| You
and I are lucky -- we live in a world rich in possibilities.
Besides being able to select from an unlimited variety of occupations,
we alsohave the right to find happiness in our daily work.
If you're considering
a job change, it's probably for one of three reasons:
- Personal --
You want to change your relationships with others. For example,
you may have discovered that you're incompatible with the
people in your company.
- Professional
-- You've determined the need to advance your career. For
example, you've found that you won't reach your professional
or technical goals at your present company; or that you're
not getting the recognition you deserve; or that you're
not being challenged technically; or you're not being given
the skills you need to compete for employment in the future.
- Situational
-- Your dissatisfaction has nothing to do with personal
relationships or career development; it's tied to a certain
set of circumstances. Maybe you're commuting too far from
home each day, or you're working too many hours, or you're
under too much stress; or you want to relocate to another
city (or stay where you are rather than be transferred).
Whatever your personal,
professional, or situational reasons may be, you're motivated
by the desire to improve your level of jobsatisfaction and
make a change.
The Complete Job
Description
In order to translate
your needs into results, let's begin by evaluating your present
position -- it's the first step in any job change.
- What are your
daily activities? That is, how do you spend your time during
a typical day; and
- What are the
measurable results your company expects from these activities?
In other words, how does your supervisor know when you're
doing a good job.
Often, I discover
that people are hard pressed to come up with solid answers
about the specific nature of their work. Try this exercise:
On asheet of paper, write a complete, current job description
in which you list your daily activities and their expected,
measurable results. Thisexercise will not only help you clarify
your own perception of your work; it'll be useful later on
when you begin to construct a resume andcommunicate to others
exactly what you've done.
The Positive
Power of Values
Once you've described
all the facets of your job, the next step is to understand
the relationship between what you do and the way you feel.
I use the term
values as a descriptor of personal priorities; as a yardstick
to help you:
- Understand what
types of work-related activities you really enjoy;
- Determine which
goals or accomplishments are important to you and give you
a feeling of satisfaction; and
- Evaluate whether
your personal priorities are in balance, or in harmony with
your job situation.
Although it's fairly
simple to decipher which daily tasks you really enjoy, the
task of scrutinizing your personal priorities can be tricky.That's
because there are often factors unrelated to your job that
can come into play. The point is, we all have highly personal
motivationswhich guide our career choices.
The Job Description
Makeover
Now that you know
how to clearly define your values, the next step is to describe
the changes you'd like to make in your new job.
Your Job Changing
Strategy
If you were to
look at your career from a purely strategic point of view,
I could give you four good reasons why it makes sense to changejobs
within the same or similar industry three times during your
first ten years of employment:
- Changing jobs
gives you a broader base of experience: After about three
years, you've learned most of what you're going to know
about how to do your job. Therefore, over a ten year period,
you gain more experience from three times 90 percent than
one times 100 percent.
- A more varied
background creates a greater demand for your skills: Depth
of experience means you're more valuable to a larger number
of employers.
- A job change
results in an accelerated promotion cycle: Each time you
make a change, you bump up a notch on the promotion ladder.
You jump, for example, from project engineer to senior project
engineer; or national sales manager to vice president of
sales and marketing.
- More responsibility
leads to greater earning power: A promotion is usually accompanied
by a salary increase. And since you're being promoted faster,
your salary grows at a quicker pace.
Many people view a job change
as a way of promoting themselves to a better position. In most
cases, I would agree. However, you should always be sure your
new job offers you the means to satisfy your values. Your responsibility
when contemplating a change is to evaluate what's most important
to you. Whether you focus on a single aspect of your job , or
on the overall nature of the job you'd like to improve.
The more clearly
you connect your values with your work, the greater the potential
for job satisfaction.
Back to top
|
