4 Reasons Why those Non-Dream Jobs are Important to You
Are you working in a job that’s not part of your career path? Are you working in a job that’s part of your career path, but not what you thought it would be? In a non-dream job, don’t despair. All jobs, even the ones that don’t turn out to be part of our path, are important. Why? Because they allow you to:
- Practice your skills
- Try on job responsibilities to see what you’re good at
- Learn a work ethic
- Learn how to work with others
Practicing Your Skills
Of course, I’m not referring to a job like a cab driver when you’re career path is to be in product management or marketing. If the cab driver job pays the bills, then you must do it. I’m referring to jobs that are usually your first one out of college or your master’s program. It’s challenging to find the perfect job for us right out of the gate. I’m referring to jobs that we have to get out of necessity and may not be part of our career plan. These first ones help us practice all the things we learned in school. There’s a big difference between book learning and practical application. Combining both, cements your skills so you can start improving and refining what you’ve learned. After refining, comes mastery, which is core to your personal brand.
Learning What You’re Good at
I also argue that these types of jobs are critical, since they often show you what you’re good at and what you’re not good at. For example, during my master’s program, I didn’t know that I would love marketing. It turned out that my first two jobs happened to be in marketing, with the second setting me on my path in product marketing. These jobs introduce us to job functions that we never knew that we could do and be good at. Sometimes getting exposure to the things we aren’t good at, help us course correct so we know what future jobs to avoid and which ones to go after. For example, I learned that I didn’t care for market planning, but love product marketing. I was able to use the experience from market planning, like market sizing and competitive analysis, and apply it to product marketing.
Developing Work Ethic
Some of us didn’t have to work in summer jobs as teenagers. I was one of the lucky ones. Yes, I observed my parents working hard in their jobs. I worked my tail off in basketball through college basketball, so I knew I was a hard worker. However, it took me time to connect my basketball work ethic to my knowledge worker work ethic. My first few jobs helped me discover my values and commitment in doing a good job. It set me on the right path to what my work ethic is today. However, I have noticed that they way I approached my work in school is that same way I do it today in work. I’m a last minute kind of gal. A procrastinator. I have this work approach down and did well in school with this approach. In fact, it worked to my advantage as a VP because I never had enough lead time to get things done. Everything I did was a just-in-time deliverable, which was natural for me because I’m prone to doing things at the last minute.
Learning to Work with Others
One of the important reasons why any job is a good job, even if it’s not part of your dream career path, is learning to work in teams by collaborating, following, and leading; understanding and working with office politics; and learn to be managed so you can learn how to manage others. We don’t learn how to work with others in a vaccum. Just like sibling order teaches us social skills or team sports teaches us how to follow and lead, most jobs help us learn and practice how work with others. Let’s face it, not every worker is friendly. Some workers are competitive. Some are arrogant. Maybe some workers are fun to work with. But the repeated exposure to working with every type of person is critical because we learn how to protect ourselves in the office place. We learn how to influence others to sell our idea. We learn if we can function in a team. We learn if we want to be a manager.
Office politics is unavoidable. Wherever humans are, you’ll have politics. Because politics is just one person trying to assert their will onto someone else or others. Political power is making someone else do what they would not have done. Office politics is no different so learning to navigate the waters, use your own influences or power, and mastering this skills takes practice. You can see why even the most mundane job is good. We can’t learn this skill in a vacuum either. You practice office politics for the sake of politics. You learn and master it so you can be effective and learn how to do the right thing for the good of your team, department, or company.
To Follow, To Manage and Lead Others
Those non-dream jobs help us learn to follow others in teams or your boss. More importantly, they teach us how to manage others. It’s important to get exposure to all type of coworkers, bosses, and companies so we can learn if we really want to be a manager. While some of us were trained to be managers and leaders, applying that training is often quite different. Its takes practice because rarely are we “natural” managers and leaders.
While I know you may be languishing in your non-dream job, don’t opt-out by quitting waiting for the dream job by not working. Use it as an opportunity to practice your skills, try on job responsibilities to see what you’re good at, learn a work ethic, and help you learn how to work with others to be a team player, follower, and manager and leader.
Another point about working your non-dream job is the fact that you are making yourself open to the possibility of a job you just might like. We develop some concept of a “dream job” that’s based on past experiences and notions of what it should be. The more you experience things, the more refined your concept of a “dream job” becomes. For all you know, your initial idea of a dream job changed when you ended up with a completely different job and ended up liking it.
[...] in what you do. How did you find your passion? Like what you said on the other day in your post, “4 Reasons Why those Non-Dream Jobs are Important to You,” there are some significant reasons to work in the “non-dream job” for a while, sometimes I [...]