Career path

When I left my corporate job in December last year, it was to accept a one-year contract position. It is likely it will be extended, but it’s not guaranteed. I’ve been at m y new job just over 4 weeks, and I’m already starting to get concerned about what I will do next year if it isn’t renewed.

I still think I made the right decision leaving my old job – they have begun retrenching people – and although I think I would have been kept on (I’m not saying that to big note myself, but I did work insane hours and they were disappointed when I left), it would have been a very stressful environment to keep working in.

I guess I’m feeling a bit “meh” at the moment. I’m loving some aspects of my new job, but I’m meant to be a research assistant and at the moment am spending a lot of my day doing things which are really more administrative assistance. And although it’s sometimes nice to be able to switch off and do some tedious tasks (particularly on a Friday afternoon!), I’m not really sure if I want to stay in this position next year, even if my contract is renewed. There also looks like there will be some restructuring happening at work, which is depressing me. I don’t feel like I can complain because the restructuring won’t cause me to lose my job (it is likely it won’t happen until January 2010 anyway), but it’s another factor that is making me think I don’t want to stay where I am long term.

Of course it is the question of what do I do instead? The industry I’m in has been affected by the financial crisis, and although I’m still seeing jobs in my field advertised, there certainly aren’t as many as there used to be and I suspect there are a lot more applicants.

I think part of the problem is I don’t know exactly what I want to be doing. I usually like the field I work in, but I’m feeling like I have lost my career track a bit. At my old job, (assuming I hadn’t been retrenched), there was a clear career progression – although having said that, it was part of what caused me to leave, I started to think where I would be if I stayed there a few more years and realised that was definitely not what I wanted.
I know in this day and age people change careers a lot, and in the grand scheme of things I’m still relatively new to the professional world. But as I am now closer to 30 than 20, I feel like I should have my whole career plan mapped out. I don’t have a significant other, I don’t have kids, my life has pretty much always been university or work. I do have a tendency to define myself by my job. Without work, who am I?