Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep211: Signs you've chosen the wrong job.

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

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Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. How do I pick the right job? And how do I know if the job is wrong for me? Hey, welcome back to the Corporate Survivor Podcast with me, Mei Ping, Corporate Leader turned Career Coach and founder of the Corporate Survivor,

a career program for 9 to 5 working professionals just like you. Okay, so in today's episode, I'm going to answer a very, very important question that many people have been asking me on my online community as well as students in my career program. And this is the foundational question around, hey, Mei Ping, how can I make sure that I don't pick the wrong jobs? And how do I know that this job is the right one for me, the perfect one for me, the next best one for me? Now, all these are actually really, really great questions. And I totally understand that you want to make sure that you will be successful at any job and any career that you have chosen. Perfect. Now, I think the better way to ask this question is not so much about finding the right thing, the perfect thing, the next best thing, but to actually think about

it in a way of like, what are some of the signs that I'm choosing the wrong job? Because in my experience of working with hundreds and thousands of people over my decade-long career in the corporate world, I can tell that the most successful people do not necessarily know that perfect thing that they're looking for, but they know what they don't want. They know how to avoid the problems, the challenging careers that will likely not be suitable for them. So now let me give you a list of the signs that you are picking the wrong job and I'll break it into two parts. So the first part we're talking about how do you identify a wrong job before signing the job offer and then the second part is after starting the new job. So let's begin. Okay, so the first sign that you're likely picking the wrong job is that you are only focused on the company name. Now there are

definitely some brand names that you want to work with, and I totally understand that. But the problems that I've seen with many people in which they are so focused on the company name alone that they are not really thinking about the job that they are signing up for, the specific team, the specific job function or department that they're signing up for. So for example, I have worked with a client who used to work in Amazon and he joined the company just because it was Amazon, but he really, really couldn't handle and the job was really not suitable for him. But he joined the company because he was sold by the brand name. So later on, what happened is that eventually he had to give up the brand name because he signed up to

the job, not knowing what the job actually was, but he was actually sold up the brand name because he signed up to the job, not knowing what the job actually was, but he was actually sold by the brand name. So I want you to be very careful because of course, I know that you want to work in a big brand that is everybody's dream, but you really need to look at the job itself and ask yourself whether, is this something that I have experience in, I have the skills, and I'm actually interested in. So for this specific example, personally for my own career, I've also gotten job offers to work in Google, to work in PayPal, but I've also declined both of them because specifically to do that job, it was not really something that I wanted to do or I could see that it could grow my career. It wasn't, even though

the company brand names were pretty good and I was really interested. So eventually I joined Standard Chartered because not just the company name makes sense to me, but the job function, the role itself made sense for my career progression. So that's definitely something that you want to think about, which is every time you find yourself very fixated on like, oh, that is the brand name.

I don't care what job it is. I just need to get in. That is when that is the red flag. You need to pause and say, wait, let me actually look at the JD and what actually is the job and how do I make sure that this makes sense for me is something that I look at the JD, I can do quite a bit of the work and I'm also willing to learn for the rest of it.

Now, the second sign that you're likely picking the wrong job is that you're only focused on salary. Now, of course, I know salary is really important. And that is really the most enticing thing whenever you look at the job offer or you go for an interview, whenever the salary number comes out, right? It definitely skews your thought as to, hey, maybe I should go for this, right?

This job pays so much better than maybe the other offer or this job, this new offer pays so much more than what I'm currently making right now, which is totally fair and totally understandable. However, I have also seen disaster cases of people who took the job offer purely based on salary, but again, they didn't really think about the job that they have signed up for. And therefore, even if they start at this new job, within a couple of weeks and the maximum a couple of months, they burn out and they give up.

So eventually they give up the high salary that they really, really wanted, but they were not there yet from a career level, from a strategic mindset perspective, as well as from a skillset perspective. And that is really not a good situation as well. So I'll give you a very specific example here. So I have worked with a client in my career program. So when she joined the program, she told me that she had just resigned from her director position at a very small company. And she told me that when she joined that company, she was very enticed because it was a director level position. The pay was actually doubled at what she was making and she just signed up. She didn't really think so much about whether she could do the job or not. She was like, well, I think I could figure it out. And she jumped because the pay was great,

right? However, within just three to four weeks, her new boss went to her and said, hey, I think you are really not up to par with what we expect at the director level. Now, the reality is that for this particular client and student, her actual working experience, I would say it's around the senior executive level in which she's not really in the space where she has the right skills to work on strategy, to work on team building. She was still at the level where she needs someone to review her work.

So clearly that didn't work out. And she also told me that the biggest mistake she made was that she accepted the job purely based on salary and she thought that it was great money. However, she couldn't even last for six weeks. So I want to make sure that yes, we want to consider salary, but you also think about whether are you really at that right career level? Do you think you can deliver on the job that you have signed up for or the job that you are going to sign up for and whether what you see in the JD is something that you know confidently

that you can deliver on and it's not just a good idea you can figure it out later because sometimes you may not even have the amount of time to figure it out, okay? So the third sign that you're likely picking the wrong job is that you're not really thinking about the job description itself.

