Find The Right Fit And You Win

Of all the people you know, who’s the one person who knows you best? You. Oh sure you might be inclined to say it’s your partner and yes, I’ll admit my wife knows me exceedingly well given our 37 plus years of marriage. Yet, there are many times in a day when I’m in the company of me, myself and I. At work, in the garden, reading a book, playing the guitar or hey, writing this piece, it’s only me and my thoughts are mine alone.

So you know yourself; your likes and dislikes, the things that inspire, confuse, excite, demoralize, stress and stimulate you. Some people know some of these things about you no doubt, but the only one who knows all of these things about you is you.

I’ve said many times that a terrific thing to undertake is to do an inventory of your strengths, areas to improve, skills, values, morals, motivations, fears, personal characteristics and qualities. If you feel you just, ‘intrinsically know’ all these things, I won’t argue the point. However, if you can’t verbalize your workplace values, define success and measure where you are in relation to it, name 20 of your top skills and provide if asked, demonstrated proof of those skills, you might want to consider getting around to formally documenting these things. But that’s not my point I wish to share here.

What I do want to talk about is not just figuring out what role(s) you want in this life you’re living, but with whom do you want to share your gifts? So if you know you want to be an Electrician, that’s wonderful! However, how much thought do you put into the organization you want to be employed by? If you’re simply going online and applying to a job because the job title matches what you want, that’s not the best way to maximize the odds of being happy in the job should you land there. And despite all the great advice from many Job Coaches and Employment Counsellor’s, many still research the job but not the employer.

That’s kind of like saying, “I want to be married” without putting a great deal of thought into the person you’re going to be with. Come to think of it, I may have inadvertantlly and unintentionally just stumbled on to why we have such high divorce rates. Could be too many people who want to get married rush into things without taking the time to, ‘research’ and get to know their potential life partner. Of course, there are people who figure marriage is a two to three year commitment and then move on just like some people do with jobs.

3 things are needed to be ultimately happy career-wise; a job you love, having the skills and expertise to do it well and thirdly, the pay that makes the job one you can afford to work at as it fulfills your financial needs. That first one though – a job you love – isn’t only the role but includes the organization with whom you partner.

Some people make the mistake of believing they have the right job, then finding out that it’s not what they thought it was all about, they change careers and choose something new. Sadly, I’ve often found that the peson knew themselves well enough to pick the right job or career, but they make the mistake of believing that one bad experience with one employer was representative of all other simililar job titles with other employers.

You may find for example that one company instructs all their Electricians to get in and get out asap when on a job in order to maximize the number of jobs they bill for in a day. This might leave you the front-line employee and Electrician running from job to job feeling very little satisfaction. On the other hand, another company might want their employees to complete work while encouraging their Electricians to interact with customers and explain what they are doing, how to avoid future overloads and promote electrical safety in the home or workplace. Both strategies could make the company the same funds. One billing for 8 jobs but less time with each customer and the other billing for 5 jobs but for more time with each.

As the Electrician, you might find yourself with a preference for one environment or what we call workplace culture. It’s not that the job or career was wrong, it’s possibly the job or career was a good fit but the employer wasn’t. Two different ways of operating and two different types of people will fit. One is task-focused employee and the other a mixture of task and desire to educate using their people skills.

Okay so what about you? Are you in the right job but perhaps working in the wrong environment? Considering the length of years you have left to work, you’ve got to calculate the cost of remaining a round peg in a square hole, or finding a round hole that fits what you’re after. Again, get the job you’re great at, that pays well, and that you love, and you win! You’re happiness hangs in the balance.

Work With Your Head And Your Heart

You can tell when people are in the right job. Conversely, you can also tell when people are in the wrong occupation, or perhaps when the person who was in the right job has lost something and should really move on. So what is it that makes a job right or wrong? In short, you need to have both your head and your heart in the work you do.

By, ‘your heart’, I refer to your passion or love for the work you do. It is this love that will get you through the hard times by delving deep into your reserves, pushing you to deliver more and succeeding. It is this love for the work you do that will have you seen to have a smile on your face and some energy in your actions as you go through your day.

By, ‘your head’, I refer to your knowledge, education, experience; in short, your know-how. This the training you’ve had, the skills you bring to the work you do and the focus you have during the time you’re on the job.

So the best people are in positions where they love what they do and they’ve got the skills, education, experience and general know-how which complement each other. I’m extremely confident you’ve experienced people that have one or the other but not both.

Take the person who as the heart to do the work but not the other. Here you’ll see someone who really wants to succeed, who tries hard, who is honestly doing their best because they really believe in what they’re doing. Unfortunately without the skills, education and experience behind them, they falter. They may not have the knowledge required to perform well. When you see a job posting requiring a certain degree of education and several year’s experience, the employer is attempting to make sure that the applicants they meet bring with them the, ‘head’ part of the two elements.

