It is incredibly helpful to understand and know yourself before moving forward in a sales career or recruitment career or any career. Knowing yourself, your values, your goals and your passions will help you find the job that is best for you. Not only will you find the right job, you’ll develop a long lasting career and be able to totally dominate your space as a true professional.
Your job should have some relation to your passions, your interests, your strengths and your abilities. Most people take jobs based on one of these factors but they don’t take the time to find a job that encompasses all of them. I can understand how finances can be a huge stressor and contribute to taking a job that's not 100% to your liking but there are usually consequences down the line. That is exactly why so many people jump from job to job switching industries and roles and wind up confused about what they’re doing and why. Some people don’t realize that their job hasn’t aligned with their interests until much later in life when retirement is around the corner. Some people settle for jobs they hate because it’s their belief that a job is a job, put in work to make money, that’s it. If you want to have a flourishing and super successful career, do the best you can to find a job you are passionate about, that is interesting to you, that challenges you, that utilizes your strengths and involves abilities or skills you have acquired.
You should also develop some reasons why you're interested in a job, how you can be bring unique value and understand what your long term goals for your career are. With this mindset you are much more likely to stay on track and move forward through difficult times. By creating a life that lines up with your passions and having clear foundational reasons that motivate you towards your career goals you'll have a much easier time accomplishing your goals. Let me give a quick simple example.
Let's say I'm a recruiter. I love the social aspect of recruitment. I love meeting people, talking on the phone, developing new relationships and helping clients and candidates find the perfect match. I also have the long term goal of building a support network of business relationships. Let's also say that I have a passion for social media marketing and extreme sports. Here's the catch. I recruit accountants and work with the top finance companies in the nation.
The point is, nothing sells like your passions. Can you imagine how much more successful I would be if I recruited social media managers for the leading extreme sports companies in the nation? Everyday I would be building my network in an area I'm passionate about. Everyday I would meet or talk to new people in an industry I have interest in and I could talk intelligently about current events. I would attend awesome networking and social events. My long term goal might be to become the leading social media recruiter for extreme sports companies. My message is clear, people know exactly what I do and why I love it. In business development meetings my passion and general interest do all the selling for me. My life would be fun and exciting and that energy would influence others and attract more success.
Now let's look at the other example. I recruit accountants but I have no real interest in accounting. In order to be good at my job I force myself to put in extra hours after work learning about accounting and finance. I push myself to attend finance related events, listen to finance podcasts, research finance companies and try to be interested in something I'm not. The simple fact that I have to try and be interested is what will prevent me from domination. My message becomes confused as well. I work in finance recruitment but my passions are extreme sports and social media marketing. Do I even want to be the leading accountant recruiter in the world? I'll even start to confuse myself. Selling my services will be harder too, nothing kills a sale like lack of passion or authenticity.
When you know yourself and why you love your job, you will come off as genuine and authentic and authenticity is key to developing a great reputation and a successful career. Authenticity can do amazing things within the workplace and outside of the workplace, on client meetings and just general everyday interactions with other people. Know yourself, stick to your passions, be authentic and see how much easier life becomes when do.
I regularly teach classes on landing your dream job and my lessons incorporate some of this material. If you're interested in learning more or have any questions, please contact me here on LinkedIn.
This article was written by Quintin Ford, a recruitment entrepreneur located in Playa Vista, CA. Quintin is the Founder of OCEAN | STREET & Co-Founder at knw agency, avid blogger and social media guru. Learn more about Quintin on LinkedIn.
