Advice About Careers
In a career, however, your goal is to not only get the task
done, but it’s also to learn skills, gain experiences, build connections, and
put yourself in position for promotions, raises, and possibly similar positions
in other organizations. That’s a lot more than just getting the task done, and
that means putting your ear to the grindstone.
In other words, you should be investing at least some emotional
energy into a career. You should be looking for ways that you can get
promotions and raises and bonuses and useful resume-building skills and
experience. This means always going the extra mile and doing tasks that are
beyond your minimum job description, building positive relationships with
people around you, and so on.
You should fight hard for a career until you get to the level
of success that you want. That doesn’t mean alienating other pieces of your
life. It means setting a professional goal, figuring out what you have to do to
get there, and getting to work.
A Comparative Example: Convenience Store Clerk
Most people treat convenience store clerking as a job. They
go in, do the minimal tasks that are assigned to them by the manager, and watch
the clock until they can get out of there to do something else. You know what?
That’s what they should be doing. It’s merely a job to them – a way to trade
some time for some cash. They don’t want to work at this all their life – they
just want a few bucks in their pocket.
Some people treat it as more than a job, though. They hope
to become a manager at the store and, perhaps someday, own a store. They take
the work seriously, and when there’s no clerking tasks to go around, they spend
their time doing other things that need to be done: cleaning the store,
learning how the accounting procedures work, and other things like that.
They ask lots of questions of the manager and use that for
fuel to learn what’s going on, and they often remain as a clerk for many years.
Quite often, these people get promoted to assistant manager and sometimes do
become the manager
The Big Point
Know going in whether or not this employment opportunity is
a job or a career. Ask yourself whether
you hope to be promoted at some point, or you just need to collect a paycheck.
If you just need a paycheck, simply don’t become emotionally
involved at all. Do the tasks you’re told to do and conserve your emotional and
mental energy for the other pieces of your life. If you’re hoping that this
employment opportunity will push you on to other things, then turn on the
passion.
Figuring this out right off the bat can save you a ton of investment
in a job. Save that investment for your family, your passions, or your career.
What’s the Difference Between a Job and Career?
So as you can see, while one can work very hard at a job and
even be paid well to work a job, a career takes much more motivation and forward-thinking
effort than a job. Due to this people usually care more about a career than
they do about a job. They see personal goals as a part of their career and it
is often more a part of who they are when they are not working than a typical
job. Careers are often vocations, such as teaching. We want the people who are teaching
our children to think of it as a career, not just a job. We want them to have
an interest in our children and care about the success of our children, rather
than just coming in, practicing a required skill, and leaving for the day
without feeling the desire to become a better teacher every day.
Do You Want a Job or a Career?
Whether a job or career is the right fit for you will depend
on your stage of life. Jobs can help people start careers in many ways –
experience, knowledge, learning about what they like and dislike. Eventually
though, striving for a career is a very positive step because it means you want
more out of the work you do than a paycheck. You want to develop your talents, really
enjoy what you do, and care about how you spend your time each day. In
addition, your earning potential is much higher in a career than in a job in
most cases.
A career takes goal setting and education (through college,
work experience, or self-learning). It is best to follow your interests,
skills, and talents to find the career that will bring you success. Success
includes money, but is also very much about personal happiness.
