MyJobSearcher.com

We all love to make money and we love to have meaningful careers that help us give and receive a sense of fulfillment. No matter how one may think about the subject of “work” the one fact that is true – we spend the majority of our lives at it. Better make the best of it.

But what do you do if your job seems to be getting the best of you? First step: Find out if it is the job or if it is you!

Let’s take a look for a moment at when it is the job.

• You have verifiable reasons to believe that the company is not doing well. Verifiable reasons would be things such as layoffs followed by more layoffs.
• You have concerns over management – things that management are doing may not be in the best interest of the company. This could be actions such as coming to work late consistently, not portraying to the staff a positive attitude. Slackness in work demands or a lackadaisical attitude toward deadlines and projects. Plentiful heated discussions between management team members showing a strong dissonance amongst the leaders.
• The company has a highly consistent volume in turnover – much higher than is normal for that type of company.
• Benefit programs are getting cut back or eliminated.
• Your paycheck bounced.

Indicators such as these suggest that it is time for you to dust off and brush up your resume and begin searching. Don’t worry about loyalty or how things will turn around etc. Get proactive and get the job hunt going. The company you are with is “having a bad day” and you don’t want to be caught on the unemployment lines wondering what happened.

Now let’s look at if it is you.

• You find it harder and harder to get up in the morning and go to work – often you find you need to will yourself to just get there.
• You find no real joy in the tasks you perform – they bore you and you watch the clock tick with agonizing slowness.
• Your attention is always going to other interests that you have as they are more rewarding than your work.
• You feel like you are working much to hard for the money you make – and it can be verified – it is not just a “feeling”. Raises have been turned down, but the work load has increased.
• Your job is off your original career goals and you feel truly like you are stuck in a rut and can’t get out of it.
• You are there because you haven’t been able to come up with any good reason not to be there.
• Other people in the office are annoying to you, the work is annoying to you, and the office itself is annoying to you.
• You keep wishing you were somewhere else.

Most likely what has happened in this scenario is that you have strayed so far off your original career goals that you just don’t see much satisfaction in your work, and it probably colors the rest of your life as well. Don’t keep yourself there. Get onto the job hunt. Get that resume, review for yourself your own goals and objectives. Get yourself revitalized by pursuing a job that is more in keeping with your original goals!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… I: wait… L: wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

It is almost instinctive to want to show your new employer that all those things you said to land the job are true. For many there is this almost overwhelming desire to race in, pay little heed to what is currently being done and start to “show your stuff”, which of course is a little bit of the uncertainties one often feels coming to the surface.

That’s ok too. There’s plenty to be uncertain of with a new job. There is the fact that you just took total confidence in yourself and projected that strong enough to land a job. Now the time to demonstrate is upon you and that can be unnerving because you were confident in your old job. You had been doing it for a long enough period of time to become confident in your abilities, your employers, and your co-workers. That security blanket is gone.

There is that definite sense of “what if I can’t do what they want after all, or what if they don’t think I can do it?” in those first several days on the new job. Avoid it, push it aside, ignore it, do whatever you have to do not to let it come to the surface and here it why: It is nonsense and it will drag you down.

All the “what ifs” in the world are not going to get you through those first few “new days” Here is what will:

1. Come to the office dressed appropriately. And if you are a bit overdressed that is absolutely fine, it shows your attention to putting out the right image is important to you for the company.

2. Ask questions, take notes, and do not be afraid to ask! Let’s repeat that: Do Not Be Afraid To Ask Questions! Employers expect it and welcome it. They are not impressed by the “know it all” because that employee may know accounting procedures, but he doesn’t know the company yet.

3. Manners. Mind them and win. Be courteous and friendly to all whom you meet. Stay away from work place rabble-rousing. You are way too new to get involved in any of those issues. Just be polite and friendly to all.

4. Be conscientious.

Make sure you don’t do any of the following:

1. Make personal phone calls from work – either on the office phone or your cell phone. Take a break and go outdoors if you truly need to make a call – keep it quiet and to yourself, others don’t know you well enough to hear your personal business.

2. Criticize others or criticize the work.

3. Compare your last job to your new job in a derogatory manner.

4. Refer too often to your past job. You’re at the new place now. The past is the past.

5. Be late, take too long of a lunch, or too many breaks or miss a portion of a day or a full day.

6. Ignore your personal appearance and hygiene.

Remember this as well. Be yourself. Don’t try to rewrite the book on who or what you are in the hopes of “fitting in” or “gaining notice”. Just comfortably be yourself, do the best that you can and respect the company and co-workers. Be willing to learn the ropes and get along with all. You’ll do just fine.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… I: wait… L: wait… C: wait… SD: wait…