Job Search - The Voice of Job Seekers

Do You Think of Yourself As Underemployed?

Underemployment is worse than unemployment for some depending on their other life choices and whether they feel trapped. Others will use it as an advantage because it gives them the space to hone their craft or sharpen their career tools.

There are are a few who will position themselves as a big fish in a small pond. I didn’t consider that in recent years and having written about it before, it’s important because it’s choice. All of the above are choices.

Many people choose underemployment to prepare for the future and take a job that is not stressful or demanding and for which they’re overqualified. It could be a competitive advantage if they buy time while going to school, get training, or need more time to prepare for a new career or venture.

Other people may have their confidence shot and take an underemployment to prepare for the future and take a job that is not stressful or demanding and for which they’re overqualified. It could be a competitive advantage if they buy some time while going to school, get some training, or need more time to prepare for a job that is not their chosen career for a short period. Sometimes, people get stuck in those careers because they are still trying to gain their confidence, and their mojo, salary, benefits, and coworkers cannot help them move forward. Mostly, it hurts their salary because they are not earning what they can, and it could be a little degrading because they’re underachieving.

Here are a few signs of underemployment. The following can keep you in employment captivity and ultimately affect your finances and the long term:

1. You’re caught in complacency

You become very complacent about where and how long you’ve worked, and you take more pride than that instead of learning what’s new in the marketplace and how that will translate to your future advancement and earnings. The cost of career development could be stifling, but the return on investment can be well worth it, especially if it’s far above where you are underemployed.

2. You covet and grow jealous of the career moves your peers made.

Seeing your peers move up and move forward with their careers ahead of you is a thing. You become envious of their new salary, promotion, and status. Meanwhile, you become disgusted with yourself and see it more as missed opportunities without knowing what opportunities are available for you and your future.

3. You’re easily distracted by personal obstacles

If you listen to yourself, you’re full of excuses and apathy. You think more about how arduous Your journey has been so far rather than the prize at the end, which is to create more impact on the work you love or used to love. Meanwhile, your obstacles may cost you thousands of dollars daily or weekly.

4. You’re scared of rejection.

You’re afraid of what others may think of you if you don’t get to where you want to go the first time. Today’s job search is full of trials and errors: what you did right, what you did wrong, and what to leave and what to leave out. If you are rejected, I cloud your vision and judgment about your life.

5. Uncertainty becomes a showstopper

We’re in the days where anyone can Google or YouTube what they need to know or at least where they can find more answers. Sure, confidence has much to do with it, and you may feel a lack of confidence now. Negotiating your worth is hard if you’re unsure of your market value and worth.

Some stigmatize underemployed as being lazy, unambitious, and problematic. Very few fit this description, and an argument to be made is many chose it as a way to transition to something bigger. People chose bridge jobs all of the time with plans to prepare for something bigger at the right time.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Baby Boomers Must Display These Attributes To Get Employed Now

I want to expand on an article on Yahoo Finance written last September, “I’m a Career Expert: 6 Things Baby Boomers Need To Understand About the Job Market Today.”

I like everything about the article, but other connections are just as essential to appealing to today’s employers.

The article lists:

The Benefits of Job Hopping

The Power of Personal Branding

Understand the Applicant Tracking Systems

The Decline of 9-5 Schedules

Flattening Hierarchies

The Rising of Diversity and Inclusion

While these are important, they are a ways off from being the norm in understanding today’s job market. Boomers don’t have the longitudinal landing strip for jobs than other generations.

They should be ready to adapt to these emerging trends, but I think of several things more immediate:

1) Boomers need to pay more attention to marketing themselves to connect with the needs of the employer or recruiter. They must anticipate some of the employer’s current problems, both immediate and future.

Forecasting is a sweet spot for Boomers because of their experience in the workplace, but they must demonstrate the use of contemporary tools to solve them.

2) Boomers must present themselves as mastering relevant skills. It’s essential to hone your skills as a craft constantly and show progression. Career advancement does not have an expiration date. Today’s professionals are works in progress.

