I think most people are finding job hunting extremely frustrating right now. Career development is feeling more like arrested development for most.
Here is an email I received from Jill this week.
I can’t even see hardly any jobs that I can apply for any more.
I feel I will have to go back to education and have a massive debt over me
for years afterwards.
Jill
Should Jill go back to university and get more qualifications? Well generally speaking the answer is “No”.
Having a genuine interest in something can’t be faked and it’s the surest way to succeed. However, there are a couple of things you need to know. In the last, five to ten years or so university has become big business. It needs to make money – lots of money. So it sells you the magic bullet. – “If you only had this qualification then all your job worries would be over.” So should you follow your heart and study something you’re really passionate about, regardless of where it might lead you, or should you instead opt for a degree with a more secure career route?
Unfortunately, they cannot keep up their side of the bargain and the percentage of students who actually get a job in their field is pitifully low. Let’s put it this way. There is a reason universities do not offer money-back guarantees. The second thing you need to know is that, in my experience, the “product” is fine – it’s the marketing that’s needing work.
What do I mean by that?
Well pretty much everyone has a marketing problem, not a product problem. This means that it doesn’t matter how much you improve the product, if the marketing is still rubbish then it’s not going to sell. 
I have been in professional marketing over twenty years helping people with their careers and working with psychology but these are still marketing issues.
- Deciding what you want to do for a living
- Getting interview invites
- Communications, written, voice or in-person
- Interviews
These are all marketing issues. The people who are good at marketing are the ones who excel in all of the above areas. Unfortunately, everyone is bad at marketing – yes everyone.
The good news is that these skills can be learned This is what I cover in the 3 Step System. You don’t need to know much to be significantly better than everyone else. So my advice to jill is not to go to university. Instead, learn the core marketing skills as used in career development and make the most of the product as it stands. I’m pretty sure the product is already good enough, so now you need to work on marketing it properly.
Even great products will sit on the shelf if they are not properly marketed. That’s human psychology for you. Check out the 3 Step System, which, unlike the university, does come with a money-back guarantee.
I am still working my way through the three step system which is providing me an accurate understanding to who I am.
I now understand why I became totally frustrated with my previous employer to a point where I could no longer face going into work; 26 years of employment then one day to mutually agree my exit.
My first thought was to obtain additional skills and attend further education classes, however, the course taught me that I already had the necessary skills to move forward.
The course has provided me with an open mind, to search for a job based on my personality and values rather than one that is based on salary and skills. Since I have been searching for a job of value to me I am finding that the avenues are opening and it is only a matter of time before I find it; coincidentally these jobs also offer reasonable salaries.
I have also had interest from companies that I have worked with in the past, however the course suggests that I walk away from jobs that do not meet with my personality. In the past I probably would have accepted these jobs but now there is absolutely no chance because I know that I would never be happy there.
When I am eventually invited to interviews for my value jobs I feel significantly more confident with answering difficult or misleading interview questions and more so to even take control of the interview if the panel does not know how to interview; either way what an advantage.
If you want to find a meaningful job, then I would recommend the course to you, first, take the personality test then you will be given a true report on your personality, it is quite comical for someone who you don’t know to tell you who you are and what you are about; with accuracy. After this, you can then start to move forward with confidence and direction as I am.
I have used the 3 Step System recently to work out what roles would be best suited to me and what opportunities I would be better pursing.
I would get alot of agencies contacting me and being pigeoned holed into a specific salary bracket or more junior role to what I am doing at the moment as I have loads of experience working in Finance but not ‘Qualified’.
After completing the course I now realise that I have lots of transferrable skills in Finance and IT, skills from voluntary work I do, and the qualifications I have been trying to complete for the last few years is the thing which is causing me stress and impacting my time to learn new work based skills my new manager wants for my current role.
Now that I have gone through the course and realised this, I am being far more selective with roles I go for, and I am finding not only are the opportunities coming in are more interesting but the salaries are much higher too.
Even though I have not switched roles yet, I feel it is only a matter of time before my ideal role comes along in a company who will appreciated my wealth of experience.
Thanks to the 3 step course giving me a different perspective on job hunting, and brushing up on my interview skills, I feel far more confident, positive, and impressing the right people!
Stephen, thanks for the kind words. I’ll make sure everyone in my team sees it as it will make their day.