How do I climb the career ladder?

Help me climb onto the next rung of the career ladder

• For the past 12 years after college, I have been working in the administrative field in various paraprofessional capacities (such as being a paralegal, program coordinator, office manager, etc). I feel like I just cannot do this kind of work anymore, but don't I see where I can go from here, career wise. Hope me! I’ve worked as a clerical admin ever since college. I never planned to make this my career, but thought that it would be the first step towards a professional track job. However, 12 years have somehow flown by, interspersed with an ill-advised detour in grad school (think an MA in the humanities/social sciences) and an administrative paraprofessional is what I have become. I am now a month into another admin job as an office manager, which I took because it paid much better than my last admin job, but I’m already realizing that the pay bump is still not compensating for the fact that I hate the major tasks of this kind of work, which include scheduling, paying bills, and ordering office supplies. And yet, as someone whose work experience is solely in administrative work, I feel stuck. One mistake that I’ve made in my job choices has been to take civil service jobs at the administrative level, with the idea that I would learn the ropes, show management that I was a hard worker, and then eventually get promoted. I’ve since learned that by taking these jobs, I’ve locked myself into the clerical level as a state employee, so that it would be very hard to be promoted within the state hiring system. Right now, my professional skills are predominantly admin skills. Two career moves that I’ve thought about are: something in the allied health field, which would require a large investment of time and money, probably while sticking it out my current job for at least two years while I complete prerequisites. Or, I’ve toyed with the idea of getting into the communications field, writing web content, perhaps? But, I am aware that communications is a highly competitive field and I know that I don’t have the demonstrable skills to get hired as a professional in the communications field. Does the hivemind have any suggestions of how to get out of the admin track? Are there any skills that I could develop on my own, or through part time classes? Stories of how you jumped ship from the administrative track would be appreciated as well. Also, I don’t want to disparage any other admins and their jobs by voicing my discontentment with being an admin. I just know that after many years of doing this kind of work, it’s not for me, but as a fellow admin, I know that it is important and very challenging work!

• Answer:

  One mistake that I’ve made in my job choices has been to take civil service jobs at the administrative level, with the idea that I would learn the ropes, show management that I was a hard worker, and then eventually get promoted. I’ve since learned that by taking these jobs, I’ve locked myself into the clerical level as a state employee, so that it would be very hard to be promoted within the state hiring system. I am a clerical worker in a state system. It's true that in that kind of a system, there are essentially no merit increases: the job is what it is regardless of how good you are at it. So at a certain point you'll reach the highest step within your grade and still make $10-20K less than the professional level staff. But I have seen people change jobs from that point, generally in two ways: A) they gain additional certifications and skills and transform their existing job into something more interesting, and then apply for a job reclassification. I've seen this happen occasionally although it largely depends on management culture. For example, I know someone who was essentially a clerical assistant, but ended up creating a lot of publications, took Photoshop classes, and pursued a certificate (or associate's, I'm not sure) in graphic design, and then their awesome boss pushed for a job reclassification to Graphic Designer instead of Clerk 4 or whatever they were. I'm sure it came with a pay bump, in addition to new duties. B) Or they gain additional certifications, skills, degrees, etc and then apply as an internal candidate for professional-grade positions. This is way more common, and probably the easier route. Start looking at the professional positions that are advertised at your agency and see if any of them look desirable, and take note of the qualifications required. If you can get those qualifications, or already have them, start applying. It's more competitive than the low-level admin work, but you'll have a step up since you know the politics and software. A lot of these jobs are management (or faculty if you're at a university) but if it appeals to you it might be worth looking at the internal positions. Of course, this advice only applies if you're interested in staying in state service. But sometimes it's easier to start where you are.