If there is anything The Great Resignation 2022-2023 has taught is that employees are more and more aware of their preferences and values. We spend about a third of our lives working. It makes sense that understanding career search and career development is an important part of our professional growth.

To continue the conversation around career misconceptions, here are a few more:

Calling Out Career Misconceptions For New Professionals: Part II

Common Career Misconceptions:

1. There is a perfect job for me.

Truth is, there are probably a handful of jobs that are “perfect” for you. A more truthful statement would be that there are several “good fit” jobs for you. (Seriously, what even is a “perfect” job?) You may have multiple interests and skills you’d like to professionally grow. Over the years, your preferences, values, and non-negotiables may change. Life circumstances, the discovery of new passions, and the exhaustion of others also impact your vision of a “perfect” fit.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at our Explore Role Pictures tool. You’ll see that you find multiple types of pictures that resemble jobs that you’ll find interesting. There are two key takeaways from this myth. The first is that you don’t need to know what your perfect job is because you’ll fine tune that definition with more experience and exposure. The second is that as you continue through your career, it’s important to take stock of your preferences, values, and goals.

2. It’s impossible to change industries after working a couple of years.

Changing industries is very possible, though it may require some more legwork. Why do I say that? One word: networking. Since networking is an essential part of the career search, you need to have connections. When you’re coming from a different industry, you may have no or little connections in this industry. The good thing is you can start your network with informational interviews. Informational interviews will help you learn more about the industry or role you are seeking (which could help you with interviews too!) as well as help you meet people who can connect with you with the right opportunities. If you haven’t done an informational interview before, we have you covered with our Informational Interviews article.

Transferable skills can be pretty universal so it’s a good thing to have a lot of them. Don’t know what transferable skills are? Read Career Misconceptions

3. You have to start from scratch when switching industries.

Closely related to the previous point, since we now know that you can change industries, you don’t have to start from scratch to start in a new industry. Remember those transferable skills we talked about in Career Misconceptions? With these skills, you are not starting from scratch. 

However, there may be some technical skills you’ll need in your new industry. It’s important to take stock of these skills. By looking at job descriptions of roles in the new industry, you can pinpoint some of these skills. Informational interviews can also highlight some other necessary skills. We also have our career paths tool which identifies some of the most necessary skills for the types of roles you’re looking for.

4. You need to meet all qualification requirements to apply.

It’s actually a common piece of advice that if you want to grow professionally, you shouldn’t be applying to jobs where you meet 100% of their qualifications. So look for jobs where you meet most of the requirements but can use your skills to learn the missing requirements while on the job. 

5. Overworking is the most linear way to success.

This one can be a hard one to identify because we assume that taking on all the special projects and doing more work is the surest way to get the necessary recognition for a promotion. While this may be true in some cases, remember that a big part of career development is networking. In other words, you can work hard but if no one knows you’re doing the work, it may not lead to that promotion. 

Additionally, overworking yourself is the surest way to get burnout. We’re seeing it now with The Great Resignation. Burnout can drastically change your career development. Make sure you are taking care of yourself, establishing professional boundaries, and getting recognized for the additional work you are doing (the boundary part is especially important as a new professional). And don’t forget to professionally flaunt the work you are doing to keep moving forward.

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Article written by Leticia Garay

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leticiavgaray/