3) Boomers’ confidence is a superpower because of their lived experiences and resilience. They must show how they’ve navigated many adverse fiscal and market crises. They have stories and anecdotes to fit into the new world of work.

4) Boomers must find synergy with their younger counterparts. Many Gen Z workers are more open to learning from them, especially if there is a value exchange of shared learning experiences.

Boomers can help younger workers bow to tone a message, while younger workers can help Boomers with simple tech tasks such as converting a document to PDF.

5) Boomers must lean into the power of tact and respect, which is vital to connecting with younger hiring managers and recruiters. They need to read the room to find common ground rather than differences.

The response to sitting at the feet of others to learn and adapt comes as quickly as the need for a mentor.

Boomers looking to work desire meaning through their work or purposeful work. They adapted to varying leadership styles, fluid job markets, and complex transitions for decades. LinkedIn is a great place to update your profile and engage in conversations by sharing anecdotes and solutions to employers’ problems.

The biggest challenge for Boomers to conquer is getting in front of employers and connecting their attributes to business solutions they currently need.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

How To Avoid Being ‘Too Sentimental’ Toward Your Employer

The average person is affected by layoff announcements, whether directly affecting them or coworkers. The cubicle once occupied by a coworker had family pictures. The ones with encouraging smiles or rattling off cliche reminders to take one day at a time are all gone. You challenged yourself to remain unattached to coworkers, but it happened. You didn’t cheat on yourself. You became human.

Most careerists don’t realize sentimentality is a career killer. Yet, according to a recent survey, many give away too much to their employer. Only 45% report their employer sees them as a person. People are staying more and quitting less now, but statistics alone don’t predict satisfaction.

Many workers divorced the idea of coworkers as family. But it doesn’t mean sentimental feelings don’t exist about the job. It’s easy to remember when things were good. The great boss, employer, coworkers, or past accolades were real, but it’s not the current reality. These feelings stifle possibilities as much as a boss who undervalues you. It’s time to get real: You fear change, and the default switch is quiet quitting.

How many times have you put off your job search because you felt obligated to the employer for:

Did they give you the first job?

They promoted you more times than any other company you worked for.

Are your coworkers’ family (please say no)?

All of those seem legitimate when you have those feelings, but they don’t last when:

The new boss doesn’t value you like the old one did.

When peers you’ve trained are promoted ahead of you.

The enforced but dreaded RTO (Return To Office) is a headache.

One could argue acquiescence is equally damaging, but its application fits the company culture. It’s possible to have a culture of sentimental employees but to suggest everyone deciding to remain begrudgingly complacent is silly.

Avoiding sentimentality will mean an intentional path to career growth. It’s a lonely path, but seeing your younger, less experienced coworkers pass you is triggering when it happens.

Here are several steps to take to avoid the sentimental trap:

Find your reasons for career growth and not your coworkers.

The more purposeful you are in planning and strategizing your exit, the better traction you’ll sustain. As a “business of one,” you must consider what your next steps will create the most profit. Stifled professionals witness their younger and less experienced colleagues advance their careers and get mad but don’t get even. It only lasts a minute because it’s easier to immerse deeper into a project to meet a deadline.

Invest time and money into professional development.

Stagnant professionals often find themselves proverbial light-years behind when looking for new jobs. Technology is changing at the speed of light. If it’s been several years since you’ve received further training, finding relevance in your exit will take a lot of work. To show you can adapt to new technology and be adept at different kinds of learning, use your new skills to volunteer at an organization and ask for a reference in return for good work.

Join and get active in your industry’s organization.

There are valuable networking and development opportunities your company doesn’t offer. Active and engaging organizations offer a front seat to innovation, emerging technology, and how peers are advancing their careers. When you add value by presenting at an industry conference, participating in a committee, or helping in developing membership policies, members will connect with you.

Cultivate growth in your current position.

Your future employer will scrutinize your qualifications through the lens of relevance. Your performance, productivity, and problem-solving ability must be applied now rather than embedded in your past. Start tracking and documenting your past and present commissions using results and achievements to show impact. It will inform you how you can grow and use the data to help update your resume and make improvements for your following performance review.