The opposite is just as common; people who have the skills, experience and ability to do the work, but who lack passion and heart for it. These people frustrate employers to no end because employers know just how amazing they could be if they’d just put more passion into their work. However, when it’s not there to begin with, no one can manufacture heart and desire; it has to come from the person and it has to come from within.

Now an interesting thing that many of us lose sight of is that we all evolve and grow; the result of which can be that the love and passion we once had for the work we do, can evaporate and depart. No doubt you’ve seen this too. The person who has lost their spark, seems to be doing just enough to get by but isn’t pouring any more of themselves into their work than the minimum required in order to get by.

I know some people who have lost their passion and love for what they once did and haven’t replaced that with something new. These are sometimes the folks that are trying to figure out what’s next in their working life, but who have yet to have anything really excite them enough to pursue it. You can find them all over the internet in chat forums, where they comment with negativity and cynicism – although they’ll pitch it as reality. It’s not that they want to be cynical or negative; they’ve just become jaded in their view of work. These people often have skewed views on employers, supervisors and management in general.

When your head and your heart are in the work you do or the work you’re pursuing, your days are more enjoyable, you’re happier in general and others can tell. Outside the workplace, these are the people who light up when asked about their jobs, who smile and are happy to speak of what they do because of the satisfaction they feel and the purpose in what they do. They can cite successes and our reaction is typically to say things like, “Wow, it sounds like that job is perfect for you”; and it is.

However, there are still many people who feel work is just work. It’s toil for money and employer’s just want zombie-like staff who perform work unquestionably. Often it’s their own experiences that have them making sweeping statements in which employees are not valued, management pushes to get the most out of their people and do so without care or regard for the staff. Watch out for these people; they truly believe what they say and they can sour your own outlook if you aren’t prepared.

Ah, but find someone with both their head and their heart in the work they do and you’ll be fortunate to have that person serve you. Whether it’s in a coffee shop, a manufacturers’ warehouse, looking down a microscope or up a birth certificate, that employee will be a joy to have around. How you experience working alongside your co-worker will often come down to whether or not they have both their head and their heart in the work they do.

Now me personally? I’m always on the lookout for these people, and what’s more, when I find them, I do two things; point it out as a compliment and do what I can to work closer with them.

May you find work you invest in with both your head and your heart.

Bang Away Or Find The Right Fit

Have you ever left a job under poor circumstances and vowed to make a fresh start with another employer; one where no one knows you – only to find that things turn out pretty much the same in a short time?

Despite the change in scenery, co-workers, supervisor and job, things just haven’t changed all that much. You’re starting to wonder if every job is going to be like this? You’re questioning how all these people you work with can like going in day after day with a smile on their face? When it goes wrong in multiple places, in various kinds of jobs, the common denominator keeps coming up… well, you.

Now wait! That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ‘THE PROBLEM’. Nor does it always have to be this way.

Recall the toddler toy where there’s a bunch of wooden or plastic, brightly coloured shapes, and there’s a corresponding cut out of a shape into which the piece fits. Watch a child at place and try all they want, that red triangle won’t go into the yellow square or the blue circle hole. Eventually, the toddler figures it out and looks up with a big smile at what they’ve both achieved and learned in the process.

As you continue to watch, when all the pieces are removed again, the toy becomes a little easier to play and takes less time to solve. The child also will look around and call attention to their success by saying, “Watch me!” In so doing, they want to show off what they’ve learned and get rewarded with a, “Good for you!”

If you haven’t taken the necessary time to get to know yourself fully – and people evolve and change with the passing of time – you might not be a problem, you just haven’t found the right fit yet. Now that single block is easy to figure out; it’s shape and colour. There’s an easily recognized corresponding shape and colour slot too. Assessing your strengths, preferences, skills, experience, education, attitude, areas for improvement, learning style – these are some of the things which make you who you are. Networking, online research, investigating company culture, reading job postings, interviewing people in the jobs you find interesting, checking out the commute, the dress code, the vision, mission statement etc. of companies as well as their reputations; these make up the research which provides the information you need to assess the likelihood of a good fit.

Here’s the problem; most people assume they know themselves and don’t want to bother putting out a lot of effort in researching companies they might not even apply to. That seems like a lot of work and with very little reward; a waste of time. But what’s a greater waste of time is not bothering with these two critical steps and going through a cycle of applying, getting hired, fired, applying again, getting rejected, finally getting interviews, rejected, still applying, finally getting another interview, getting hired and quitting, or leaving under poor circumstances. It’s like that toddler just banging pieces into the wrong slots and expecting the piece to go in. It’s not the toy that’s at fault, it’s just that reasoning things out hasn’t happened yet at the child’s end. There will always be a perfect fit for each piece.

Likewise, there will always be a perfect fit for you with respect to a job and an employer. Sure you can jump from job to job and hope the fit is good, but more often than not, it will appear that way at first and soon become obvious to the company you’re not the right person for the job, or to you that the job isn’t the right fit for you.

