What a great question, don't you agree? This question was posed by someone who is a departmental manager of a large retail outlet. (small fish in big pond)
She was recently head-hunted by a previous employer of a much smaller outlet who wanted her to return and take up a position as an Assistant Manager. (big fish in small pond)
Both positions attract a great deal of responsibility although if you are highly ambitious, there is possibly more scope within the larger outlet to move sideways to gain more rounded experience and eventually move upwards within that company.
I would suggest if you are ever faced with this dilemma, you get out a pen and paper and use one sheet for each position. Draw a line down the centre of the page to divide into 2 columns. First column should be headed 'plus' and the second column on each page headed 'minus'.
Firstly you need to consider the current economic climate. You need to find out how long this other business has been running and if it has potential to grow, or even downsize if the economy doesn't improve!
Departmental Manager
Plus – strong support network (peers in other departments, senior management as well as larger staff support).
Minus – creativity may not be encouraged as will look for consistency across all outlets.
Assistant Manager
Plus – will be seen as one of the 'subject matter experts' and as such your opinions would be highly valued and creativity would be encouraged.
Minus – as working in a small pond you will be expected to play a 'bigger part' i.e. multitasking, helping out in other areas. Some people may not enjoy doing this.
If you are plodding through life and existing rather than living, having no clear aims then you cannot be surprised when you fail to hit anything! You go through the same motions, day in and day out and before you know it you hit thirty and you're still trying to find yourself.
A few more years, still doing the same thing and before you know it the celebrations are underway for your fortieth birthday. Now you are fifty and you just think all the best years are behind you.
I meet people all the time who are going nowhere in life. Now this is OK if you are OK with it but more often than not, people are extremely negative and go about blaming others for their misfortune. Comments like “well I just never got the opportunities that other people did” or “I never got the job because..........
You see most people don't realise that in order to get anywhere you need to have something to aim for, you need to have a goal. For example, you would never knowingly go out, get in your car and start driving. You would always have a purpose, a destination you want to get to. In driving towards your destination, you will follow a route, i.e. you will have a series of twists, turns etc and even some stop signs to allow others to do their thing. Well, this is exactly the same principles we all need to be applying in our day-to-day life. Everytime you do something, stop for just a few seconds and ask yourself “what am I hoping to achieve by doing a, b or even c?” If you don't have an answer, you're wasting your time so switch to doing something where the answer you give yourself is more productive.
When people just bimble through life blaming everyone for their lack of ambition, for their lack of purpose, the underlying emotion surrounding this tends to be FEAR. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of others laughing at them etc.
Why do we allow others' opinions to stop us doing what we know we can do, after all what are they basing these opinions on? Is it their own baggage, their own sense of failure, what they think wouldn't work for them. So I say, ignore all the pessimists out there,
Copyright © 2010 – Trish Mullen - All rights reservedjealousy can sometimes be a soul destroying trait so do not buy into it.
We were all created with the power to dream and make those dreams a reality, a target and a target that we hit every time.
Look around you, who are people you admire? Why do you admire them, what is it about those people that inspires you? They may be celebrities, they may be neighbours, friends, family members – study them carefully, watch what they do and imitate them. Successful people surround themselves with successful people.
If you ever watch a young child out with their parents, say at a restaurant, what does that child do? They stare at people and what does their parent tell them – Yes, you've got it “stop staring!” Why on earth would you stop your child's development in this way? They start kindergarten or school and the teacher asks them to draw something – what does most of the kids do? They look at how someone else is doing it then they copy!
So why do children do this? They do it because it's in our make-up, we watch people to make sense of what they are doing then we copy them. Back to childhood folks.Take me for example, when I want to learn how to do something specific, say in Powerpoint or with some coding or something, I immediately go to YouTube, check out how others are doing it then I copy them.
Why waste time and energy when someone has already done it before you and you can copy them? Providing it is all above board and not under exam conditions, then copying is what we are genetically designed to do.
Have some more belief now that you can achieve something and once you do, you will be amazed at the power you will have within you. That target will seem so much closer and easier to take a pop at – so what are you waiting for?
Once you start believing in yourself, and I mean really believing in yourself, then anything is possible.Copyright © 2010 – Trish Mullen - All rights reserved
It's easy to have faith in yourself when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you've got to have is faith in yourself when you're not a winner.
- Vince LombardiI went for an interview and was told by the interviewer I would hear the next day. The job was through a recruitment agency. It has now been 3 days. Despite numerous attempts to speak with someone in the recruitment company, I was told by the receptionist that they have not heard back from the client (Employer) yet. What should I do? Should I contact the client directly? Wait? Do nothing and assume that I was unsuccessful?
The reasons for the inactivity could be many and varied and I will highlight some possible explanations:• It could be that the 'client' i.e. the actual employer who has the job is using more than one recruitment agency so this adds on time.
• Leave it for another day or two then contact the agency again. If nothing is forthcoming, inform them you intend contacting the employer direct. Recruitment agencies actively discourage this for fear of losing out on the large payment they receive from the employer should you be successful.
• If you are unsuccessful, ask for feedback because the last thing you want to be doing is taking bad habits from one unsuccessful interview to the next.
• I would never suggest you do nothing because this will give a message to the recruiter and also the employer that you were never that interested in the job in the first place. Always, always seek feedback.
One thing to be careful of with recruitment agencies is that sometimes they 'gather' in CVs and have no definite purpose for these other than to build up a bank of 'great candidates'.
On the other hand, recruitment agencies can be a great way to get a foot in the door of companies that you may never have considered working for. You get a glimpse of what day-to-day life is like within a specific industry without the commitment. You could use it as a 'try before you buy' type exercise. At least then if it is a job you really don't like, then you have lost little. You haven't wasted your time or the employers by all the preparation before, the performance during the interview and the dreaded wait afterwards only to accept the job and after a couple of days realise this is a 'big mistake!'
