Maybe you are holding out for that “dream job” that everyone seems to be excited about, but do you really know what your dream job is? Probably not. Most people don’t find out that they are truly passionate about something until they gain some experience in it. This means that you might not have any clue what your dream job is until you’ve been doing it for a while. Sure, you have things that interest you and things that you prefer doing over others, so you want to start there. But do you think that you can really determine if a job is going to make you happy before you start doing it? Absolutely not. With this in mind, remember that most people don’t find their dream job until they discover that they’ve been doing it for quite some time.
Don’t be afraid to branch out. If you never take a risk in your job search, you’re limiting yourself to what your capable of and what potential growth you have. Maybe there’s a job out there that looks perfect for you, but you’re afraid you’re not qualified for it. First, you don’t get to decide who is qualified and who is not; that’s the hiring managers job. Second, you might be perfectly qualified. You won’t know unless you branch out and apply. If you have serious doubts about being qualified to work in the area that you want to work in, then take the steps that you need to in order to become more qualified. If you want to work as a chef at a restaurant, but have no formal culinary training, take a few classes. This will help you to get that experience to put down on your resume and get one step closer toward landing your dream job. In the meantime, you should be applying to the jobs that you desire.
You also might want to consider applying in a field where you have knowledge, but not the formal work experience that is asked. This won’t work all of the time, and most of the time you will end up getting rejection letters back, but when you do land an interview or a job offer, then the risk was worth it. Let’s say you are an avid video gamer, and you’ve always wanted to help design and test new games. Applying for a job like this might seem like it’s out of your league, but if you had this job, wouldn’t you be excited? Like we mentioned above, you are not the decision maker here. The people hiring you are. And if you approach the application correctly, they might see something in you that they didn’t in the other applicants. By taking a risk and going outside of your comfort zone, you are now one huge step closer to securing a dream job. And it’s just by branching out from the expected by a little bit. It’s that easy.
As with anything, your dream job will have its ups and downs. Not every day is going to be perfect. But the great part about having a job that you love is that the bad days don’t last long. When you’re going through them, you know that there will be good days coming up soon, and it gives you the perseverance to keep going and not worry too much about the bad ones. The peaks are much higher than the valleys are low. Once you achieve this feeling, you will be far ahead of 95 percent of the other workers out there, and one step closer to living your dream job.
