Getting a new job is your ultimate goal. Of course, we want more responsibility. We want more challenge and we want more money. But the real nuggets you need to get out the entire process, is the lessons learned.
Cheap pearls and chocolate coins? I sure hope there’s more to this…
Throwing your resumes out left and right and applying for all types of positions can be useful. Those interviews, the people you meet with, and the systems that you’re exposed to, are the reality of the current job market.
You want to look for more opportunities to grow and along the path you will discover five really neat things about job hunting. Let’s jump into those.
1. Need More Experience
When I say ‘need’ it’s a subjective thing because if you’re going for a position that’s a little bit out of reach experience-wise, you’re going to be disappointed. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
If you find a position that requires five years of specific industry experience, well you can start now. You might be able to make a lateral move over to that industry and then work your way up, if you don’t know anybody in there.
If you do know somebody in the company, you might be able to work something out to where you can get a little bit higher up on the move. However, a lot of times, getting that experience is just a matter of putting in the time.
2. Confidence In Finding The Right Job
Until you actually start putting in the work to looking for what’s out there, there is a little bit of that fear of the unknown that’s deep inside.
By going out there and actually looking for things that are available and that interest you, you start to chip away that fear and build up your confidence in what’s right for you.
It isn’t until you look, apply for a few and get a feel for how things are working now, that you can really determine which path you need to go down.
3. Make More Money For The Work That You’re Trained For
This is a crazy one with some of the websites that are out there — GlassDoors.com, Indeed.com’s salary reports, and other similar sites have tons of information that are sometimes a little bit depressing.
If you’ll go check companies in your area that pretty much have positions and do the exact thing you’re doing now, you would be enlightened. Look at the salaries and the benefits that those positions get and see where your current job lines up.
If you’re currently higher than all those, great. You don’t need to do anything. If you’re currently lower than all those then it might be your little tip that it’s time to move on.
4. Know What You Really Want By Looking
Start looking through all of the job postings, descriptions and positions that are all over the place. You might start to get a feel for what’s available and what’s not available.
I know when I did some research for the interview action course, I came to a couple of realizations, and that was that positions I thought were relevant to the topic I was searching, had a lot more detail to them.
For instance, if you’re looking for a Project Engineer position, you might be off looking for an Application Engineer, a Systems Engineer, or a Technical Sales Engineer, all of which will have basic same requirements. These details didn’t pop out until I actually started diving in to all the details.
5. You’re Lucky To Have The Crew That You Do
Once you start focusing on looking for what’s out there and how difficult it can be to move along in your career development, you notice something. You’ll notice that unemployment is pretty bad and you notice that hey, you have a job and that’s a beautiful thing.
Be happy and appreciative of what you have now because there are lot of people out there that don’t have it so nice.
Let Your Discovery Adventure Begin
The lessons learned that just pop out at you while you’re doing job searches can really turn your mindset around on the whole career development process when you do these discovery efforts in your job hunt.
You start to find out that you might need more confidence and experience. You might need to make more money. You get a feel for what you really want and you’re more appreciative of what you already have.
Turn your mindset around. Pick up the nuggets of truth that you can find, but keep on looking because it’s out there for you.