Getting a job attuned to your strengths

[Coriolis]

[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] posted the video below on another thread, related to questions about career advice. I watched it with interest, as I feel I have fallen into the rut the speaker describes at the beginning, of being stuck in a job that doesn't make best use of my strengths, while forcing me to play from my weaknesses too much.

I started this thread to get more discussion about the specific advice he has, as well as any other advice folks might have run across about what to do when stuck in a career rut with no apparent way out. I am looking especially for concrete suggestions. For instance, this speaker suggests making notes during week of what things you look forward to doing, and what makes you feel energised. This helps identify your strengths. He then mentions changing your job to make greater use of those, focus less on your weaknesses. This is much easier said than done, though, and often impossible with the same employer, meaning a full-up job search.

Thoughts? This is obviously of personal interest to me, but I am putting this here as I hope for the discussion to be more general, and not focused on me or any specific person, though personal accounts are more than welcome.

 

[highlander]

[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] posted the video below on another thread, related to questions about career advice. I watched it with interest, as I feel I have fallen into the rut the speaker describes at the beginning, of being stuck in a job that doesn't make best use of my strengths, while forcing me to play from my weaknesses too much.

I started this thread to get more discussion about the specific advice he has, as well as any other advice folks might have run across about what to do when stuck in a career rut with no apparent way out. I am looking especially for concrete suggestions. For instance, this speaker suggests making notes during week of what things you look forward to doing, and what makes you feel energised. This helps identify your strengths. He then mentions changing your job to make greater use of those, focus less on your weaknesses. This is much easier said than done, though, and often impossible with the same employer, meaning a full-up job search.

Thoughts? This is obviously of personal interest to me, but I am putting this here as I hope for the discussion to be more general, and not focused on me or any specific person, though personal accounts are more than welcome.

I went through a period of time where I was just wasn't enjoying what I was doing as much. I like starting things up from nothing and building things - sort of like a startup entrepreneur within a larger company. In my case, I've spent a good amount of time building up consulting practices in different areas. Once it would get to a certain size there was a repeating pattern. I'd been in a practice leadership role for about 15 years and too much of my time was centered around administrative stuff which grew to consume an increasing amount of time as the practices grew larger. Over time this led led towards me losing some of the depth and breadth of technical expertise that made me a nationally known and respected expert that others would come to. I thought about it long and hard - what I liked doing and what I didn't like doing. I had read a couple of Buckingham's books on this stuff and tracked what I really enjoyed and didn't (as he suggested).

At the end of it, I left the practice leadership role and focused on client service which felt like a big risk at the time. I used my ability to "spin things up" in terms of building a footprint at clients instead of building a practice. Over the past few years, I have come to miss being in the practice leadership role because I like that too but the nice thing is I have more flexibility in what I do on a day to day basis. I have relatively few administrative responsibilities. The work is rarely routine and there are always new challenges. I again feel like I know my stuff and am very good at knowing what I don't know and able to tap into others that have expertise. I spend 90+% of my time focused on client service related activity. It's what my firm is in business for, so it works out. I had the best year I've ever had last year. The HR and administrative stuff is a bit of a boat anchor. I didn't realize how much till I got out of that role I'd been doing so long.

 

[Lark]

I'm thinking about some sort of adjustment like this, as things have not turned out well (I feel) in my current choice of career (although its not being stuck in a rut so much as taking stock of damage its done my health and reality that its not going to change, I've witnessed a couple of "false dawns" in that respect) but my profession has a number of different fields, which are pretty different from one another, so I'm lucky in that respect.

Although there's new work philosophies emerging, so far as I can tell, like lots of newly qualified staff would put more thought into accreditation for decisions, daily developments and CV building, including pursuing job interviews every could of months (one junior or newly qualified member of staff talked to me about every three months going to interview).

The one thing that I would say about supposedly finding yourself in a rut is that its alright to be simply earning a living, provided you are conscientious enough as an employee, some of what I hear in the life logging, corporate hack scene sounds pretty cultish, they are all drinking the kool aid and dont like people pointing it out to them, I know a lot of people who've got seriously rich family lives or lots of variegated and interesting hobbies and circles of friends outside of totally apart from work, I wouldnt knock that for an instant but they are the sorts of people who can be labelled in an ugly fashion by colleagues or management.

