Whether your career is a few months old or many years in the making, often your first position is something you fall into unintentionally. Maybe you attended school to earn a certain degree but then found it difficult to find a position in that field after graduation. Maybe your discontent started even earlier and you chose not to complete your original educational goal. Maybe you were fortunate to have several job offers in different fields at the same time and simply chose the best benefits package. Whatever the case may have been when you started out in the job market, you’ve probably thought about restarting your career by doing something else.
But, how do you start over? Where do you begin?
If you’re interested in entering a field of work that is new to you, you’ll probably encounter a common dilemma: how to gain experience doing something when no one will hire you without having that previous experience. A typical problem, isn’t it? What can you do to get around that issue?
Keep a log of your accomplishments
It’s a good idea to keep track of your accomplishments and activities. Time has a way of condensing our thoughts and you’ll need the specifics to refresh your memory. This list should include awards you’ve received, special events you’ve helped to plan, conferences or seminars you’ve attended, community activities you’ve volunteered for, and task forces you’ve joined. List everything that shows how varied your life has been. This information demonstrates your experience and what you are capable of accomplishing, even if you’re attempting to work in a field new to you without the requisite experience. As your life unfolds and your career continues to develop, be sure to keep this log current. You won’t regret having the information when you are asked to summarize your cumulative experience.
Be open to new opportunities
What is your initial reaction to a new opportunity? Do you look forward to the chance to try something different or do you hesitate and then decline because of that ever-present fear of the unknown? If you choose to try something new, perhaps helping to organize a work event or fundraiser, you will continue to open doors and to create connections for yourself to other opportunities. Nothing new can happen if you pass on an opportunity; it’s only when you venture into the unknown that you will learn more about yourself and about developing new talents. And when you do a good job, those in charge will remember your efforts and may recommend you for another opportunity in the future. But be sure to keep a good balance with extra commitments, as overextending yourself into too many directions won’t help you to be successful in the long run.
Focus on transferable skills and be willing to accept specific on-the-job training
Transferable skills play an important role in any field and would be the ones to highlight if you lack plenty of specific experience. Examples of these skills include the following:
- Willingness to take direction and to ask for help when necessary
- Dedication to doing a job efficiently and accurately
- Ability to work together in a team and to focus on cooperation and not solely on competition
- The mindset of being slightly early to work and a little late to leave
- The steadfast desire to do your best work knowing you are a representative of your chosen organization
If you have experiences that demonstrate these types of skills, you’ll come across as a potential asset to any prospective employer or client. These types of skills cannot always be taught to someone quickly. Usually, transferable skills are developed over time through many different past experiences. Your willingness to accept specific training focused on becoming proficient in your new field, along with your transferable skills, will make you a viable competitor when compared to other potential candidates for an open position.
Volunteer in the field for experience
If your chosen new line of work has opportunities for field experience, volunteering your time and efforts will help you to gain that needed work history. For example, if you want to work in healthcare, find an assisted living facility or hospital program that accepts volunteers. By dedicating a few hours a week to learning more about your chosen field, you’ll also be better able to see if it’s a good fit for you and your talents before investing too much energy into making a change. Volunteering experience will also help you to develop references if you don’t have any to offer. And if you happen to know someone that earns a living doing what you want to do, ask for an hour of his or her time over coffee or tea to discuss your interest in pursuing that new career choice. Be prepared with a list of questions to ask so you won’t fail to address your most pressing concerns.
Always show your professional self
In today’s technological world, it may be easy to forget that professionalism and respect are still valued in the workplace. What you say online in emails, texts, and social media forums should be true reflections of the person you are and want to be. Potential clients, employers, customers, and business partners may do their due diligence and spend time researching your online persona. Since you can’t easily erase what you’ve written once it’s cached across the internet, be conscious of what you’re posting before you immortalize something you may not want remembered forever.
You’ve got an interview. Now what?
