Sunday, January 27, 2013

3 tips to stop worrying on your job decision

Many people approach me asking for help to guide them on their job choices. What I found common among all cases is a staggering fear of making unforgivable wrong decision.
Well guys, let me share – indeed it is scary as these decisions impact our future, however I have learnt that fear is a pretty bad friend. Here is my recipe that has worked 100% to kick out the doors that pal:
1.       What move you make today matters only in the context of your next move tomorrow
…and tomorrow’s outlook is only based on your assumptions today about it and your will to shape it every step of the way forward.
In other words if you have thought well on your potential paths forward and how this current job choice is going to help you make the next step in that direction, than it is the right job. In the current volatile environment it is natural for a career path to make lots of turns, in many instances they may seem more often horizontal then always climbing the corporate ladder upwards. However growth is a journey and you would only fail if you fail to keep pursuing what you truly want.
2.       Good or bad job- it is only you to judge, rest is branding
When making a decision it is based on a set of criteria and prioritization among them plus an evaluation of the score against each criterion compared to how helpful a choice is to your bigger goal. When I look at this I always start feeling better as whatever choice I make it would really be my choice, based on my own criteria, prioritization, evaluation of them and most importantly my own goals.
Naturally there are 7 fundamental criteria to look at on a job search:
·         Your manager
·         Your team members
·         Where in the hierarchy is the role- who do you report to manager, director, VP?
·         Skills level perception, tagged as beginner, specialist, expert
·         Challenges you solve- are they priority or not; do you work on the cost or revenue side?
·         The big question of pay and benefits
·         Prospects for next move
Each one of us would most probably rank these criteria quite differently as we have our own unique big goals but also our own unique life situations. Although your goals might not change, going through life circumstances in which you make choices do, so you would most probably prioritize these differently at 25 and then at 40.
The trick here is to note that as you source out information against each of the criterion, the input you get from colleagues, friends, acquaintances would always come to you already packaged in their own shades based on their own views and bigger goals. That is why key in your decision making is to really be very clear on your bigger goals they would be your guiding light and of course asking questions not only about each criteria but also why someone has such a view, what they want to achieve.
Why rest is branding? Well while each choice is yours, you need to be aware of how it is perceived by others. The good news is – if you have done your research well, you would already know current perceptions and you can build a plan to shape them in the direction you want.  
If you don’t want to deal with that, then maybe you have just found another criterion for your job evaluation J.
3.       A job is no longer a static set of repetitive actions- shape it!
In most cases when deciding on a job you would have a job description or an idea of what the job would encompass as responsibilities. What I witness is that whatever information people are given on a job spec, especially very true for graduates, there still seems to remain the big question- but what I will do on every day basis and would like it, be capable of succeeding etc.
I was absolutely the same! I wanted to very well picture my work day. Not anymore though. It was about a year ago, when one of my previous managers called me and offered me a role. What the offer contained was an indication of the team, generally their scope of programs and my potential manager name. I took it. Had no clue what exactly I was going to work on. However, as I assumed, the role was to achieve certain results, how I do it via what daily actions, was a question of dialogue with my manager.
And this is true for almost every job. As long as you are the driving force, there is no reason for you to worry on what actions it would entail.
My final recipe test for a job decision is the question: what story would I tell about this job on my next job interview?
And remember you are the story writer.

Love to hear your thoughts and comments!

The herein thoughts and ideas shared are solely opinions of the author.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Are you sick of tips on graduates job search that seem to never work?

Job search tips and tricks on do-s and don’t-s have been flooding us all. Fundamentally, though, most of them you may say are just listings of “what” should be done. Moreover, you might say the tips are not really relevant to your unique case, but rather too generic to move you to action. Let’s explore together!
Simply looking at this there might be 2 reasons- the articles are really useless or you struggle to see the meaning and how to capitalize.



The tips are useless
Naturally not every article out there you may find useful. However do you stop just at closing the browser window?
As a customer of this information service you have the great power of influencing what you read next. Moreover, you have the opportunity to influence not only what you read, but what others read too. I personally see this as both opportunity and accountability- don’t miss out to post a comment.
Where is the trick here though? You can poor your negativity and frustrations and potentially get the author change his/her approach. However, your comment is out there for all recruiters to read too. Thus it actually is a pure evidence of how you deal with problems, how you influence. So before you write think on would you hire yourself if you were a recruiter reading your comment?
Struggling to see the meaning and capitalize
Everywhere you will read that the successful job search starts with a well-thought strategy. Demystifying what “strategy” means and how it relates to grasping career opportunities might be your “key” to start finding more meaning for you.
It was a few years ago when I found my best suiting explanation. I worked on a project to organize a big conference on Strategies in Innovation. The key note speaker Jill Hellman delivered a workshop with more than 100 senior executives helping them break the boundaries of their own perception of strategy. Basically she didn’t say anything I didn’t know from my bachelor degree such as that strategy actually is how you get from point A to point B, BUT what struck me was her point that success in our dynamic environment is more and more dependent on how many moves you have in your playbook. In simple words success is hidden in enlarging your lists of moves, the various ways you can move from point A to point B, from looking for a job to finding a job.
So today when I read tips and tricks articles, I look for the moves, I look for subtle nuances of the repeating moves enlarging my own job search playbook to pick the best ones for my case.
How useful was this post to you? Would love to hear your thoughts the good, the bad and the ugly J
The herein thoughts and ideas shared are solely opinions of the author.