If only the Germans had not invaded Poland in 1939, then World War II would not have happened and the destruction that followed would not have taken place. See how simple that was? It is often said that hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to say someone made a bad decision or should have known what would happen after the event had already occurred. The same can be said about careers. It is always easy to look backwards to see what one should have done or should not have done. In this post, I will go over some useful tips about finding the right job for yourself.
Just pursue your passion, right?
What about passion? A popular advice most often doled out by career counselors is to follow your passion. Examples are often given of successful entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison to name a few. As Newport states in her article, students are drilled to idolize these larger-than-life personalities with the promise of endless possibilities that lie before them if they followed their passion. These people are the exception, not the norm. The story conveniently leaves out that part. For one success story there are at least eight failure stories.
Also, many of these successful people had to put up with a string of outright failures before succeeding. For example, what is little known about Steve Jobs is that after his ouster from Apple in 1985, he founded a company known as NeXT computers which existed for 10 years and barely managed to survive.
So, how do you find the right job?
In my earlier post, I mentioned that the first five years really set the tone for the rest of your career. This is one of those areas where that principle really comes in handy. As the late Jack Welch says in his book “Winning”, the key to finding the right job is trial and error. Don’t rely too much on career counseling or working your way through checklists. You go through the same iterative process that all working people go through. You take a job, discover what you like and don’t like about it and what you are good at and bad at. Once you have that understanding, you switch jobs to get something closer to the right fit.
Eventually you will land in your sweet spot – you like what you do and are comfortable with the trade-offs. Trade-offs will always be there as there is no thing such as a perfect job. Finding the right job is somewhat learning how to drive – there is only so much you can learn from readings manuals and watching defensive driving videos. The best way to learn is to actually get behind the wheel, practice, make mistakes and incrementally get better.
If you are in college or trade school, you can definitely accelerate your search for the right job (and in many cases the first job) by enrolling in the coop program. The skills that you pick up during an interim placement at a company are highly valuable and sought-after in the marketplace. In addition, it gives you a sneak peek in what to expect if you decide to join the company full-time after graduation. A lot of students see coop terms as an unnecessary extension of the duration of their program. But in my opinion, you gain far more than you lose.
The five signals of job fit
Most jobs send out signals whether they are the right fit for you or not. As a result, these signals can make the process of trial and error less cumbersome. You can use five specific signals to determine whether a new job will fit you or your existing job fits you or not. I have adapted the material from Jack Welch’s book “Winning”, which is an excellent guide on management and employee development (I have no affiliation whatsoever and I do not stand to gain in any way by recommending the book).
It is not a traffic signal
It is important to look at these signals subjectively and not as a simple yes/no indicator. For example, when it comes to people, you are not going to everything in common with your co-workers. So there are going to be situations where you have to just “go with the flow”. It becomes concerning if you have to pretend most or all of the time.
Also, different people, depending on their personalities and life situations, will weigh the signals differently. For example, after graduation, I decided to take a full-time job as a project engineer with a large oilsands company I had completed a temporary work assignment with. The job involved a lot of “paper-shuffling” and meetings which I did not find that particularly exciting. However, the salary and starting bonus were excellent. For someone heading into a job market with limited experience and a pile of student debt, I couldn’t complain. Also the company had a rotational policy that required new hires to switch job roles within the first few years as part of a development program. So, I knew that even though the work content was not great, I would eventually be able to land where I wanted to be.
Finding the right job takes time, experimentation and patience. It is impossible to know exactly what you are going to be up against without spending some time at the job.
That’s about it.