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Finding Your Ideal Job

credentials | ideal | job | preparations fren - Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 9:37pm

Do not worry if you feel dissatisfy with your present job. There are many causes of job dissatisfaction. Many people accept jobs to earn the money, period. There are not many who will even try to align their personal interests, skills, passions as well as values with the jobs they choose. Are you one of them?
Have you taken some time to define the purpose of choosing the job you want? Ask yourself these questions:

  • What is it that you are after in the job?
  • Are you going to learn, contribute, or help
    others?
  • Are you accepting the job for the money?
  • How long do you plan to work for the company?
  • What will your career path be?
  • Is this job just a stepping stone to another ‘dream’ job?
  • Knowing the purposes of choosing a job helps you to derive joy from the job itself. A working life is dull and stressful. You will keep on looking for new jobs if you do not know your purpose of choosing the job. You need to feel proud of the job so that you will feel needed and important.
    Reflect on your previous jobs and identify your likes and dislikes. Then list them accordingly. After this exercise, you will find that you are extremely focused on the new position you want. Sad to say, many people ended up in the same dead-end positions because of their unawareness.
    Accepting a job which does not align with your life’s purposes can cause great discomfort and stress, not to mention dissatisfaction. It is essential to state your life’s purposes and believe them. You can choose to help others, raise a family, motivate others or own a business. Of course, you can have as many life’s purposes as you want.
    Then, you need to know what your own values are. Do your values in anyway align with the job? If one of your values is to promote healthy living, but the job is to market cigarettes, you have to be honest whether to accept the job or not. Some of the common values people have are; family-oriented, honest, trustworthy, healthy living and so on.
    List down your passions. You may like traveling, photography, entertaining and so on. This is an endless list. However, many of your passions are not job related. That is all right. They may not be job-related at this moment, but can be job-related later as you decide to get a new job.
    Base on your life’s purposes, values and passions, you can now list all your possibilities. You can choose to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, salesperson, motivator, and the list goes on. Of course, you have to be practical. You cannot be a doctor without going to med school and undergo all those special trainings. Nevertheless, you can still choose to be a ‘doctor’ specializing in other disciplines of science.
    Surely you will be overjoyed to find that there are so many options out there. In spite of that, focus only on one or two that you really want to do for a living. You may have a few good choices; but, it is advisable to just concentrate on the ones that you really are interested.
    Remember your competitors? They are competing with you all the way. They may be better than you and have already identified what they really want for their future. If you have many choices, you may lose the concentration and opportunity to get the best job for yourself.
    Some elements which you really need to consider when defining your ideal job is
  • What is the occupation?
  • Which industry is it in?
  • Which company has the vacancy? Does the company
    have a good social track record?
  • What will your career path be? (Imagine where you will be in a few years’ time.)
  • Does the job structure suit you? (Working in a team or independently, a team player or a team leader)
  • What are the working hours? Will there be
    overtime?
  • Does the job involve any traveling?
  • What is the working environment like?
  • Where is company located? Do you have to work in the city or in a branch company?
  • What are the compensation and benefits offered by the company? (Other than the salary, are there anything else that benefit the employee?)
    Now you can use the elements above to help you write a mission statement. This is just a one or two-liners of statement about the job you have in mind. It can be like this … “To work as a ….. in an organization that ……” Since you have listed your priorities in detail, you know what you want every time you read this statement. You will not go wrong because deep in your heart you have already defined your ideal job.

    • Go for it and good luck!

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