So how much time do you have to invest just randomly moving from job to job? With each bad fit and failure, are you learning anything or just writing off bad experiences and taking nothing away you can learn next time? Be cautious! These series of failures can lead you to develop a short fuse; a bad attitude; a ‘me against the world’ attitude. The person you turn out to be could be very different from the person you were meant to be; a darker, less attractive soul who others want to be around less and less. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

When a child struggles to understand how the pieces get inside, another child or adult who has mastered the concept will take a piece and slowly slide it in the corresponding hole and not letting go, move it back and forth then drop it. The child watching may have to be shown a few times, but they’ll get it. The new learning is shortly mastered and the toy eventually becomes a, ‘Time how long it takes me to do this!” challenge; it’s easier.

This is no different from getting help figuring out the self-assessment piece of who you really are in the here and now. You can also get help learning how to do employer research too. When you know yourself fully and seek out the best fits, you actually speed up the time between where you are now and being employed where you should be. In the right situation, you’re not a problem at all; you’re a success with a big smile on your face. Soon you’ll want everyone around you to view your achievements too.

Let’s Talk Your Perfect Job

The perfect job; well it depends doesn’t it. What’s a great job for some is a terrible fit for others. So it’s fairly safe to say that there is no one job that is going to be the ideal or perfect job for everyone. That being said however, you’re probably not looking for a job that is perfect for everyone anyhow; you’re looking for a job that’s perfect for you and you alone.

There are 3 core things that make up the perfect job and all three of these must be present and felt by the person for the job to be the best possible fit for the person doing the work. These include: a job that pays well, a job you’re good at and doing work that you love. There are a lot of factors that you need to consider when you’re evaluating the possibility of a job and / or career.

Before looking at the things you might want to contemplate when considering a job, imagine jobs you’ve held where only 1 or 2 of the 3 things has been present. Perhaps by way of example, you’ve found a job you’re good at and it pays well but you didn’t love it. Well you may have disliked the day-to-day work that you said, “There’s got to be something better!” so you left. Or imagine a job that you were good and it was work you loved doing, but the pay was so poor you couldn’t actually afford to keep working and needed more income and cried, “I love my job but I have bills, a mortgage and I want a better personal life!”, so you left. Of course the other possibility is that you loved the work itself and the job paid well but you weren’t really all that good in the job and you were let go.

Maybe one or more of these above scenarios have happened to you. Ah, but if you could find the right job with the right employer where: 1) you were good at the work, 2) it paid well and 3) you did what you loved, now that would be a winning combination!

Thinking of these three core items, here’s a short list of some of the things you might take into consideration when looking for that perfect job. Some of the items will have a low importance to you but perhaps be a key element for someone else. Conversely, someone else may put a low importance on something you feel very strongly about. So, think about how each of these impact on you personally as must haves in your perfect job:

1. Getting positive feedback
2. Doing physical work
3. Outdoors vs. Indoors
4. Working alone
5. Group work
6. Short commute
7. Small Company
8. Salary and benefits
9. Supportive boss
10. Challenging Work
11. Tight deadlines
12. Few distractions
13. Creativity required
14. Minimal change
15. Job security
16. Entry-level
17. Advancement
18. Recognition
19. Humour and Fun
20. Commission
21. Flexible hours
22. Shift work
23. Weekends off
24. Contract work
25. Target bonuses
26. Customer service

As you read each of the criteria I listed, which prompted a strong response and which were the items that you neither held a strong view one way or the other? When it comes to your commute, you may have such a small geographic area you are willing to work in, that you won’t be able to find a job doing what you love that pays well. And speaking of paying well, what does that mean for you? Some people are willing to sacrifice excellent pay for an average income if they work in a job they are good at and have passion for.

It may be that in order to make the high income you want, you have to expand your geographic area that you would be willing to work in. So now you require knowledge of what levels of income there are both where you live, and all the way out to the furthest you would be willing to commute. If an hour is your maximum commute, how do salaries vary between these distances for the same work? If you’d only commute 40 minutes, those incomes 41 – 60 minutes away must be passed over given your limitations.

Here’s how things break down if you only have 2 of the 3 core things required for the perfect job:

If you have a job that pays well and you’re good at it but it’s not what you love you’ll be bored.

If you have a job that pays well and you love it but you’re not good at it, you’re dreaming.

If you have a job you love and you’re good at it but you’re not paid well, you’ll be happy but poor.

You win when you have all three areas completely satisfied: you love what you do, you do it well and you’re paid well to do it.

Add other factors to your list beyond the 26 I’ve shared here. What’s important to you? Speak with people who love their work and are good at it who feel paid well for their services. As you have conversations you learn first-hand what the job is all about and from that you make your own assessment of what you’d love, what’d you be good at and what income you’d receive.