Some days you like your job and some days it’s the last place you want to be. The pros and cons vary from boss to boss, project to project even day -to-day. The complexities of the status quo can motivate you to stay in jobs, or leave companies – even change careers entirely.

The challenge is – how to you weight the factors in a rational way to give yourself a sustainable degree of overall fulfillment? As an example, are you over emphasizing the drain of a long commute and minimizing the charge the client-facing work generates for you? For some the daily commute is a prime factor. For others it’s a much needed time to transition from work to home reinforced by using an alternative route that may take longer but offers more breathing space.

As your career matures – and you do as well –you may no longer be willing to make the kind of tradeoffs you once did. It may be time to set new boundaries and priorities.

Finding your Career SmartPoint can be a fragile process. You want to preserve what’s working, but still make some fundamental changes. This can include reducing your work week, working from home, rededicating yourself to a second career certification, degree or small business endeavor. It can mean stepping off the management ladder and reporting to a new (and younger boss) as a front-line specialist and leaving the senior-level cares behind. Try negotiating with your management team to recraft your current job over time in order to get more of what you want, and less of what you don’t want. Or would a smaller firm where you can be more versatile put the challenge back into your day? A start-up? A not-for-profit?

It’s perfectly valid to consider non-work priorities too. Imagine taking your foot off the gas pedal by working 4 days a week. Think about freeing up time for children and parents, volunteer work, self-development, overlooked interests and pursuits. Time for yourself!

These kinds of decisions come through careful planning taking into account finances, family needs and long term goals, but they can be done. Self-assessment, psychometric testing, strategic planning, professional advice and in-depth conversations with peers and mentors can all be helpful in putting the puzzle together.

Finding tradeoffs in your workstyle means creating a Career SmartPoint that reflects who you are now and who you plan to become.

So where are you on the scale of ‘should I stay or should I go in your current job?’  It’s good to check in periodically to measure the health of your career.  Your level of satisfaction and fulfillment in the work you do are also key indicators in your quality of life.  While short term compromise is possible and even preferable for the right reasons, long term delays in finding the right fit can do you and your talent a disservice.

Why It Might Be Time to For You to Move On

• You’ve had a ‘critical incident’ at work.  Perhaps you got passed over for promotion again.  You are not on that key account.  The work you’ve always done is getting passed over to the new hire.  You’re not in the loop on the big project.  There’s a growing sense that enough is enough. It’s time to go.
• You finally realize that your company is not a top compensator and your salary is stuck where it is as long as you stay.  You might have a sense that performance reviews are kept low as a salary cap measure.  Perhaps your bonus was disappointing again.  If there is no salary acknowledgment of advanced skills and or a new designation you might move ahead somewhere else.
• You’ve been offered the option of a severance package with a stay or go scenario.  If so, check out your options carefully, they vary from company to company.  You could looking at anything from an extended working notice period, a lateral or lesser position, a salary continuance or lump sum payment.
• You’ve been ‘dehired’.  The severance package arrives in a meeting with HR and your boss.  Sometimes it’s a complete surprise or perhaps you had a hunch, either way you are in job search mode now.
• You’ve received a call from a recruiter asking if you know of anyone interested in a job posting they’ve sent you.  You realize that it’s a great opportunity, so you start interviewing to see if there’s a fit.  It’s not so much that you initiate a search, but that a search is initiated for you.
• You surf Linked In, keep an eye on indeed.ca and one week, there are a few job postings that combine to say “the time is right” – let’s get started and get serious about this.  Works even better if you hear from an old colleague there’s a great job open at their firm.
• Your spouse or partner, your friends or family – their careers are moving on, there’s some subtle peer pressure to keep up and lots of ready advice on how to work the job search.  Best if combined you’re your own motivation.

If you come to the ultimate realization that no matter how much you’d like things to be different at work, it’s likely to be more of the same it may be time to face reality.  Then, If you do want to make change happen in your career, it’s up to you to take control of your future.

What would it take to increase your career health in 2013?

There are lots of reasons people stay in the jobs they have – even if the work is more mundane than they might like.  At times these career sticking points can be a good thing.  They promote stability, prevent job-hopping and directionless resumes.  On the other hand, a heads-down approach in the workplace can prevent you from seeing things as they really are or considering the kind of bold moves that can add depth and flexibility to your career path.

What People Say About Why They Stay

• It’s my comfort zone!  I know the people, my routine, and what’s expected of me. I can walk through the day fairly certain I can handle what comes up. It’s easier to stay.
• I’ve been here so long I don’t know what else I could possibly do. I’m such a specialist I’m not even sure how I’d fit in a new organization.
• I have no idea how to look for a new job. Where would I start? I certainly can’t take a chance that my current employer would find out.  It could hurt my chances of staying here.
• As much as I might want to go, I’m handling overtime, family, parents, outside commitments and when I do get home, I’m exhausted.  I have no energy to organize a search and getting off work for an interview, really!!
• I’m not sure the grass is really is greener somewhere else. I’d need to make it worthwhile – a better commute, a salary increase, and a new title would be great. I’d like more customer contact and a new industry too would really be invigorating.  How would I find all that?

And the number one reason people stay in their current job is ….loyalty to the people they work with – that’s it – their sense of personal and professional connection to their co-workers, and even their boss.  If they feel they are an appreciated, valued and respected member of their ‘work family’ they will weather some storms to stay.

More on why people finally decide to move on….in the next blog posting!