Parks and Rec did some interesting season story arcs on that theme, its funny how the comedians frequently see things as clearly as they do and lots of management texts or just business cultures are slow to catch on to or denying the reality of things.

 

[Coriolis]

I'm thinking about some sort of adjustment like this, as things have not turned out well (I feel) in my current choice of career (although its not being stuck in a rut so much as taking stock of damage its done my health and reality that its not going to change, I've witnessed a couple of "false dawns" in that respect) but my profession has a number of different fields, which are pretty different from one another, so I'm lucky in that respect.

How much of a change do you think you will need to make to improve your situation?

The one thing that I would say about supposedly finding yourself in a rut is that its alright to be simply earning a living, provided you are conscientious enough as an employee, some of what I hear in the life logging, corporate hack scene sounds pretty cultish, they are all drinking the kool aid and dont like people pointing it out to them, I know a lot of people who've got seriously rich family lives or lots of variegated and interesting hobbies and circles of friends outside of totally apart from work, I wouldnt knock that for an instant but they are the sorts of people who can be labelled in an ugly fashion by colleagues or management.

That's part of it. I am finding it harder and harder to be conscientious in my present job, it has become so draining. When I am using my strengths and in an environment more suited to my preferences, it almost seems that I get energy from doing a good job.

I am curious about what other resources folks might have used when making a career change, whether large or small: books, videos, surveys, etc. I recently worked through "What color is your parachute", and have lots of pages of completed exercises, but nothing gels into a workable plan or direction. Perhaps I need to revisit them when I am less hurried and can focus better.

 

[highlander]

I read what color is your parachute when I graduated from college Maybe it helped a little. Some of the ideas stuck with me

 

[Coriolis]

I read what color is your parachute when I graduated from college Maybe it helped a little. Some of the ideas stuck with me

I like how it works to broaden the horizons of the average job-seeker, in terms of what counts as marketable skills, and how to balance the many factors one might like or dislike in a job or work environment. I just couldn't make use of the results very well.

Your video isn't the first place I heard the advice to sort of "massage" your existing job to be more to your liking, but either the nature of my workplace prevents that to large degree, or I am not going about it in the right way.

 

[Lark]

How much of a change do you think you will need to make to improve your situation?


That's part of it. I am finding it harder and harder to be conscientious in my present job, it has become so draining. When I am using my strengths and in an environment more suited to my preferences, it almost seems that I get energy from doing a good job.

I am curious about what other resources folks might have used when making a career change, whether large or small: books, videos, surveys, etc. I recently worked through "What color is your parachute", and have lots of pages of completed exercises, but nothing gels into a workable plan or direction. Perhaps I need to revisit them when I am less hurried and can focus better.

I dont think that big a change to be honest, I'm not talking the monk who left his ferrari or the milkman who retrained as a Doctor here.

Definitely know what you mean re:books and exercises and stuff, I detest some of the more obvious (nasty even) publications which straight up imply to the reader that the reason they are trying to change their job is that they are unprepared to change themselves and if they did that instead they'd be fine, its possible to adopt the most radical coping skills imaginable but if your colleagues, management or circumstances are having tangible negative consequences on you directly it'll count for little (sometimes little itself counts for a lot but all the same).

I read another book years and years ago I think it was called "nickle and dimed" which made a point about something called "bait and switch" and I saw it in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle too when the father took the eldest kid to a "job fair" only to discover that there were not any actual jobs at the fair just lots and lots of services being offered, for a fee, to the unemployed to increase their prospects (in theory anyway) through selling interview rehearsals and CV builders or what not.

Its like anything else, ie losing weight, making friends and influencing people, dating, there's lots of advice for sale but it doesnt actually mean any of the promises will be or even necessarily can be delivered upon, often all that is involved is the reading experience, or, more often than not, the consumer experience of ponying up cash and then experiencing the buyers regret. I tend to think its got to do with the commercialisation or commercial exploit of hope/desperation, gloomy and sad maybe but hey, its just another day in the having mode of existence.