So alluding to the first two signs I've already talked about in which the mindset that you're going in is a very happy-go-lucky mindset. It's like, okay, you know what? I just want to look for a new opportunity. I just want to look for a new challenge. And I'm very passionate about this area. I'm just interested in this area. So a lot of it is kind of like sitting in your mind, right? It's like a very happy, hopeful mindset, which is, I think it's just going to work out so when you look at the job description or when you're searching for the available job postings and so

forth you're not so much thinking about whether you can do the job but you're thinking about wouldn't it be great to get into the marketing industry wouldn't it be great to get into this tech industry so you're thinking about the possibilities but you're not thinking about the practical elements of it now i'm not saying that you cannot learn. For sure you can. However, right, we need to be very realistic as to that's the passion and that skill. So if you pursue your passion without any skills, the passion is going to turn into pain. So because of that, you really, really want to make sure that whenever you find yourself floating in the air in terms of like thinking about, oh, that's a great opportunity. What about this?

What about that? I'm so interested in this. I'm passionate about this and that. Okay. Take a pause and ask yourself whether, okay, do I have relevant experiences that I could contribute in this new role? Are there any transferable skills that I've gained in my overall career that I can utilize for this? Have I done similar projects or similar work that could make sense in this new position? These are things that you really want to think about because it's not a situation whereby you start the job and magically everything's going to work out, right? Usually there's still a transitional phase and there's a learning curve. So you want to make

sure that you are best prepared for that. So I would say that those are the top three reasons and three signs that people get into the wrong jobs, right? Because if you get into the wrong job, then it's going to take a while and it's going to take a lot of effort to work around something and to improve something that actually didn't start at the good space. Do you get what I'm saying? So you want to make sure that you avoid mistakes and errors when picking your job. And therefore, when you get started, yes, there are still some learning curve for sure. But at least you are starting from a point of like, okay, this job likely is going to work out for me. So now let me learn the right structure. Let me learn what to focus on. Let me go through this step by step so that I can be successful in this job. Okay, now

that you know how to not pick the wrong job, then let's talk about after signing the job offer and after starting this new job, some of the signs that this job will likely not work out for you. So, okay, here's the first sign that the job will likely not work for you even after you have joined the company is that you have no interest to continue to upskill yourself.

Okay, so as I said earlier, passion is really important, but you need to match passion with skills. So the situations of people that I've seen not be successful at their jobs, even though they're super, super passionate about it, are the people who are not willing to continue to upskill themselves, meaning that they believe that passion is everything. So for example, even if you're very interested in the technology industry, the fintech industry, the logistic industry, are you willing to upskill yourself from a technical knowledge standpoint,

soft skills, people skills, all these things are still important regardless of whether you have passion or no passion at the job. So these are things that you definitely want to focus on because I've seen situations of people joining the company and expecting that everything will be okay, but eventually as they don't care about upskilling, the job will not work out as well. Because you need to recognize that when you start a new job, it's a new company, it's a new team, it's a new focus, it's a new JD. So you still want to make sure that you have the right technical skills, as well as the people skills, as well as soft skills to make sure you are successful at any job. The second sign that I think is actually really a big problem is that you find yourself not that

interested to learn anything new. So very closely related to the passion point, but this is related to how you behave and the mindset that you have outside of office hours. So I have seen people who are very, very dedicated and they're genuinely very interested in the area in which, you know, they would follow news and they would follow latest updates in the industry. This is just something that you could also ask yourself whether are you genuinely interested in this role or maybe you joined the company for the wrong reason. So just something worth thinking about. And the next sign is that you don't have a clear working structure. So again, it's a very hopeful mindset of like, okay, you know, when I join this company,

everything's going to work out. I don't really need to plan ahead. My bosses and colleagues are just going to help me with everything. And therefore you don't learn how to start your job the first 30, 60 and 90 days. You don't learn how to adapt quickly. You don't have a clear working structure.

You don't bother to learn how to communicate with different people. So again, it's a very isolating mindset in the sense of like, I'm just going to go in and do my work and not care about everything else.

And I'm going to do the work my way, which may or may not be the right thing because you are still starting at a new job after all. So these are things that I have found what makes people unable to be successful at any

jobs. And eventually, if you go down this path of all the signs that I've talked about, which is you pick the wrong job, and the next thing is that even after starting the job, you're not really not that interested to make it a success. Eventually, the feelings of overwhelm, the feelings of frustration, the feelings of like, hey, I don't think this job is right for me. Hey, did I pick the wrong job? Do you think I can still continue in this? All these feelings will definitely pop up in order to be successful at any job. You need clarity on the corporate world, you need confidence with strong corporate skills, and you need to learn how to get visible so that you can get recognized for your hard work. All these three things are still important regardless of whether whatever job

that you pick, because to be honest, there are no perfect jobs. There are no right jobs. There are no like passion project jobs, because as I said, passion without skills is going to turn into pain, right? Passion without skills is going to turn into pain. So don't worry so much about picking the right job or the wrong job, but really focus on what experiences do you have? What skills do you have, and how much are you willing to upskill? Because if you're listening to me on the Corporate Slave Podcast, that means that you have another 20 or 30 years in your career. And that is a long time. And you just want to make sure that your career journey is as smooth sailing as possible. So I hope that you

found this episode super duper helpful. If you want more help, there is a free resource that I have for you. You can download my five-day career growth guide that will walk you through step-by-step from clarity, confidence, competence, value positioning, as well as online branding so that you can really learn how to set yourself up for success. And for those of you who will be joining

the Corporate Survivor, I'm running a bonus mindset masterclass on June 1st. So this is only exclusive for those of you who are members in the program. And the following week, we're going to do a people office politics workshop. So if you're interested in that,

you can definitely sign up at www.meeping.com to my career program, The Corporate Survivor. If you found this episode helpful, give it a like and share with your friend and I'll see you in the next episode.

Bye.