Our instincts are surprisingly accurate when it comes first impressions.  It’s that deep ‘friend or foe’ hardwiring we have now operating on high alert in this era of high speed. While we used to say it took 5 minutes to form an impression, executives say they can do it in 30 seconds (flashes of – professional integrity, well spoken, confident & intelligent).

For HR specialists who interview constantly it would be curious if they didn’t form quick impressions (sense of – gets to the point easily, builds rapport with people, organized & precise). We gather up fast bits of information, verbal and non, and we then test out our assumptions over the next few minutes.  While our first impression is still malleable and will add new data (technically sound, sense of humour, problem solver) generally it magnifies what it has already glimpsed.

So here are some ideas for you to boost your own first impression -

• Get your professional image lined up (clothes, shoes, haircut – hair is what most people remember)
• Tasteful is the watch word (for women jewellery, makeup, colours, fashion trends, purses)
• Grooming is critical (it counts even more than you already think)
• Slow down the clock.  Pause and make a mental note that this matters and focus on the introduction.
• Be positive, genuine and look ‘em in the eye (long enough to notice their eye colour)
• Get the handshake right (extend your arm and return the grip style and pressure)
• Repeat their name plus a comment (Gerry, Good to see you here.)
• Make a positive statement (We’ve got lots to discuss today, I know.)
• Have 3 pieces of positive small talk at the ready –a local event, news item, recent trip
• Share a smile (the best non-verbal communication) & add a point of agreement early in the exchange
• Pause and listen to what they are saying with 100% attention, adding a nod if you like
• Respond to their comments clearly and briefly (so the interaction rolls on)
• Pay them or their company/staff/product/service a compliment (only if it is sincere and truthful)
• Make a direct reference to why you are there (the opportunity, the speaker, the meeting, the event)
• Ask a short question about them (What brings you here today?  What kind of work do you do? )

The next time you’re in a group setting, take a bird’s eye perspective and watch objectively to see how people engage with others to set up that positive impression – or perhaps how they don’t.  You may be surprised at what you notice.

When clients touch base these days it’s sometimes about the launch of their daughter or son’s career, rather than the priorities of their own.   It seems the torch is being passed from the obstacles of the workplace to the obstacle of getting started in the workplace.

New graduates are certainly frustrated with hiring roadblocks resulting from pressures such as -

• Reduced numbers of entry level jobs overall
• Hard core screening processes
• Unrelated, part-time service jobs predominating applicant resumes
• Requirements for industry specific experience
• Higher workload distribution so fewer new hires needed
• Lack of orientation and training to succeed in new jobs
• Increased expectations of new hires to hit the ground running
• Boomers staying in jobs or phasing in work/retirement options – (had to include this)
• Let’s stop here, the list gets too long – (and I appreciate that it applies to non-graduates as well.)

Essentially grads lack that crucial 2 to 3 years of experience need to start climbing the career ladder. Yes, volunteer and summer work over several years adds up, but the fundamental business track record is missing.  It’s the old frustrated question of “How do I get experience, unless I’ve got experience?”

The answer is you start where you can with what you’ve got.  Pay your dues – even out of your chosen field – and gather your transferable skills so you have something of value to package up and market to your next employer.  Don’t wait for the perfect job.  Your first one may be for an unknown company with less than glamorous working conditions and more hours and less pay than you could imagine.  (On the other hand, the hours could be short, say a 3 month contract at 24 hours a week?) Hard to believe this is what you went to school for.

Humble beginnings are the roots of careers.  While it can take ruthless determination and escalated connections just to land one, they start out small.

Then you dig in your heels and start learning all over again.  New personalities, policies and politics.  Clients, products, systems and services.  Be smart.  Pitch in.  Stay organized.  Win supporters.  Deliver results.  Keep your promises.  Ask questions.  Grow relationships.  Build teamwork.  Stay positive. Show initiative.  Work hard.

Once you’ve got that first job experience and your references are strong, start looking for work that is more aligned with what you really want to do, and make a move that brings you closer to that.  Consider your first job as a launch point and you’ll be amazed at where it can take you.

More on what you can do to help your grad land work in upcoming blogs.

I had the pleasure of being invited recently to a PWL Capital event www.pwlcapital.com where the featured speaker was Carl Richards, CFP, author and a New York Times contributor. www.behaviourgap.com

His new book The Behaviour Gap – Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money, is primarily focused on financial investments.  It also explains the confusing gap between what we think and feel, and what we actually do.  These highly transferable life lessons that were not lost on the young urban crowd that attended. 

What’s more, the beauty of Carl’s approach – and how his artwork became featured in the Parsons School of Design in New York – is that he distills the concepts in his book into deceptively clear line drawings that deliver the whole message.  If Carl can’t fit the idea on a cocktail napkin, he’ll work at it until he can.

So what did Carl have to say about financial investing that can be extrapolated to people, patterns of behaviour and careers?  Here are just a few:

1. We can decide what we really want out of life.  So the more you know about yourself, the better you can align your actions with your goals.
   1. Overconfidence is a serious problem.  The ones who are most overconfident are least likely to recognize it.
   2. We can embrace uncertainty.   Change isn’t always a problem if we can be flexible rather than locked in.
   3. You gotta be you.  You need a strategy that’s made specifically for you.
   4. Happiness is more about expectations and desire than it is about income.
   5. Anxious people tend to get stuck in the past and seek comfort in familiarity.
   6. Good things happen too.

Every summer needs a good book. So, if you’re a reader, enjoy.  If you’re visual and just want see the concepts in sketch form, head to his website, they’re all there.