 

[Lark]

I like how it works to broaden the horizons of the average job-seeker, in terms of what counts as marketable skills, and how to balance the many factors one might like or dislike in a job or work environment. I just couldn't make use of the results very well.

Your video isn't the first place I heard the advice to sort of "massage" your existing job to be more to your liking, but either the nature of my workplace prevents that to large degree, or I am not going about it in the right way.

Alternatively, you could read something like The Barefoot Investor and get a different perspective altogether, maybe its a bit much to expect work to satisfy in any way other than income/revenue, which you can then save, when you have enough savings from earnings and economising expenses you can investigate income from shares and eventually be financially independent, able to forget about that job if that's what you want to do.

I've put more than ten years, and some serious life course altering decisions, into a job largely for reasons other than the remuneration, I would not ever have done this if I knew then what I know now. I've got two life limiting illnesses and the whole experience has been detrimental to my psychological health too. If I had been more knowledgeable and worked much smarter, I could have avoided this altogether.

Plus, its not really about hating your job if you desire financial independence, its about freedom and other things which its fine to love as much as you might love your job and which you want to dedicate time to also instead.

 

[Coriolis]

I've put more than ten years, and some serious life course altering decisions, into a job largely for reasons other than the remuneration, I would not ever have done this if I knew then what I know now. I've got two life limiting illnesses and the whole experience has been detrimental to my psychological health too. If I had been more knowledgeable and worked much smarter, I could have avoided this altogether.

I based my career choices on factors other than remuneration also, though I always knew I would be able to have a reasonable salary, if not become wealthy (which is fine). There are too many things I enjoy doing and can do for me ever to be stuck in some job just for the money. I'm just having trouble matching that up with available opportunities - or figuring out how to make my own opportunity. I can afford significant risk at this point in my life financially.

 

[Lark]

I based my career choices on factors other than remuneration also, though I always knew I would be able to have a reasonable salary, if not become wealthy (which is fine). There are too many things I enjoy doing and can do for me ever to be stuck in some job just for the money. I'm just having trouble matching that up with available opportunities - or figuring out how to make my own opportunity. I can afford significant risk at this point in my life financially.

At the moment I'm working hard to try and build up sufficient savings to be financially independent, I'm not even talking about early retirement as that's not exactly what I want to do, I would like to earn enough money that I could make choices about my working life, like split a year between two locations, even two jobs even, even two different fields even and I'd like to rotate my jobs, so that I could learn new skills and get paid while doing it and choose work on the basis of things like the manager is a good manager, a proper team leader and not someone who will prove as lousy a manager as others have been lousy managers to them (a bit of a problem in Northern Ireland I gather) or the colleagues are good colleagues etc.

Although all of that is not immediate, in the more immediate term of the next five to ten years I simply want to find work that is not killing me but eventually that's my working life dream, that's besides striking the right work life balance too and having enough leisure time to indulge interests which are unlikely to be remunerative but which are just fun.

The thing about this all is that you only have one life, which is made up of time, which is passing everyday and every moment, I wish I had been mature enough to think this all out when I was a lot, lot younger, careers advice sucked back then, pretty much, it still isnt that great today and everyone thinks primarily in terms of how do you get as high paying a low income (if that makes sense), in as steady and secure a post as possible (when flexibility may be more appealing or important).

The only way that you can make work work for you is mainly if you have money already and arent depending on work to provide it, which is kind of a catch 22 but you know.

 

[Coriolis]

At the moment I'm working hard to try and build up sufficient savings to be financially independent, I'm not even talking about early retirement as that's not exactly what I want to do, I would like to earn enough money that I could make choices about my working life, like split a year between two locations, even two jobs even, even two different fields even and I'd like to rotate my jobs, so that I could learn new skills and get paid while doing it and choose work on the basis of things like the manager is a good manager, a proper team leader and not someone who will prove as lousy a manager as others have been lousy managers to them (a bit of a problem in Northern Ireland I gather) or the colleagues are good colleagues etc.

How would this work? How would you get employers to hire you part time, or short term like this? Do you just have a good enough reputation in your field that they would be glad to have you on these terms? Short of starting my own company, which I am not up for doing, the opportunities I find in my field are standard permanent full-time positions.

