I was in a very negative work situation. I despised my manager and reporting to him had become a daily chore. He was quite inefficient in his own job and took it out on me a lot of the time. You can only take so much of this situation, so I started to look for a new job.
 
Aim for Higher
My current job title was a team secretary, but I reported to the manager of the team. I had been in this
current role for just over a year, but I was in a similar role previously for longer. Given that I now had experience, I had to try and get a better role with this job change.

 

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Author stockimages and image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Finding A Career

The most obvious roles to try and aim for was either to go for a Legal Secretary role, as it was a natural transition from my current role, or to try a sideways move into another area. I looked at job in Human Resources, as my current role had some relevant tasks, and also IT. However, I felt it was best to stick to what I know best and chose to become a Legal Secretary.
 
Developing Yourself To Make The Move
When you have been in a bad working environment, you can lose some belief in your own abilities. Given that I was going for a higher powered job, I felt that I should look at updating my skills and rebuilding my confidence. I had two areas of weakness in my skills, I have no training as a Legal Secretary and I have not updated my IT skills for a few years.
 
Courses Taken and Lessons Learned
I found a Course which offered flexible IT training in Microsoft Office. This was good, as I had never used Microsoft 2007 and it was quite different to the older versions in my office. I got my abilities certified and then actively went out to agents. Many of my friends reviewed my CV and I even did practice interviews with them.

I left my Job and took a Legal Secretary Course

My Lessons from this situation are good for all to learn from. Do not be scared to seek to leave an unhappy work situation is key. My second key lesson is to form a clear plan from which to exit the situation; this may require improving any deficiency in your skills. Your development and transition to a better job will follow more naturally, once you have done these steps.