4 steps to take for a better job in 2020

Well, the holiday season is over, and we should all be back in business by now. Maybe a few of the lucky ones are still sipping cocktails on a far-away deserted beach, but the rest of us should be “Back in the trenches.” I bet you are thinking about your New Years’ resolutions while trying to recoup the flow. Some of us want to enjoy more of what life has to offer, others want to lose weight, maybe find a significant other, and the list can go on, but there is a considerable number of people that want a professional change. And this is what we are going to cover today. January is a great month to start as it is the beginning of the year (lots of time ahead for execution). Most of us had at least some vacation days, so we have our energy levels up, and opportunities should be higher than at the end of the year when everybody was focused on the holiday season. Whether it is a 180° career change, just a new employer, or even starting your own business, you need to take some preliminary steps to ensure you are successful in your endeavor. To keep things to the point, we’ll refer to job search. However, you can extrapolate the steps and use them for other use-cases as well. A January job search is an excellent idea since availabilities are much higher now than in Q4. 

Why do you want to make this change?

The stepping stone for any change should be the reason for doing it. Going deeper into this, I can assure you that learning to understand the why behind everything is going to increase your quality of life profoundly. You can start by asking yourself simple “Why” questions: “Why am I feeling so blue? / Why did I react so violently? / Why do I enjoy so much this type of activity?” and the list can go on and on. 

So coming back to our point, the first thing you should consider when wanting to make a change is, “Why should you?” First of all, is it a need or a desire? The need corrects something that isn’t going as it should( we are righting something wrong), so it comes on a high state of discomfort. For example, I am not able to manage the monthly expenses with the current salary, so I need a better paycheck not to go bankrupt. Whereas a desire is something that we wish for, even though our current state is satisfactory enough, and we can continue in the current situation just fine. For example, I’d like to have the opportunity to manage people, but I am a one-person show in my department. 

Once you learned the reason behind your desire to make a change, it will eliminate a lot of wrong roads to take and will set the course for the next steps.  

What is the expected outcome that would satisfy you? 

Now that you know why you desire to make a change, you can envision the expected outcome. It is an essential part of the process cause if you don’t know where you are going, you definitely won’t get there. You hear a lot of people talking about SMART goals. Your expected outcome should not be any different. You shouldn’t just say: I want to feel better! Or I want to earn more money, or I want to have a better work-life balance. This should be just the starting point, but you need to dive deep into what this means. You should be as specific as possible, saying: I want to gain 2 more hours of free time a week/day, I want to increase my monthly income by x%, etc. These types of goals are also measurable, so it is easy to check whether you are there or not. 

Make sure all your goals are within your power. Wanting to stop the fires in Australia or shelter all the homeless is undoubtedly a very inspiring and caring wish, but you cannot do this by yourself, so if you think you can, it will only get you frustrated. So, do a reality check – is this something that is feasible short to mid-term? If I say I want to increase my monthly income by 500%, this might be too ambitious for the short/mid-term, so I need to consider this as a long-term goal. It will be much more productive to start with a 50% increase (let’s call it a milestone), and once I achieve this, I can go further to the next step 100% – not to mention it will be great for morale. Quick wins are always a good idea when speaking about objectives.   

When do you want to have this change completed?

Having things clear so far, you need to set a due date for your goal. Nothing good ever came of “someday”… Remember that the due date should be reasonable and conjoined to the goal itself. God built the world in 6 days, and he had super-powers 🙂 

This does mean that you should set the due date very far in the future, as this might be demotivating as well. For example, if your goal is to get a new job with a 30% salary increase, you should at between 2 to 4 months to achieve this. Why 2 to 4 months? Well, it takes a while to research and shortlist the preferred available opportunities, let’s say about 1-2 weeks. After this, you start applying; it will be another 1-2 weeks before you get called for an interview. The recruitment process differs from company to company, and the process can take up to 2-4 weeks to be completed, depending on stages and interviewers’ availability. There are instances in which a particular process is abandoned because of reason X or Y, and you need to start over. This is why, depending on the goal you set, you should fix the deadline as well. Remember to allow enough time to go through the process, but don’t use too much buffer to avoid procrastination. 

What are the steps needed for accomplishing your objective?

We’ve almost reached the end, but there is one more piece of the puzzle we need to fit in. We know Why, What, and When. What do you think is missing? The How indeed! It is excellent to know where we are going, what we expect to find there when do we plan to arrive, but being a new place, it will get increasingly challenging to reach it without a map. The great thing is that we can draw our map according to our needs and uptime so that we ensure the shortest and easiest route.

Nevertheless, we need to have this done before starting chasing the objective. Moving forward with a specific plan is the sensible thing to do. If we continue with the job search use-case, we need to asses the following: 

• job sources we consider (job boards, referrals, company websites, fairs, etc.); 
• tools for applying (resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile); 
• application timeline, 
• steps of the recruitment process (phone screen, technical tests, interviews, etc.), 
• actions after getting accepted to the new job (resignation, notice period, etc.). 

Having all of these defined, now everything should be crystal clear for us to start. You can do all of this yourself, but it is always a good idea to have a professional guide you every step of the way, so you benefit from their know-how and experience, which maximizes your chances to achieve your goals. 

So, what do you say? Ready to take your first step towards a better job?