Are You Separating Yourself From Job Opportunities?

Inspiration

The above photograph of ten birds perched on our birdbath in our backyard was taken by my son and it has inspired this post, especially in light of my son’s comment: “It’s interesting how they separate themselves by species.” It’s true, look at the picture, the five American Goldfinches (on the left) have grouped themselves together and yet separate from the five sparrows. (I haven’t quite figured out the type of sparrow even with the Field Guide to North American Birds book).

This behavior reminded me of The Making of The Planet of the Apes (the original movie), where the actors, dressed as gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans found themselves grouped together during meal breaks; the gorillas ate with other gorillas, chimpanzees ate with chimpanzees and the orangutans ate with the other orangutans. The actors themselves didn’t really realize they had separated themselves in such a way until someone who was NOT in costume filmed it. I can’t remember if it was a cameraman or producer who actually first noticed it, so forgive me. I found that, and still do, absolutely fascinating.

Think about it: secretaries in large companies eat with other secretaries (or by themselves if they’re the only secretary in a small business), managers eat with other managers, dock workers eat with…you guessed it, other dock workers, not the foreman or the manager of the site. The point is this: we all group ourselves, categorize ourselves throughout our lifetime. It’s in our nature – it’s in nature, as is so eloquently illustrated in the above picture. Once we notice this, we can apply this perspective to our job search or our business.

Practical Application

When we’re looking for work, we tend to categorize and label ourselves, thus limiting ourselves and our opportunities. We shortchange ourselves from reaching out to a new client because they’re not within our usual parameters. We shortchange ourselves from reaching out to a new position or type of company for the same reason!

Let’s get personal

For example: When someone asks you what you do, what do you say?……I heard you! See? You just labeled yourself didn’t you? You proudly declared your job title, yes? That particular job title could be holding you back – you may not be able to see what you’re actually capable of, or you may not be able to see that another industry could use your talents!

You keep looking for the same group – the same job title you have or had in your last job. You keep looking for that file clerk position when you could probably be a secretary or an accounts payable/receivables assistant or trainee. You keep looking for that secretarial position when you could be a great manager! Don’t just group yourself into your former title, and don’t separate yourself from jobs that are different. You probably are perfectly capable of doing those other jobs with a little training and/or education!

What Can You do?

Evaluate what you have done, what you can do, what you can learn, and are interested in…then go from there. That’s what a job coach can help you with…to think outside of your group, your title in order to expand and/or fine-tune your search. Your talents and skills could be fully utilized in a position and/or industry that has a totally different job title but you’d miss out on it because you’re just not aware of that particular group or title.

Just because, as a secretary, you’ve always worked for a trucking company, doesn’t mean you can’t be a secretary in an insurance company or a law firm. With a little training, education and interest, you can easily transfer those secretarial skills into that other industry! The same applies to an IT specialist, or even a lawyer.

If you’ve always been labeled as a “corporate lawyer”, you can use those same skills for a non-profit organization or set up your own private practice or be an in-house lawyer for all sorts of companies and organizations!

Ask Yourself This…

Look at the above picture once again and ask yourself: Am I limiting myself with my job title? Have I put myself in a group so separate from others that I’m missing opportunities: for growth, for advancement, for change? Am I limiting myself to one position, to one type of business?

Then ask yourself: If I took away my title, who am I? What are my talents, skills, positive qualities, and interests? And how can I use these answers to come up with a different job title or align myself with a different industry?

Now do you see how the separation and grouping come into play? How have you grouped yourself? In job title? Within a certain industry? And why? Well, that part is easy. It’s a comfort issue. It is because it’s familiar, it is safe, so your eyes naturally scan the classifieds looking for…what…your former or current job title! And you pass over anything that doesn’t match, don’t you?

When you find yourself doing this, catch yourself and force yourself to actually read through every classified ad and then circle anything that seems interesting to you. If you hear yourself say, “Yeah, I’d love to do that but…” Circle it! Then write it down. You can come back to it later and answer that question. The answer usually involves letting go of your security blanket (that familiar, established job title) and attaining some sort of training and/or education.

Note that the goldfinches and the sparrows aren’t letting their species separate them from their common goal: a nice drink of water! So don’t let your ’species’ separate you from your goal: a better job or business opportunity!

Lisa

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