international organisations, certainly in the UN, is glorified administration. It was good to have exposure to that but I need something new, something else. But I had been pigeonholed, and most inaccurately so. I could see I was going to get that problem in most places I tried to gain employment in Europe. There was nothing for it – if I wanted to progress, I would have to retrain…again….10 years after I left University with an MSc. I just had to hope I wasn’t going backwards.