 

[Lark]

How would this work? How would you get employers to hire you part time, or short term like this? Do you just have a good enough reputation in your field that they would be glad to have you on these terms? Short of starting my own company, which I am not up for doing, the opportunities I find in my field are standard permanent full-time positions.

Well, in part its where the financial independence comes in, most of the jobs which would permit this style of working are not presently well paid or steady work, I know some people who are electricians and they told me about work being available which paid more than a thousand for three to six weeks work, with full room, board and expenses money, plus transport there and back paid for.

Its work which is done by what academics (those cookie academics) have taken to calling the precariat, because their work is precarious, although that said I did know IT technicians at university who regularly split work between two locations when they left uni, working with the same agency, because those agencies were generally based in the US and they were working in the ROI, even at the higher paid end of things IT professionals in Ireland are less well paid that the US parent firms employees, northern ireland technicians are paid less again, even knew one guy from uni who would work for two or three years and then take two or three years out to travel.

Mind you we're talking about people who had PhDs in their mid twenties maybe, I'm also guessing who'd have left uni with no debt and dividends from investment coming in already, so there's that. They'd definitely be in demand, one of them was head hunted by competiting firms and another was sent products to test before they reached the market place, I think he may have designed the early algorithms for Amazon to guess on the basis of your purchases what you may like (though I'd not blame them for the present format of that feature which I think is just ugly).

 

[skimpit]

I'll keep an eye on this thread. I could really use some advice in the same vein as the type the OP is looking for.

I am not well suited for my job at all, and I get up every day begrudgingly. My parents tell me I should stay with it because it pays well, and I'm half-inclined to agree with them because I don't have a college degree yet. Any other job I might try to get requires some schooling. Any classes that I might take to help me get a better job would interfere with my degree ones. I'm effectively stuck in a job that I'm not good at and don't like, and I'm sure that when a person shows up to monitor me for a day to see how I'm doing, they'll recommend me for a lower rating on my annual review. I think part of my bad performance is my age and my attitude, but also just the fact that I can't work with children. I know life could be worse (as my mom always tells me), but I really don't want to see the day it gets to that point. Sorry for blabbing.

 

[Frosty]

Werent you considering teaching again at some point? I dont know if that is what you are specifically looking for long term, but if you find it... well, more enjoyable then your current job then maybe well... there are routes you could go through to do that. And maybe through those... well... if you wanted to go further you could maybe become a professor or something. If that is what you want.

Or even some day- be comfortable enough to write maybe. I mean, you have been a physicist for a while- you could maybe well... write.

I dont know. I wish I had more to suggest. But this is an interesting thread and Im going to watch it

 

[Cellmold]

I've heard such sentiments before and there is some good advice in there.

However working out what your strengths are can be a lifetime exercise for many of us. I personally have never had any prominent strengths, or rather I've never had any prominent strengths that could be compared to the pool of available talent in a way that favours me significantly over others (if you can identify a different method for identifying strength, as in strength of ability or as a person, without some comparison to others I'd like to see it, which is not to say that the comparison needs to become obsessive or fueled by envy).

My main strength is that I'm unthreatening. I think most people are not bothered by me and find me inconsequential to their own continuing lives, which I think is more than can be said of most, even if this can go to extremes of benefit and hurt through ignorance. I'm also extremely 'stay-the-path' when it comes to something that interests me, doesn't mean I ever become a master of the subject (as is the case with my painting) but you can trust that I'll do it to the best of my ability. This also means that I acquire a lot of information on subjects that are currently holding attention, however this doesn't mean I retain it particularly well without aid.

Now I'm not sure how one would market this strength (unthreatening, from which all the other strengths stem) and use it to build a job I'm attuned to. I have considered professions like psychiatry, however I am not very skilled at giving others advice, I prefer to (very) gently allude and get others to figure stuff out for themselves (hypocritically as I am constantly asking for help and am not exactly a bastion of 'figuring stuff out' myself).

I'd really like to meet and talk to Marcus Buckingham on this very subject and hear his ideas, not facetiously, I'm generally interested in such people and their inspirational tendencies. Which are to me as comprehensible as the ant perceiving a skyscraper.

