I hate my job – how to survive life with a career transition

What if I can tell you how to get a job that will make you feel excited about getting out of bed in the morning and earn more money while you’re at it? What if I’m right and you didn’t stop to read this article?

What’s the big secret to achieving this impossible mission? Simple! Start getting paid for doing what you love!

I’m going to teach you how to get out of your lousy situation and stay out of it forever! All you have to do is be willing to learn from your mistakes and put in a little effort to get out of the rut.

Why do I hate my job?

1. Lack of flexibility and freedom.
2. Lack of control over how you handle your workload.
3. Low chance for advancement and raises no matter how hard you work.
4. Office politics and disruptive social dynamic.
5. Toxic work atmosphere and bad management.

Enduring these conditions can be very taxing for your self-esteem and mental health; after a while they lead to feeling acute stress, anxiety and depression.

The good news is that there is a solution! Fortunately you’re doing exactly what you should be doing, which is eliminating the main sources of stress and finding purpose.

According to a Gallup poll, 85% of workers worldwide admit to hating their job. 23% of workers are “actively disengaged” meaning “They act out and undermine what their coworkers accomplish.”

So what is the remaining 15% doing that makes them happy? This article will reveal exactly that.

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” – J.P. Morgan

If you’re one of the people affected by anxiety or depression at work, I suggest you read my article about workplace anxiety. It will provide you with useful information and tools for dealing with anxiety disorders and panic attacks.

How to prevent hating your next job

Many people get caught up in a loop of changing jobs often, never being able to find some place where they fit in and feel stable.

If this is happening to you, it’s because you have wrong expectations and shaky motivation when it comes to your job. I don’t put all the blame on you though. This is a problem for many people, for this reason the workplace interactions can be a messy business.

Don’t worry I’m not going to task you with fixing other people. Instead, with a tactful adjustment to your attitude, you will easily sidestep these messy relationships.

For this adjustment, you need to better understand why people act the way they do. Luckily I’ve made an awesome article about Unconscious bias in the workplace which will help you do just that.

The unconscious bias article will teach you how people think and interact, therefore giving you an advantage compared to other people in the workforce.

As far as understanding your own expectations and motivation, this next chapter is all about that so just keep reading.

What career should you transition to?

There is a Japanese concept called Ikigai which roughly translates to “the reason to get up in the morning”, but let’s just call it your career sweet spot.

You find your career sweet spot at the intersection of what you love doing, what you’re good at doing, what you can get paid for and what the world needs.

To help you pin down your own sweet spot, I’ve come up with this 3-point exercise to navigate your search:

• Personality tells you what kind of work you can excel at.

The Brigs- Meyers personality test will help you understand what kind of challenges and work environment make you most comfortable and bring out the best in you. This is how you find what you love to do.

A few years back I found to be an INTJ, the Architect personality. Interestingly, it made me see myself at a very different light, which consequently affected my career and life choices – for the better.

• Hard and soft skills tell you what you’re proficient at.

Hard skills are your learned skills and qualifications, they are what makes you a contender to for the job. You soft skills, on the other hand, are your people skills; they help you keep the job and make you a valuable member of the workforce.

Read this article to learn more about them and how they differ.

• Your priorities and ambition tell you what you will settle for.

Now that you have better tools and ideas to find your sweet spot, it’s time to prioritize:

How far out of your current comfort zone are you willing to go? How much do you want to earn? How do you want to balance your work and personal life?

 “Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” – John F. Kennedy

Take your time with these 3 tasks. Write out your personality traits that you want to act upon, your skills that you want to utilize and improve, your priorities and ambition that will guide your decision.

Talk to your family and friends about this. See what they tell you but also take note of how you react to their suggestions. You probably already know the answer but you need to bring it to surface with reasons and conviction.

For some it’s just a matter of taking a specialization course and moving to a company down the street, for me it was about changing my whole life by emigrating, which was an immense challenge.

Make sure you think thoroughly about this, because the choices that you make afterwards will ripple out through the rest of your life.

Bottom line is – don’t aim low! Don’t settle for something mediocre. Set your goals high and believe in yourself. Merely aiming high will boost the results that you would realistically expect.

How to prepare for a career transition

The biggest source of stress from your job was probably the feeling of being trapped and that’s no longer the case. Any feelings of worry or resentment that you have to your current job or colleagues you need to let it go now!

From this point on, you need to focus all your energy and time into preparing for your new job and your new life.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

You need to start changing your daily habits and preparing yourself psychologically for a fresh start. Job transition is stressful on its own without adding to it major changes in personal life.

Start building good habits right away, so when the time for job transition comes – you will be fully ready for it.

These are the practical things you need to focus on doing now:

-brush up on your hard skills that will prove useful in your next job

-work on the soft skills that you will rely on to fit in and grow at your next job

-start working on your CV, references and you daily habits

-start looking into potential jobs where you will be applying

How to look for your next job

Depending on your industry and qualifications, look for a job at places where you’re qualified but for which you always thought they’re out of your league.

The important thing to keep in mind is that you are going to be exiting your comfort zone and pushing yourself forward. You will put your very best foot forward and you will have better chances then you realize.

For your next job you need to be focused on these two criteria:

• Earnings:

If you are targeting to do something you have qualifications to do, it has to be better paid than your current job AND have more room for advancement.

• Growth:

If you are looking to change your profession, you will probably have to put in some effort into retraining. Regardless, you must ensure that within a few months you will be earning equally or more AND that you will have good chance of advancement.