So, let’s say that you now have the job interview scheduled and you’re preparing for this all-important meet-and-greet. Besides the typical advice of dressing conservatively, speaking professionally, and arriving early and prepared with topics you’ve researched showing your knowledge and interest in the position and the company, here are a few things you wouldn’t want to overlook:
Know your resume
If you took the time to write your own resume, you may be in the minority. If you hired a professional service to write it for you or had someone close to you take on that task, be sure you know everything written on that page summarizing your life. In addition to the obvious, such as proofreading it for spelling and grammar errors, check the accuracy of the information and be familiar with the presentation of the information. Your authenticity will suffer if your interviewer asks a question that you can’t answer without needing to glance at your resume first. It’s your life summarized in that resume; you shouldn’t need a cheat sheet! Being yourself is the best approach and the only way to make a true connection with your interviewer.
Follow up with the interviewer
Before leaving the interview, find out more about the next step in the process. When will the company be making a final decision? Who is part of the decision-making process? How will the final candidates be notified? Will you be contacted even if you are not offered the position? If you have a better idea of the process the company has in place to arrive at a hiring decision, you’ll avoid any misunderstanding and unnecessary anxiety while you wait to find out if you have a new job. You’ll also avoid making a nuisance of yourself with too many phone calls to the hiring department if you know what to expect.
Negotiate salary and vacation time
If you are the perfect candidate for the job, one way to compensate for a lower salary than you expected is to ask for additional paid vacation days. It’s unnecessary if you are about to accept your dream job. Yet, if you still consider this work and not play, you’ll want to find a balance between time in the office and your time away from the responsibilities. Having additional vacation time will allow more flexibility to help maintain that balance. If the amount of paid vacation is non-negotiable, it may be possible to find other ways to gain flexibility such as working from home for part of the week. You won’t know if it’s a possibility unless you ask, right?
Being rejected is not always a negative thing
But what happens when things don’t work out as you wanted or expected?
If you are not the chosen candidate, it’s often easier to know that you were not selected instead of wondering for days on end if a decision has already been made. So, hopefully, the company takes a few minutes to notify you when you aren’t being offered the position. If not, be sure to ask. That closure, even if you didn’t get the job, helps you to move forward and to pursue other opportunities without loose ends and potential conflicts. It’s never easy to discover you were not selected for a position; but life has a way of working out for the best even when it doesn’t seem like it. When enough time has passed sometime into the future, you can usually look back and see just how things worked out exactly as they should have.
Not getting a specific job you’ve applied for also helps to narrow the selection process of what path to choose next in life. When you reflect on the process, you can always say that you gave that opportunity a chance to play out. And when it didn’t happen as you had expected, you simply moved on and tried something else. So, instead of being upset with yourself for not getting the job, you should be congratulating yourself for taking a chance. If you adopt that mindset in life, you’ll never be left wondering what would have happened if you had chosen to do nothing.
Realize your reputation is your best asset
Regardless of how life unfolds, it’s important to realize that your reputation is your best asset. Once you’ve survived a few years in the working world at your first job, your reputation is something you’ll want to protect. It’s also something no amount of money can buy. You’ll want to be known by your colleagues as hard-working and honest. No one is perfect; but you’ll want more positive attributes and characteristics than negative ones to be used when someone describes you.
So, it’s essential to think about the person that you are while at work. Do you bring the issues from home into the office? Does every little thing that goes wrong during the workday provide fodder for more complaints? Are you able to maintain a professional demeanor even when your personal life may be falling apart? Living life as you wish, following your instincts to make the right decisions for yourself, makes life worth living. However, most companies draw a line between your work and your personal life, and crossing that line can be detrimental to your future career.
Cultivate the art of the thank-you note
Whether or not the job hunt is in your favor, it’s smart to take a few minutes to write a thank-you note to your interviewer. It does not need to be something fancy, just a simple note to acknowledge the time spent in conversation, the information exchanged, and the excitement you feel about the employment opportunity. In this age of electronic communication, your handwritten note will be the exception and will stand out from the rest of the competition. And even if your note is not acknowledged in any way, what better way to move forward after the experience than with the attitude of gratitude? It definitely won’t hurt anything!
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