Would they help me? I wondered, someone who had supported herself by teaching dance, while working with small independent choreographers?
Yes.
After I had my two children I wasn’t performing at all, and I was teaching fewer classes than ever. I also wanted, make that needed, to make more money. I hadn’t developed a corporate résumé in the way that my friends from college had. I knew that I had skills (sorry to sound like Napoleon Dynamite), but was unsure how to translate my dedication and drive, and my abilities to learn quickly, and to take direction and criticism into résumé-speak.
I knew Career Transitions had opened a new Chicago office from the signs I saw at Columbia College and at the Lou Conte Dance Studio.
I called to make an appointment.
I was amazed at the level of help I received. After a brief and pleasant phone interview with Maryellen Langhout, the career counselor, I was directed to the website where I’d take my Myers-Briggs exam to determine good-fit career paths.
Over the next month or so, in weekly meetings, we discussed my personality, cognitive style, and history, versus my career goals and family needs. We eventually lined up several jobs that might actually work, and began restructuring my résumé to fit each.
Given the fact that I have two small children, and feel as though everyday I am living the theme song from Good Times, you know, “Keepin’ yo’ head above watah, Makin’ a wave when you can…” I decided this might not be the time to make a major career change.
I’d be crying and fired on the first day.
A better time for such a change would be when the children are a little older.
For now my search is on hold.
But the help I received was invaluable.
I’ll be back.
If you’re in the Chicago area and want to be introduced to this wonderful organization, please go to Stepping Into Hope and Change – Chicago, a free career development conference for dancers, this Sunday, October 2, 2011 at Lou Conte Dance Studio at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. ALL dancers are eligible to attend. The registration deadline is October 1, 2011!
For more information and to register Please visit:
Top Twelve Reasons You Chicagoland Dancing Mothers Must Go To Career Transitions For Dancers Free Event this Sunday
- Doing career counseling with your friends has resulted in your decision to find a job where you are paid to sleep.
- While leaving the studio or stage feet first is the stuff of legend, it’s not how you really want to make your final exit.
- You are now Meryl Streep in terms of artistry, but your 45-degree extension, inch high elevation and double pirouettes just aren’t cutting it.
- There is a writer, teacher, lawyer, entrepreneur, therapist, etc. inside you just dying to do her thing.
- Now that Dance Moms has hit the airwaves it is time to leave the industry.
- You are ready for dream job number two.
- Unlike improving your alignment or flexibility, simply visualizing a career change won't make it so.
- You need help translating “demanded excellence from self in class, rehearsal and performance each and every day, learned technically difficult and nuanced choreography easily, and worked with, exacting, capricious and sometimes demeaning choreographers gracefully” into résumé-ese.
- You've always wondered what it would be like to wear those classy business clothes to work.
- Hello, an afternoon away from the kids!
- Your cottage industry blogging/ cupcake making/cosmetics selling have made you enough money to buy a box of Slim-Jims.
- It’s FREE!
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