The Honesty Experiment for Figuring Out a Career is a 30-day self-improvement challenge to kickstart your career search. You get daily tips and questions to help you learn about yourself, explore your options, and take action. Sign up!
In week 2 of the Honesty Experiment for Figuring Out a Career, participants thought about these questions:
- Do you want to work inside or outside?
- Do you want to work solo or in a team? In a big or small company?
- Do you mind working remotely?
- Is making lots of money important to you?
- Are you looking for a sense of purpose in your job?
- What was the best job you’ve ever had?
- Make a list of jobs you would hate and why.
Here’s what they uncovered.
Lisa
What’s the biggest lesson you learned this week? I learned I want to work at a company or organization where I can see the direct results of my efforts. I learned I don’t mind working remotely and I prefer to work alone. I also learned that I may need to compromise in my career. I might not get everything I want all the time out of a position.
What’s the most surprising insight you gained? I was surprised to find that I like interacting with people in my job. One of my favorite positions was due to the coworkers and people around me.
What career opportunities have you thought about? I’ve thought about working at a nonprofit organization. I think my work would have an impact on a specific cause. While I may not make a ton of money, I would feel fulfilled in my position.
Do you have any misconceptions or reservations about figuring out a career? I have learned to keep my options open and to look for jobs I may not have thought would be a good fit in the first place.
What next steps could you take? I could volunteer at an organization that helps me feel more fulfilled and satisfied than I do in my current position.
Claire
What’s the biggest lesson you learned this week? I’m in it to learn as much as I can from a job rather than quantify it. I had been browsing several job listings in the past couple of weeks and eventually realized how little depth and breadth is covered in the jobs that I had applied for. I am not searching for the job I want properly….
What’s the most surprising insight you gained? It’s been a dispiriting few months in my job hunt so I took the liberty of rewriting my cover letter, making it sound a tad wry and even sarcastic. Surprisingly enough, I’ve been getting more responses than I had expected.
Not everything about a job search needs to be rigid and serious! I need to learn how to sell myself more strategically…
Do you have any misconceptions or reservations about figuring out a career? I am often told, as a millennial, to “suck it up and just get any job that comes my way.” It’s easy to limit myself to mediocre jobs where I possibly won’t learn much since I only just graduated from university not too long ago. But I should persist! I (kind of) know what I want to pursue and I shouldn’t cave into what naysayers think.
What next steps could you take? Write a few versions of cover letters – both humorous and professional ones.
Jon F.
What’s the biggest lesson you learned this week? This week was annual evaluation time at work and so a lot of us spent time filling out our Performance Self-Evaluations- – analyzing our accomplishments, goals, talents, non-talents, etc. After reflecting on my accomplishments over the past year, I realized that there were several projects that I really enjoyed working on that had occurred following my 2012 evaluation. Previous to my 2012 evaluation, I was dissatisfied with the work I was doing, but then after the evaluation I was given more opportunities to do the work that better used my talents.
Now I have transferred to another office in that same period of time and hopefully am now repeating the same cycle as last year: dissatisfaction at the start which will hopefully change to satisfaction once the 2013 Performance Evaluations are complete. This Honesty Experiment has been timely and prepared me for the meeting I will soon have with my supervisor discussing my job satisfaction.
What’s the most surprising insight you gained? Following a discussion about this Honesty Experiment with my wife, she mentioned that she thought I would make a good manager because I was concerned about these types of questions and trying to figure out ways to help improve employees’ satisfaction at work. Previous to her comment, I would have tried to avoid a management position – and still would – but, it was an insight into the fact that good managers should not only be interested in getting the job done, but also be interested in finding ways to bless the lives of their employees and their employees’ families.
What career opportunities have you thought about? Not sure this counts as a career opportunity, but the craziest idea I thought of was to have a job shuffle at work: everybody interested in changing positions would participate. To participate, employees interested in changing positions would list their position as available then check the same list of positions they’d prefer doing. Chances are that some of the employees dissatisfied with their current position would be interested in doing what another dissatisfied employee is doing, and vice versa.
The Honesty Experiment 