If you are determined to find a better job — or just find a job — a good time to start doing it is at the start of the year.
Many businesses operate on a calendar-year budgeting cycle, so they have money to fill vacancies or expand at the beginning of the year.
How to discover a passion that pays? Read on for tips and we’ll help you land your next job.
What to do first: There’s little mystery here, experts agree.
You have to be honest with yourself — about your skills, what you like to do and (most important) what you don’t like to do.
Susan W. Miller, founder of California Career Services, asks employed clients a seemingly simple question: When you’re having a good day at work, what exactly are you doing?
She follows up with: Among all the things that you do every day at work, what do you do best?
Next, take this test:
- Interview people who know you well. They can help sort out what truly engages you and what turns you off.
They may have insights about vocations you never imagined and could remind you of important truths about yourself.
If you struggle with percentages or the concept of compound interest flummoxes you, a career in finance is probably not your best bet, no matter how passionate you are about making a lot of money.
- Investigate jobs you think would suit you. Don’t just imagine you would enjoy being a paralegal — talk to a paralegal.
- Intern or volunteer to test your conclusions. Internships aren’t only for young people.
If those positions aren’t available, companies are sometimes happy to take on unpaid workers for special assignments.
This can help validate your research and give you experience and contacts to “pivot into a new occupation”, says Mark Oldman, co-founder of Vault, a business information firm.
Interview people who know you well. They can help sort out what truly engages you and what turns you off. They may have insights about vocations you never imagined and could remind you of important truths about yourself. If you struggle with percentages or the concept of compound interest flummoxes you, a career in finance is probably not your best bet, no matter how passionate you are about making a lot of money.
He recalls a banker who dreamt of a radio career, interned as a disc jockey and loved it so much she quit banking for a full-time job on the air.
Perhaps the most important tip: Set realistic expectations. Finding the career path that’s right for you could easily take six months.
Books: Bookstores stock shelves of career-planning volumes and new ones come out all the time.
What Colour Is Your Parachute?, published in 1970, remains a bestseller and author Richard N.
Bolles has spun off other titles aimed at teens and retirees. Other sellers include The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Changing Careers, Why You Can’t Be Anything You Want to Be and Passion and Purpose: How to Identify and Leverage the Powerful Patterns that Shape Your Work/Life.
Many of the books include exercises designed to tease out your interests, such as these from What Colour Is Your Parachute?
- Draw a picture of your ideal life. With coloured pencils on a big sheet of white paper, sketch pictures or symbols to depict where you want to live and with whom, what your house or apartment would look like and so on.
“The power of this exercise is sometimes amazing,” Bolles writes, because it forces you to think more creatively.
- Think of everyone you know, have seen on television or read about and ask whose job would you most like to have. You might surprise yourself.
Websites: You don’t have to look hard to find career help on the web. Many authors operate companion sites for their books with tests, checklists, diagrams and links to courses and resources to help you find your path.
“I became frustrated that people live paycheque to paycheque with no passion,” says Nicholas Aretakis, who wrote No
More Ramen and runs Nomoreramenonline.com.
He calls it “the twentysomething’s real-world survival guide”.
Along the same lines, job-search sites such as www.monster.com and www.careerbuilder.com offer free assessment tests, articles on careers, research on jobs and bits and pieces about job training.
Counsellors: Forget your high-school guidance counsellor — career advisers have gone upscale.
Their services can include assessment tests, job-market research, résumé help and coaching sessions to calm interview jitters.
The career centres at virtually every college and university are goldmines for befuddled students and alumni.
Tips
The right job
How well are you preparing for job interviews? If you are relying mainly on your well-polished shoes and sparkling wit to impress potential employers, you could be losing out.
Instead, take some time to research the company before your meeting.
Asking questions that are tailored to an employer’s specific needs will make you stand out from other candidates.
Good sources of information include the company’s website and former employees.
It is often said that looking for a new job is a full-time job itself.
No wonder then that our job-search activities often creep into our workday, with three quarters of workers admitting they are comfortable looking for a new job while on the job.
After all, that’s when the people who would hire us are also at work and can take our phone calls.
But that doesn’t mean you should advertise your intentions to jump ship.
A few tips for maintaining professionalism as you search: Use your cellphone to take and receive job-search calls.
Create a professional-sounding personal e-mail address to send out résumés.
— By Mary Ellen Slayter/Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
