You have probably heard this quote time and time again: "if you love your job you will never work another day in your life". This is true in some cases but for others the journey to finding their true passion or niche can be a difficult task. What does it truly mean to find the job you love? Is it knowing you have opportunity for growth? Is it your happiness or the sense that you have balance between work and personal time? Does salary define your happiness in a job? There are lots of questions and thoughts around this topic, but finding the job you love and creating the happiness and fulfillment you seek, starts and happens within yourself.
The path to finding the job you love, does not come with a snap of the finger or finding a genie lamp and wishing for it. It comes with hard work, networking and consistency (with balance). 5 years of hard work, struggle, and perseverance pushed me to seek my happiness and now 2.5 years later, I have found a job I love and I hope all of you can say the same 5 years from now. To dig deeper into this topic, I went to a source; Pamela Habib (https://www.linkedin.com/in/phabib). Pamela is a recent graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University and a young professional currently working for a recruiting firm. Pamela just celebrated her one year anniversary as a staffing manager at the company and did I mention… she loves to her job! In Pamela’s exact words, “There’s really no such thing as the perfect job, you’re going to make the job perfect”. Pamela was awesome and shared some tips with me about rethinking your strategy to finding the perfect job:
1. Start fresh –After a while every posting starts to look the same. Walk away from the computer for a few hours and when you get back don’t look at the same organizations or companies over and over again or the same job search websites. Start new, look into sites that you normally would never think of, you never know what you might come across.
2. Take a mental break and give yourself time off – Do not let job searching take over your life! Make sure each day you are job searching to take breaks (go for a walk or run, watch your favorite movie, make plans with friends). Also, taking a full week mental break is okay. That week gives employers time to post new roles while also giving you time to clear your head and start with a clean slate.
3. Apply for anything and everything (within your interests) - An interview might change your whole perspective on a role because you might fall in love with the team, the culture, the environment and then the responsibilities of the role will follow suit. Jobs follow the common cliché “don’t judge a book by its cover.” There’s more to a job than just the qualifications and responsibilities listed on the job posting.
Don't give up on finding the job that you love. It does exist: you just might have to rethink your strategy for finding it!