Copyright © 2010 – Trish Mullen - All rights reservedI graduated recently with a degree in accounting although for the latter stages of my education, I had a strong feeling this was not the right degree for me to be doing. I carried on nonetheless and did a placement (intern) within the accounting department of an advertising company.
I really struggled to find a job in accounting and eventually took an entry level job for a global logistics company. After 2 months I am bored and this leads to stress and a feeling I am not suited to this work at all. The positives are that it is a Fortune 500 company, lots of benefits and is close to home.
Should I stay or should I go?
I wrote a blog post explaining why some people may be unhappy in their jobs and what they can do about it. I hope you take something from it, or at least it makes you think about your own situation.
Finding job satisfaction - employee satisfaction is not the only thing that mattersAre you in a job you are unhappy with? Do you feel you are stuck in a rut and just cannot get out of it? Do you get up each morning with the dread of going into work and wishing you could just do anything else? If so, this article is for you and I will go some way to explaining why this is and what you can do about it.
Why am I unhappy in my job?There is no end of reasons for being unhappy in your job but the fundamental reason why most people are unhappy is they are out of alignment with the organisation they are working with. It is okay to have the occasional day that you feel down, do not really want to be there, and so long as it is just the occasional day then this is perfectly normal and all workers experience it at some time in their career. Your personal situation could be a major factor, perhaps there is something going on in your life that really needs looking at but you have to go into work each day with matters unresolved.
Copyright © 2010 – Trish Mullen - All rights reservedIf these feelings are prolonged and become an almost daily occurrence, then this diagram below may explain why that is.
Strike a New Career Deal, Carole Pemberton
Alignment model explained
To be happy and successful in any job, you need to be in alignment with the organisation and it with you. What this basically means is that your needs, wants and values must be similar and a match with the employer. It is crucial that when applying for any job you check your alignment with the organisation. Where you cannot do this fully prior to interview, then you need to ask the relevant questions at this point to check your needs, wants and values match what they are looking for. If this is not the case and you are just taking the job out of pure necessity, then the chances of you gaining the job satisfaction you want and deserve and greatly minimised.
If you do not take the time to get the career you want, be prepared to take what you get;
What kind of person am I?
For example, if you are an ambitious individual, enjoy making decisions and working off your own initiative but you have a manager who micro-manages everything you do, then you are going to be unhappy in your job. You probably feel you are not trusted, your efforts go unacknowledged and whatever you do is microscopically examined and this can quickly demotivate and demoralise.
If on the other hand you see the workplace as revolving around you, i.e. you want to spend time surfing the net, keeping up with your social networking friends and work is getting in
the way, then you need to be asking yourself “what is the company paying me to do here”? Am I in the right job? Could I not do what I am paid to do and use my lunch break to do my own thing? Would it be okay to use the company PCs to do this and providing you produce the goods when you are paid to do so, this could normally be negotiated with your employer.
Check your own alignmentWhen was the last time you left work thinking “I really enjoyed today and am looking forward to going back in tomorrow”? Now this may be some time ago, but I strongly urge you to come up with a day you felt like that.
• What was so good about that day?
• What was I doing that I enjoyed?
• Who or what made me feel so good?
What you may come up with is something like:
• I was given a last minute task to do with a very tight deadline and I achieved it
• An idea I had proposed was implemented
• I went that extra mile and a customer left really happy and commented on the
excellent service I had provided
• I was selected ahead of my peer group to undertake a fairly difficult task
• My line manager singled me out for praise
Thinking about all of the above and coming up with an example, start analysing it and within that example you will find what your strengths and motivators are. For example, if you chose the last minute task point, you will find your strengths and qualities could be something like:
• Working under pressure
• Working to tight deadlines
• React effectively to rapidly changing priorities (dealing with fast balls)
• Solution focussed
• Can do attitude
• Adjust priorities accordingly to meet customer needs
• Sense of urgency
I keep being told that good interview skills are equivalent to good social skills. Isn't preparation basically for people who cannot carry on a normal conversation? I mean, we are just giving a few soundbites and talking about ourselves, right?
Great question right? Well I guess that would be the same as convincing yourself that because you 'know all the material' no need to study for those final exams!!! If this is your attitude, expect the same level of success if you do not prepare yourself for each of your interviews.
Interviews are not your average form of socia interaction. They are chats or meetings with a defined outcome i.e. either you impress or you do not. If you have not prepared, an interview can be one of the most uncomfortable and nerve-wracking experiences you may ever come across. Not even the best social skills will get you out of the trap when specific and industry/company related questions re fired at you and you have no idea what the interviewer is talking about. How stupid do you feel?
You have very little time at interview to really present who you are. You have to be ready to articulate your 'unique selling point' i.e. what makes you stand out from all the other candidates being interviewed today? You therefore have to have done your research on the organisation to kanow how and where to put your skills across as being the best ones to drive the business forward. If you can't do this and you just rely on your great social skills, then standby for a fall because it will happen.
If somehow your social interaction gets you through the interview stage and you are offered the position, you may and probably will find that this job is not what you were looking for? So try to avoid that happening by doing as much research as you can beforehand, find out how happy the employees are, speak to some people who work there, find out what the management is like, what is their preferred way of communicating with staff? Does all this fit in with what you are looking from in both the employer and the job? If so, then apply. If not, look for something that does fit your criteria.
Copyright © 2010 – Trish Mullen - All rights reservedA poem and inspiring short videos that mean something to me and I hope they do to you also – enjoy with my best wishes that you will, at then end of this section have that great belief that you CAN DO whatever it is you want in life. It just may not be right at this time but it can and will happen.
To the world, you may be just one person but I know that in some person's life 'you are their world'