Career Advice
5 Pieces Of Career Advice You Can Ignore
Glassdoor Team
Glassdoor Team | Author & Career Expert at Glassdoor | 6 Nov 2017
Somewhere along the way, you’ve probably been advised by someone who’s “trying to help,” and they've told you to listen to them because “they know.” What did your instincts say? Perhaps you should listen to that voice in your head more than the career do-gooder.
Have you ever been told to "keep your head down and never question anything” or “take any job” or “don’t reach too high”?
Sometimes, people do jobs they’re not interested in because they've listened to the career do-gooder and not their gut instinct, then wonder why they're unhappy.
Your career is a journey; sometimes you’ll take a wrong path, other times you’ll feel that the journey is taking a long time, but you’re in the driving seat. When you start listening to bad career advice and worst still following that advice, your journey is no longer your own, who knows where you’ll end up. So, make sure your decisions are informed as possible by using sites such as Glassdoor to make the right choices for you as an individual.
Bad career advice can come from anywhere; it could be co-workers, family, friends and even paid career advisors, just remember no-one knows you like yourself.
Bad career advice that gets dished out on a daily basis:
Take the job that pays the most
It seems that many people are still this shallow. Of course, it’s good to have a decent salary, but there are many other things to take into consideration when choosing a job. What about the people you’ll be working with every day, will you get along? Is the company culture good? What about flexibility, work-life balance, training, benefits, and opportunities?
Stay where you are, it’s a secure job.
These days with the rise of technology nothing is secure, a robot might take your job in a few years time. What tends to happen when you stay in a “nice, secure job” is you can become institutionalised and start to fear change. When this happens, you starve yourself of new experiences and new opportunities. If you’re a person who’s doing the same thing day in and day out, when change does come, and it will, you won’t be able to adapt. Employers will bypass the ones who don't adapt.
Be patient
If you’ve been waiting for a promotion but keep getting overlooked, then you should ask your employer some serious questions. If you believe you’re producing good results, you have the skills and the respect from your colleagues then you have the right to know why you keep getting overlooked for promotion. Once you have the answers you then need to ask yourself some serious questions; have you been patient for too long, can you climb the career ladder quicker somewhere else?
Don’t job hop
As the average lifespan of a job now is just three years, it’s hard to find someone who isn’t a job hopper. It’s usually the older generation that dish out this advice because they used to leave school and get a job for life, but times have changed. Job hopping strategically looks good on a CV; employers are impressed when each job hop is thought out. Job hoppers are usually ambitious, agile, innovative; start-up companies especially like them. Ideally, job hoppers should work at organisations where there’s the freedom to job hop within.
Don’t get a job which involves your hobby.
Why would anyone dish out this bad advice? Getting to do what you love every day can only be a good thing. How many people would just love to spring out of bed on a Monday morning full of excitement for the day ahead? Of course, there will be a few people that getting a job in the area of their hobby won’t work out, but for the majority of people, it’s living the dream.
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Glassdoor Team
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