Coming out of college, you may picture in your mind the kind of job you would love doing – your dream job. It is one that pays you lots of money, is challenging, enjoyable, exciting. Unfortunately, the odds of finding such a job right out of the gate are very slim, for a number of reasons.
You are still wet behind the ears, so to speak. You still need to gain experience and the proper skill set that will enable you to perform the kinds of challenging jobs you seek. Your first job may involve a good deal of grunt work, learning the ropes.
You may feel a little disdainful of this kind of work, after spending thousands of dollars and four years of your life earning a degree to prepare you for the working world. But you shouldn’t. It will help you to gain the experience and skills needed to take the next step in your career.
A second reason your first job is unlikely to be a dream job is simply because of a disconnect between what you imagine and reality. We all have an image of what a job will be like, but it seldom comports with real life. It is usually rather vague because we simply do not have enough information about the day-to-day work involved. And this is true even if you have talked with people in the profession. How can you be certain the first job you get is your dream job if you haven’t worked at any other job before?
Finding that dream job, determining your purpose in life and what you are truly passionate about, is more of a journey than anything else. In the beginning, you really don’t know enough about the working world to be so sure about your dream job. A career progression is about exploration. You may take a job you think you will like but find that you enjoy doing something else more. And this may happen several times during your career.
Moreover, there are many things that go into making a dream job other than just what is contained in the job description. These are factors that can make for work that is challenging and fulfilling or something much worse, such as the kind of supervisor you have, your coworkers, and the company culture.
Your destination is a way off. It is something you cannot even see when you take your first “real,” professional job. Your first employment should be looked at as a learning experience. Use it to find out all you can about your industry, your role in it, your company, and about yourself. Use it to begin the process of getting clear in your own mind what you want to do.
According to some business experts, your first job can be considered a good one if you have a boss who is not unreasonable, you fit in with the company culture, you look forward to going to work in the morning, and it provides you with a learning opportunity.
Today, when technology is advancing so rapidly, career experts say it is unwise to focus on a particular job, but rather on planning a career. After all, some jobs that exist now will be gone in the future. The better course of action is to think strategically about career development and look at your first job as just the initial step in your career, a place where you can begin to acquire the knowledge and skills and meet the people who will enable you to move to the next step.
If you’re ready to move on from your first job out of college – or if you’ve recently graduated and are still looking for that first opportunity, take a look at our current openings and, if one or more look promising, follow application instructions or call the Helpmates branch location nearest you.