After choosing to do something that you love, you must insist on having good possibility of earnings and growth. You will achieve those possibilities because you will earn them by being passionate and productive in your work.

Doing what you love and what you’re good at is only one part of having a fulfilling career, the other part is being gratified for your efforts. You don’t want to find yourself a year from now being only slightly more comfortable in the same rut of career stagnation.

How to make a powerful Curriculum Vitae (CV)

CV is what gets your foot through the door. You need to present yourself in the very best light that you can without lying. If there was ever a time to stretch the truth, here it is.

Depending on how competitive the job is, the recruiter will most likely not read it thoroughly at first.

They will spend less than a minute glancing it for red flags and valuable attributes to find reasons to trash the CV; or alternatively, look for impressive keywords or attributes that show value in order to keep the CV in the pile of candidates for interview.

This is where you will focus, on eliminating potential red flags and accentuating anything that could be construed as a valuable attribute.

When they look at your CV they won’t be looking at who you are, they will be looking at how valuable you could be compared to other candidates.

Check out this awesome video of a real recruiter reviewing resumes to get a feeling of how they think.

While there are no rules in making a CV, you should abide to the basic formatting in order to make it easy for the recruiter to read it. Here are some resources to formatting your CV:

How to write a CV

Best CV templates

With that said, you will have to put in some additional effort and tailor your CV according to your pertinent experiences, the industry and the company you are applying for.

Here are some key tips on how to tailor the content in order to deliver the best possible impression to the recruiter:

• Structure

-Present the content in a reverse chronological order, starting from the most recent data points and back from there.

-Start strong in every paragraph, but especially in the first paragraph of each section, remember that it’s all about first glance impressions.

-Keep it simple and relevant, you want to make your CV simple to read and make every line count as a powerful attribute. If you’ve been working for many years you will have more content and that’s fine, just keep it relevant.

-With accomplishments, focus on results rather than responsibilities.

-Show industry insight.

• Wording

Include impressive phrasing like strong adjectives: Dynamic, resourceful, adaptable etc.; and action verbs like organized, oversaw, operated etc.

Make sure you include them into sentences with actual examples rather than just describing yourself as such.

• Legibility

-You can use a bit of color for subheadings and titles, in order to make the text more personable, but make sure the color is clearly legible.

-Use a font size that’s easy to read, DON’T cram the text by sizing down font.

• Tailored with a purpose

Tailor your CV to suit the requirements of the industry you are aiming for and, if possible, adapt it to the company itself.

For applying to a certain company, research their company policy, how they represent themselves, what values do they uphold etc. Make your wording and overall presentation a perfect fit for their culture.

• Photo

Photo is generally not recommended for CV’s, but rather for resumes. However, if enclosing a photo, make sure it leaves an impression of professionalism and maturity.

• Cover letter

This one may be the most important of all. While the CV depicts your work and education background, recruiters will focus on the cover letter to gauge you as a person. Use the proper form, be short and on point.

This is where you make your passion, motivation, enthusiasm and other qualities vivid, for this reason you need to put a bit of extra effort into this.

Instructions to writing a cover letter.

• Referrals

A good referral goes a long way, so if you have some managers or bosses that you had a good working relationship with, call them up and ask for a referral. If you decide to include character references as well, make it from previous colleagues rather than your mom or friends.

How to nail an interview

Interview is all about first impression. You’ve got your foot in the door and this is the final test of all your effort leading up to this point.

Luckily, I’ve already made the perfect article to educate you about influence strategies.

Influence is a powerful tool you must use to leave a strong impression. Among other things, the article details a persuasion strategy called Elevator pitch – which will be of great use to you.

As you will learn in the article, confidence and willpower are crucial to effective influence. For this reason you must start working on your daily disciplines and mindset as soon as possible, so that when the time comes for the interview, you will be fueled with a determination to succeed.

You need to remove all room for error which could throw you off or negatively affect your odds of nailing the interview.

For this reason I’ve prepared some additional tips to make your interview flawless:

-Depending on the culture of the company/industry, dress simple, clean and professional.

-Arrive early. Give yourself 5 minutes to stop before entering the building, breathe to calm yourself and reaffirm your plan to boost confidence and focus.

-Turn the sound on your cellphone completely off. You don’t want anything throwing you off during the interview.

-They will want to see that you are responsible and mature. Address your interviewer by sir/madam, be courteous and speak clearly.

-They will want to see that you’re eager and motivated so if you’re a bit nervous that’s alright. Simply say you’re very excited about the opportunity and eager to leave a good impression. Honesty and humility is will be appreciated.

-Prepare topical points that you want to get across. While they will have questions for you, they will also want to see some assertiveness.

If you answer just with yes or no you will seem passive. Instead you need to prepare where you want to guide the interview, so that you can give thorough and succinct answers without stopping to think and improvise.

-Know how to answer the 3 key questions: Who are you, why are you looking for a job, how can you contribute to the company.

-review the most common interview questions. Of course you don’t need to memorize or practice them. Just skim over them to see what you might be asked and how you might respond.

50 common questions

Conclusion

As you see, there is no mystery about finding success but there is no hacking it either. Change is possible and you can do it, but it will take effort and determination.

As long as you are willing to do the work and be smart, doors will open for you! If you need additional help or guidance, please feel free to contact me and I will help you in any way I can.

Has this article been helpful to you? Do you have any interesting experiences with hating or changing your career? Let me know in the comments, I would love to hear what you have to say!