Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep47: Why people choose the wrong jobs.

Starting point is 00:00:00 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. In today's podcast, I want to talk about why people choose the wrong jobs. So I have been seeing a lot of requests and messages from people asking me to help them find a job. So normally, I like to ask them what is their current career situation and what kind of jobs that they are looking for.

Starting point is 00:00:53 And I would say that most of the time, the answers that I get are very feeling-based. And what I mean by feeling-based is this, right? They know that they want to leave or they have been made redundant, which is really unfortunate, but they don't really know what they are looking for. So a lot of it is really a push factor where they feel really unhappy or there's something just doesn't feel right. They couldn't get along with their colleagues and all tons of other reasons, right? However, they don't really know where they're heading to. So they're just rushing on, applying for jobs, attending all these resume interview workshops without first knowing what are they good at?

Starting point is 00:01:34 What do they actually want to do? What really went wrong in the previous job? So that, you know, properly analyze it and make sure that it doesn't happen again in the next job. So why a lot of people feel stuck in their career after a couple of years and even nowadays in a couple of years is because they didn't know what they wanted when they chose the job in the first place. So imagine sitting in a car and you start driving but you don't actually know what the destination is at which point will you feel really frustrated i'm sure it's pretty soon or you know when your gas finishes

Starting point is 00:02:12 and then you suddenly come to this realization of like oh my god what did i actually do right and that's really what i've seen with a lot of people and especially for those you know who are just spamming their cvs all the time and just asking for help and like shouting around linkedin that's really really um not a good approach in my opinion so normally when i work with my clients i always ask them like what is the end goal like ideally what kind of roles do they want and they'll kind of go about like how to actually choose the right one for you. So a lot of people when they apply, number one, they don't really know what they're applying for so they're just mass spamming any single job that they see which is also a very

Starting point is 00:02:56 bad strategy because your education, your background, skills and experiences may fit certain industries and certain roles a lot better than some other ones. So in order to increase your chances, it's really important to align background skills and experiences and what you can bring to the table so that the hiring manager also understands that. And most people don't actually do that, which is really a shame. The other thing is around deciding if that is the right job to begin with right so how how can you do that there are many many factors of like choosing um of choosing a job you can um solely think about money right monetary benefits right dentists how much they're paying you for your training and all those things some people really care about learning opportunities so they

Starting point is 00:03:50 want to join a company that allows them to grow and learn and some people are quite keen on joining management programs they're obviously not the easiest to to apply for but definitely possible and some people want to go in specific industries, so they pick roles by industry just to kind of allow them the first foot in so that they can kind of navigate around. But regardless of whatever factors or criteria that you use to choose your next job or even your first job,

Starting point is 00:04:21 the most important thing is that you must have some criterias. You must have them. Because if not, you'll be 100% driven by feelings. And we all know what ends up, I mean, how it ends up if you just rely on feelings. Some days you feel good, some days you feel bad. And you go up like a yo-yo relationship with your feelings all the time. And from what I've observed, right, as you guys know,

Starting point is 00:04:44 I've been in senior leadership positions working with people from 43 countries. So I have really communicated, interacted with lots of people over the years. And the ones that I feel are really unhappy and constantly complaining are the people who have no clear idea why they picked the job in the first place. They couldn't see it as part of their career strategy. So they never had an idea of what they wanted to do in three to five years or whatsoever but they they just got the job mostly because it's monetary focus right and when when big challenges come in when big hurdles come in then if you're driven by feeling guess what's the easiest thing to do is to give up so then they end up complaining and like not knowing what to do feel stuck and

Starting point is 00:05:30 start complaining on social media which is also a really really bad idea um so so what's the what's the real solution to this and the answer is really simple but most people don't want to listen to a simple answer we all want motivating words but i'm here to share with you a very realistic answer. And the answer is, have a career growth strategy. Where do you really want to be in three to five years? Or where do you not want to be in three to five years? And how will your choices today help move you towards that direction? What do you really want?

Starting point is 00:06:05 Because there can be many jobs that are right for many people, but they may not be right for you. So stop looking outside and complaining and comparing what other people are getting versus what you are getting. It's better to get into a right job that you really resonate with, really hits the criterias that you feel are important to you, rather than going into a popular favourite job that everyone's applying for and then you go in, you can't do well because it doesn't align for background skills and experiences, maybe your personality is not very natural for that job, right? You end up struggling and then you end up crashing and burning, which also creates a big dent in your career.

Starting point is 00:06:46 So normally when I work with my clients, I really try to understand what is their background, skills and experiences. What do they like? What made them successful in their previous jobs? How can we translate some of that into some of the new roles that they will be taking over? So self-reflection, self-awareness is a really powerful thing. But unfortunately, most people don't take it seriously um but i say that if you really care about your career you really want to have a successful sustainable career where you will obviously be always always be sought after these are some things that you really need to take note of right self-awareness self-reflection

Starting point is 00:07:21 improving your job skills oh you want to know a list, you can always go to my website and I have a list of like 12 fundamental, fundamental skills that you need to enhance. But other than that, you can always choose to have a professional presence online, right? Have a LinkedIn profile, make sure that you can be discoverable, make sure that the profile is as strong as you can but these are all some basic basic tools at the end of the day it comes back to what kind of direction do you see yourself in because if you have no direction then it is not going to be helpful anyway because you'll be driving again you'll be driving a car but you don't really know where you're heading to so if there's no

Starting point is 00:08:02 destination then how can you say that okay you know you know, I've done well, I'm going to celebrate right now. And this is what I've achieved. So normally in my private talks and my private coaching sessions, I will normally cover these in a lot more detail, but I do hope that these are some pointers that you can really take to heart where it can really help your career grow in the next few years and more importantly you avoid the feeling of being stuck because that is really an uncomfortable feeling right i'm also opening up an idea to run workshops where i can share more of my perspectives and give some tips and insights on how to choose your first job or how to choose your next job. So if this sounds something interesting to you, do get connected with me on LinkedIn

Starting point is 00:08:49 and join me on Telegram where I normally share a lot more details. And I wish you all the best in your career. Always start with a direction and you will never be lost. If you feel like other people are doing well, are better than you, stop comparing, stop looking at them. Close down your, I mean like, you know, pause your social media

Starting point is 00:09:13 so they can really focus on yourself. Because as cliche as it sounds, we are all unique, but we all bring different skills, natural tendencies, strengths to the table. So instead of wasting time rolling around social media, being jealous and feeling depressed and sad about what other people are doing, take that extra bit of time for self-reflection.

Starting point is 00:09:41 So what you want to, what you can do, what you can learn about yourself. And that's really about the powerful, the most powerful thing that can really allow you to move on in years to come. So I wish you all the best. And if, um, if I can be of any help, you can always feel free to reach out. So till next time. Cheers.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep47: Why people choose the wrong jobs.

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