Hopefully, everyone has a career goal for this year; whether it is to keep your current job, find that dream job, get a promotion or, if currently unemployed, get any job. Often your goal may be larger than your realistic chances to achieve it in the near future, especially if your goal is to find that near-perfect dream job. Here are three realities regarding career jobs.
The first reality is, very few of us have a near-perfect dream job. Most that have jobs today are doing something that is less than their ideal job, but it is a job and it does help pay the bills. This “in the meantime job” is almost always worth keeping, at least until a better opportunity comes along.
The second reality is that better opportunities will rarely come along unless you take charge of your career and work toward that near-perfect career or dream job. The best way to take charge of your future is to take charge of today, setting goals and working towards those goals.
The third reality is that a dream job is available to each one of us, no matter how limited our current skills and our current circumstance. If your career goal is realistic, there is no reason you can’t reach it. Not one. You only fail on a goal once you give up on it.
The first step is to set realistic goals, taking into account the skills you have and, if you lack them, whether you have the sustainable desire to obtain the skills you need.
The next step is to identify the resources available to obtain those skills. Some may require schooling while others may be obtained on the job. This research is critical to ensure you are heading in the right direction.
The Utah Department of Workforce Services dedicates a great deal of effort to identify the skills that are needed for any given job in Utah. The “Occupational Explorer” link in the “Utah Data Viewer” section of their website at www.jobs.utah.gov provides valuable information for almost every job in Utah.
To illustrate, here is what this link says about being an actor in Utah: “…Actors face intense competition for jobs. Most roles, no matter how minor, have many actors auditioning for them. For stage roles, actors with a bachelor’s degree in theater will have a better chance than those without one. These jobs are also often part-time or temporary in nature. Compared to all occupations, wages for this occupation are very low.”
The report also includes the skills needed and how important each skill is, expected wages, current job openings, schools and training providers, licensing information and other important data.
As I counsel those who want to become a famous and wealthy actor, I tell them the following: (Although the actual numbers may be different, the point it exemplifies is accurate)
“If 10,000 people want to be a famous and wealthy actor, about 1,000 will actually pursue it; about 100 will find work; about 10 will make a living at it, and maybe one of those 10 will make it big.”
I then add, “You can’t be the one who makes it big without being one of the 10 that makes a living at it and one of the 100 that finds work and one of the 1,000 who actually pursue acting as a career.”
Everyone’s dream job —that near-perfect career job — is valid to that person. The question we all must ask ourselves is, “Do I have the sustainable desire to obtain the skills I need to get that job?” Standard Examiner
