Finding a Job is a Job

Allow yourself to take the time and trouble to search for a good opportunity. Begin today, but don't expect to change careers tomorrow or next month. From now on, you will be developing and working on a career plan. You will be somewhere on this career course for the rest of your working life, so don't take it lightly. Take control.

Successful people might apply to 500 different companies to get 50 job interviews and choose among five job offers. Many women apply to five or 10 companies, have a couple of interviews, get rejected, and give up. We stay where we are, not for lack of opportunity, but for lack of trying. We become discouraged too easily, lacking entitlement and deciding that we aren't qualified anyway. We view rejection from a job not as the employer's loss, but as confirmation of our lack of self-worth, our lack of qualifications. Convinced that we are lucky to have any job at all, we stay where we are.

It may seem easier to stay where you are with the pay you have than face the rejection that comes with job-hunting. However, it is much harder to live on a low income than a higher one. Each year that you continue to work for low pay, your life is harder than it potentially could be. Yes, changing careers is hard, but you have done many hard things in your life. It may be time to do another one.

If you are currently out of work, it may seem like a logical time to change your course. However, you may not have the luxury of time. Certainly, investigate every high-paying opportunity you can uncover, but you may need to take the first job offered just to pay the rent. Don't be discouraged, you are not the first to do what you had to do. Wear a business suit every day to your new job, and keep looking around for another opportunity. Once you have an income, you can take the necessary time to change lanes. You may find that the job you accepted was a better opportunity than you thought. You may change companies again within a few weeks or months.

It was suggested that I provide a list of "male track" careers here. I could then guide you from one job to another. I could tell you that if you are good at a certain female job, you could transfer your skills to a specific male job. This would make the choice less complicated and help you avoid making a mistake. Perhaps this is what you would like – some careful guidance to erase the confusion.

There are several problems with this approach. To begin with, I don't want to erase the confusion and make the job less complicated. Finding a career you like is complicated. We need to face the uncertainty of the adult working world.

Some of us love having someone tell us exactly what to do. This takes the responsibility off our shoulders and makes someone else accountable for the decision. It also keeps us childlike, however, and unable to think for ourselves. It keeps our pay excruciatingly low. The jobs that require the toughest decisions and make us most accountable for those decisions pay the most money. We need to get used to making decisions when the outcome is unknown. We need to become accustomed to taking the heat when our decisions are incorrect. We need to learn to defend ourselves when we are right.

The "skills" you need may simply be a new attitude toward taking risks, working as a team member, negotiating, projecting confidence, and focusing on results instead of tasks. If you can project confidence and develop an orientation to the company's bottom line, you will be considered for many job opportunities. Your education did not end when you finished school. You can learn what you need to know to get the job done.

Even if I thought it were a good idea, I could not tell you what kind of job you would do well or what you would enjoy. A job is much more than performing tasks and accomplishing results. The people where you work usually affect your success and satisfaction more than your job description. I have worked for enough companies to know that every office environment is different. Maybe all the women in your office are forbidden opportunities; there may be a pattern of talking down to or even sexually harassing women. Maybe your office environment is conducive to career women, but not regular women. Try to take a realistic survey of the company you currently work for, but don't beat your head against a brick wall for too long. Look both inside and outside your company walls.