PS: I'm also prone to melancholic sentimentality, though I don't know whether that is a strength or not in these confusing, modern times.

 

[Coriolis]

Werent you considering teaching again at some point? I dont know if that is what you are specifically looking for long term, but if you find it... well, more enjoyable then your current job then maybe well... there are routes you could go through to do that. And maybe through those... well... if you wanted to go further you could maybe become a professor or something. If that is what you want.

Or even some day- be comfortable enough to write maybe. I mean, you have been a physicist for a while- you could maybe well... write.

I dont know. I wish I had more to suggest. But this is an interesting thread and Im going to watch it

I do hope we get input from other members on techniques and resources that have helped them change or find a career direction. That might be useful for you as you approach graduation and enter the job market. It may also add some realism or a sanity check to the things you are being taught in that one class you mentioned in your blog.

As for myself, I already do teach, but part-time and irregularly as an adjunct at my local university. I enjoy it, but wouldn't want to do it full-time. Regular faculty positions at universities are hard to get, and the hiring process often political and outright byzantine, especially for applicants who have not been in academia and therefore do not have the publication history universities expect. (We have other strengths, but that doesn't seem to matter as much.)

 

[FemMecha]

Online teaching has been very positive in my experience. Even though it is also adjunct, with adjunct pay, once the course shell is well designed, the maintenance during the term is not as exhaustive as face-to-face. I usually put a good 100 hours into the course shell, but reap the benefits after that.

My career is always in flux, because I've always known what I enjoy doing, but figuring out how to get paid for it to make a living is the hard part. I end up getting paid for the absolute simplest, beginner parts, but not the intellectual challenging part.

In my case, I mostly get paid for kindergarten type stuff in music lessons like...
||: C, C, C... Find all the C's, I know that you can find every C :||

Hold-that-whole-note!


I compensate by becoming a very silly person.

 

[Qlip]

It's ironic because my job, which is very technical, is often listed as a bad choice for my MBTI type, but I dig it. I get to work in a new and changing landscape, the activities it entails are rewarding, I am well compensated, and I'm valued which means I have a lot of leverage in the market, which translates to me being able to do things like working remotely, which I'm doing now. But, getting here was incredibly painful, the skills I learned were not second nature to me, and I would not have necessarily have committed to it if I had more options in my life from the beginning. Ultimately, the "perfect job" can all just be one big crapshoot.

 

[Coriolis]

Online teaching has been very positive in my experience. Even though it is also adjunct, with adjunct pay, once the course shell is well designed, the maintenance during the term is not as exhaustive as face-to-face. I usually put a good 100 hours into the course shell, but reap the benefits after that.

My career is always in flux, because I've always known what I enjoy doing, but figuring out how to get paid for it to make a living is the hard part. I end up getting paid for the absolute simplest, beginner parts, but not the intellectual challenging part.

In my case, I mostly get paid for kindergarten type stuff in music lessons like...
||: C, C, C... Find all the C's, I know that you can find every C :||

Hold-that-whole-note!


I compensate by becoming a very silly person.

Better you than me. I work with kids on occasion, usually grades 4-8, doing hands-on science activities as a volunteer. It is very sporadic, though, just an hour at a time here and there. I couldn't do that every day.

 

[FemMecha]

Better you than me. I work with kids on occasion, usually grades 4-8, doing hands-on science activities as a volunteer. It is very sporadic, though, just an hour at a time here and there. I couldn't do that every day.

The online teaching is college level, but a lot of my face-time is with younger students. I have been in a state of burnout for a while now because of the mindless repetition. I do have some double barrel days. I can like it sometimes, but after a certain amount of repetition it is too much. Also, I'm not a good disciplinarian, so sometimes it can feel like I'm required to not use my best contribution. Most of the personally satisfying endeavors are on my own time. I probably prefer to design and create introductory materials, rather than use them irl.

The internet has been very good to me professionally - both for online college teaching and selling educational and artistic materials I create on my own time. Those two investments of time pay off better than the daily repetition of "hold that whole note" stuff. That part of my life does make me feel like it makes me stupid sometimes because it does use energy, but not much of my brain. For all my graduate work, there is a lot of my actual life that doesn't reflect that at all.