Career Change? Maybe..Maybe Not?

Yesterday, I went to one of the most busiest shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur. As usual, during the weekend, the Midvalley Megamall is packed with thousands of people. Some went there for shopping, some for dating and some to window shopping. I went there for a Career and Job Fair at the Midvalley Exhibition Center, located at the upper most floor, the same level as the GSC Cinema.

With the increase of business activities, the human capital is a huge industry and involves big money. No wonder how jobs portal keep springing up these days. I can even buy and customize my own job portal using open source web software available on the internet, of course I need someone to help me as I'm only good at installing and changing the usability and appearance. I'm not good on PR, seeking sponsors and most importantly, finding new clients. Anyway, JobsDB.com has done a good job expanding their business, so kudos to them.

Let me walk you through my entire experience attending this Career & Education Fair 2006. To get into the exhibition hall, you need to become a registered member of JobsDB.com first. If you are not a member, you can register using the computers available:

There was one chinese lady who got fed up with the online registration (I must say that it's quite tedious), she just left the place with her mouth complaining about the form. I know in today's ultra competitive world, list building is the most profitable thing to do these days. However, I think it should be made easier or else it will turn off a lot of people.

After the registration, you'll received this:

Now this is the first time ever I had to wear a wristband in an exhibition, I wore a waterproof wristband before but for an amusement park. It feels strange but I then forgot that I'm wearing one.

Here's a few more shots inside the exhibition halls:

An online multi-purpose portal, I could build one myself but it's too much work plus I have to do too much work promoting it to get traffic there. By thw way, the portal uses ASP programming language which is Microsoft's programming language. I would prefer a more cost saving open source PHP+My SQL database. Oh well, these companies have loads of money.

The main organizer's booth. I think DB stands for 'Database'. Database is a crucial stuff for a company, if the database is corrupted, they are screwed. I wish I had the money to get a professional certificate in database administration. Huge salary would have been waiting for me then..haha..

Another high salary job is to become a SAP consultant. If you don't know what SAP is, according to wikipedia, "SAP is the third-largest software company in the world. It ranks after Microsoft and Oracle in terms of market capitalization. SAP is the largest business application and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution software provider in terms of revenue." So if you are an IT graduate and you can understand big systems with higher level of jargons (like I do..hehe), this is a great option to consider. If I'm not mistaken, the salary would be no less than RM4,000. A basic course to get a certificate with SAP is RM25,000. That would make a return on investment (ROI) in no more than 7 months, that is less than a year. Oh god, why did I took mechanical engineering before. I'm so lack of exposure during my course selection.

Anyway, because the life of a business is determine by cashflow, most of the companies are looking for people to do sales for them. It's not uncommon to see sales position everywhere, if you can do sales, then you are employable almost everywhere regardless of your qualification. Well for me, I have an interest in doing sales but it depends of what company,product or services I represent. If I'm sold to it, then it should be fine, but most of the time I feel like I'm forced to promote so it is a battle within myself to become a sales driven person.

This exhibitionis more preferable to me than the one I attended earlier. It's more focused, more hungry looking companies and there's little free giveaways. I don't really like bringing back loads of free stuff, brochures only to put it away in the trash bin. This event really inspired me to change my career that I spent a couple of hours last night drafting my cover letter and resume to be submitted to a company who has my interest right now. I think I have to deal with my fear of change first before I can proceed. I'm so comfortable yet I'm not satisfied with my life yet.

Through this blog, do you think I did a good job selling my blog to you? If so, do comment about it. I'm thinking of shifting to do corporate sales. I did the resume and cover letter, however I'm still not so sure whether to submit it or not. I have so many fears to overcome. So, should I switch career or not? A question only myself could decide. All the best to myself and to all job seekers out there!!