Hi Gilbert,

By chance, I stumbled upon  your Transitioning website as I was searching for jobless-related articles.

By the way, I hope to receive a copy of your free Ebook.

I have been jobless twice –  the first one lasted  16 months and this time round it has being 10 months already  (still feeling lost and jobless).

The  latest job loss was  due to a company closure which was disappointing as I loved the job and my colleagues.

We were like a small family unit happily working together.

Just to share with you little bit of my story.

After my ORD, due to my passion and interest in IT, I chose  a job in the IT sector and worked  for almost 10 years before I  join another company and worked there for one year and a half.

I resigned from this job and seek for a career change as I was losing interest and feel that  IT  was too routine in nature for me now.

Maybe, my career interest has taken a total shift in direction.

With this bold move, I  joined  a real estate company as part time agent and it was a complete failure and I left due also  to poor support from the team.

After that, I got a job referral from my friend after 16 months in the wilderness.

It was a project engineer position and was a completely  new career path for me.

I started learning on the job and actually  enjoyed  doing it.

I love this job very much as the bosses were really nice to  me and this job offered me the flexibility working from home.

But somehow good things never last…

Due to some reason, the company has to  close down after 18 months and I am back to square one now – jobless.

I feel very lost and don’t kown what to do next.

I try to flip the paper trying to look for job but that only lasted for about a month or so and then I gave up trying.

The frightening thing is  I don’t even know what job to look out for now!

I have somehow lost direction in my life, depressed, stressed up   and losing all my self-confidence.

I understand that lots of people have  been seeking help from you and hope you can give me some  advice on where I should  move on from here.

Best Regards,

Tony

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Hi Tony,

Thanks for your mail and sorry to hear of your predicament.

You have experienced two bouts of prolonged unemployment and clearly it has taken a toil on your self-confidence.

I also suspected that you have fallen into a mid life crisis situation and this adds on to your frustration.

Men go through a few rounds of such mid life crisis and though it can be demoralising, they offer time for you to  evaluate your life goals and mission as people tend to be rather reflective during this period.

I remembered facing the same situation as you when I was jobless for 18 months in 2001/02.

I also didn’t know much what to do during that period and took time to look for what that interests me.

I always wanted to go into the social work sector but the low pay and work condition didn’t seem favourable  as I was earning quite a good income then.

With nothing to lose as I was already 18 months into unemployment, I took up a part-time job as a social work assistant with a family service centre earning a paltry $7.50/hour.

That small step literally brought me into what I was all along aspiring to do for my whole life.

Later on, I began to start my own non-profit organisation and transitioning.org was borned five years ago.

Maybe its good to take some time to reflect and find out what  interests you for the next ten years.

Go on a thorough  career search if you must and there are many personality tests that you can take to find out what tickles you.

Many people often think that money is the main deciding factor for a career switch  but often its the low-paying ones that provide us with the most satisfaction.

Personally, I don’t have an income for the past five years and depend on donations to survive.

It can be frightening as you don’t know how much money you will have for the next month!

But I must say that the past five years have being the  most satisfying period of my life as I am doing something I like and my passion drives me on to do more for the community.

Hopefully, over time, you will find something meaningful for yourself.

All the best ahead. Please feel free to write to me if you need further career assistance.

Gilbert Goh

Editor’s Note: We have met up with the writer and will direct him to a career coach when he is ready.