How do you know if you’re in the right job? Do you even like what you’re doing? Or, are you doing it just because you happen to land that job, or are you stuck and don’t know what to do?
The truth is, you don’t! There’s just no way you would know, cause how can you be sure that you’re maximizing your full potential when you haven’t tried something else?
How can you even build a successful career if you don’t know what you’re good at? When did you realize that you loved your job, or hated your job? Or, have you ever thought about that?
The Game of Chance
Let’s consider for once how we got into the job we are in today.
Did you enter your job by chance or by choice?
For most of us, it was by chance. It’s probably what we were exposed to when we graduated, or an opportunity that happened to be hiring, and we jumped right into it. Now, how can we be sure that that is the right job for us?
If we were meant to do something else with our career, or we hated that job or could have done a better job somewhere else, what can we do?
Should we continue to develop our skill sets so we can get better at something we hate doing? Or, should we just jump to a different role to try it out?
If you’re young, and just out of college, how would you know to do that? And if you’re mid-career and suddenly wake up one day, and decide that you’re done working in your job, and want to try something else, can you still do it? (I think that’s how many of us start talking about that mid-life crisis!)
Do you do what you love, or love what you do?
This question came from a college grad many years ago when I was doing a career talk at a local university. That’s a lot of wisdom for a 20-year-old, and I have to admit that it got me thinking.
Am I doing what I love and did I fall in love with what I’m doing? I don’t know, and as I was in my early 30s, I felt the pressure to figure it out. Cause I don’t want to be regretting my career choices when I’m older, which will make it harder for me to move.
It was right after that question, that I took a leap of faith and put my hand up for a rotation out of the HR organization from my Recruiter’s role to a Business Operations role for the Sales organization in my company. It was the best decision I made!
The Best Career Move I Made!
While I had rotations within the HR function where I started with HRIS, moving the L&D, becoming an HR Business Partner, and later becoming a Recruiter, all the moves were within the same function. I’ve been looking at things from just the HR perspective, but something was missing.
Moving over to the Business Operations role was an eye-opener. I was closer to the business and had a front-row seat to how things were being done. Everything became clearer and it all made sense.
Back when I was in HR, I thought I was “helping” with the processes and policies driving the efficiencies. But now on the business side, I see how this becomes a double-edged sword and adds to the complexity of how things are done.
It’s crazy, cause there’s just no right way of doing things. However, this also opened my eyes to what’s needed and how I can facilitate to get things done! I was in the perfect sweet spot where I knew exactly what to do on both sides of the fence. I became very effective in my role.
After my stint in the Business Operations role, I moved on to head up Talent Acquisition for APAC and later took on other HR Leadership roles which I was able to serve as a strategic business partner.
All this was possible cause I was able to see things from different perspectives and build a diverse set of skills.
Getting to Know Myself Better
Having the opportunity to try different roles, with different organizations, across different locations, and working with different leaders helped me appreciate the beauty of diversity.
No one thing is better than the other, and the key to making things work is to first seek to understand before being understood.
This was key to my role as a HR Leader, and having the ability to function at a global level.
I also got to know myself better, cause I got to “try” out different jobs, and experience different things. I understand how I work, what I like to do (where I naturally perform better), and what I “hate to do” (where I see myself procrastinating a lot!).
Bringing “new” ideas into the HR function
Having spent time with the operations team, I started to bring new “ideas” into the HR function.
For example, in sales, we look at the sales pipeline and conversion rate, and I took that same approach to the recruitment function and looked at our candidates pipeline, and the conversion rate.
That allowed me to “tune” my recruitment process and look at areas that I can “squeeze” a little bit more performance out of!
Another example would be to look at recruitment campaigns the same way we run marketing campaigns. This allowed us to focus our resources better when we tied the campaign outcome to actual conversions.
There are a lot of other examples we leverage on the help from the marketing and communications team to do joint branding projects which allowed us to get a lot more impactful results.
All these came from the fact that I had the opportunity to spend time with the business learn about how they do things around there, and bring that knowledge back to my job!
The Secret?
If you made it all the way here, you would have figured it out! The best development you can get is to do it yourself. Learn from doing the job. Pick up different experiences, and skill sets, and try out different things.
It’s not going to be easy. I messed up a couple of things when I moved into new roles, but I was lucky to be given the chance to fail and to learn as I figured things out. You’ll need to find opportunities like that to grow yourself.
It doesn’t have to be a new job. It can be a new project, or a short stint in a different location to help cover a colleague who needs to go on a break. In today’s context, it can even be a side gig. I had a 6 months gig as a product development manager a couple of years ago, and that was an entirely new experience for me!
Move Me, or I’m Out!
Finally, while most managers/ companies don’t like to hear this. The truth is, you are responsible for your career.
If you’re not learning in your job, you’re not doing yourself justice! Talk to your manager to see if there’s something that you can do, work on, or be a part of that can help you pick up new experiences or skill sets.
If you don’t get that “move” internally, you know where to look!
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