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Hate Your Job? 3 Ways to Find a Better Job

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Robert Pagliarini | CATEGORIES: career, self improvement

What to do when you hate your job? You definitely can’t talk about it. Your spouse may commiserate with you but will ultimately tell you that you have to keep earning a living. Your friends will tell you to suck it up and to be happy you even have a job. And, of course, they are right. You’ve got to pay the bills and there are millions who are unemployed that would kill to have a job they hated. So what should you do? If you’re feeling particularly philosophical (or maybe nostalgic for early 80s pop music), you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

Just because you have to earn a living and just because there are people who are unemployed doesn’t mean you have to (a) love your job or (b) be condemned to a life where you hate driving to work every morning. Here are three options to help you create a richer life by getting out of a job you hate:

  • New skills. If you’re on a dead-end career track and don’t see things getting any better for you, use the other 8 hours to get some new skills. But not just any skills. French for beginners and watercolor painting don’t count. I’m talking about very specific and marketable skills you know companies are seeking. Something you can learn and immediately use to get several better paying job offers. Maybe it’s data entry, customer service skills, medical billing, or paralegal training. If you’re short on money and/or time, don’t bother with a degree — these are too general, and you won’t learn a specific skill you can use on Monday morning. Instead, get a certificate or designation. These are much more specialized and are what some companies want to see on a resume.
  • Bouncing. If you don’t have any skills and are stuck in a real dead-end job (e.g., one where moving up to “fry guy” is a promotion), you’ve got to get creative. Stay employed at Dead End, Inc., but use the other 8 hours to learn a specific and marketable skill (see above). This one skill won’t get you your dream job, but it should pay better than your current job and give you a new experience. Once you’ve got this new job, use the other 8 hours to learn a new skill. This new skill might help you move up the corporate ladder where you are employed or (more likely) it might be in a completely different industry. Again, this new skill needs to be in demand and the job you get should pay better than the job you have. Guess what? You keep doing this — learning new skills and getting better paying jobs — until you are making good money doing something you love.
  • New career. Whether you’ve bounced your way up or you are just not satisfied with your current career choice, you can use the other 8 hours to get a new career. First you’ve got to figure out what you want to do. Focus on your strengths and identify a career that you’d not only be good at doing, but one that you’d be happy doing. Learn what it takes to get that job. Do an informational interview. What education is required? What skills are needed? Get a book from the library and research the career. Nearly every industry has a trade magazine. Get old copies. Start reading what they read. Attend a trade-show or conference. Immerse yourself in the career you want. You can ask yourself “How did I get here?”, but a more proactive and solution-focused approach is to ask “How did they get here?” Learn and model what others have done and are doing. This takes time, but that’s what the other 8 hours are for.

If you’re in a job that you hate, don’t feel guilty about wanting something better. Use your unhappiness as a motivator to make some changes. You’ll spend more time at your job than you will with your family and friends. You might as well make it as rewarding as you can. If you don’t, at the end of it all you may ask yourself, “My God! What have I done?”

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  • http://www.clintcora.com Clint Cora

    It’s estimated that 80% or more of the working population do not like their jobs so many people can benefit from these tips.  Spending a working lifetime in a job one hates just doesn’t make any sense, especially these days when upgrading skills is accessible to most people.  Then there is also the option of entrepreneurialship which can also be moved into gradually.

  • http://www.colon-liver-cleanse.com/ Sean

    I hated my job and how limited I felt in terms of how much of an income I can create for my family. I hate being told how much my time is worth. Only I can decide how much I time is worth, which is why taking the plunge and working for myself has been one of the best decisions I ever made. No matter how difficult, scary or challenging it can be, it’s so worth it.

  • Sac

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  • http://Mazzastick.com Justin

    Working for someone else is not a direction that I would go in. I see a time in history when we will see the startup of many small businesses.

    Working for someone else is ok when you are new to the work force because of the experience. But I would highly recommend that individuals consider starting their own business.

    Perhaps a blog.

  • Anonymous

    I believe this are great tips. 

    It is intelligent to use the other 8 hours of the day to build on a new professional direction. However, the question stays what happens with the remaining 16 hours of the day? If you truly hate your job, the only thing you can do, is quit. However, it most cases, there is always something you love about your job – considering you have made the choice for this job in the past. What I learnt, is that it is possible to learn what you do in job and as a result see that what you love about your job, increase every day. It is a very interesting phenomena and I love it.  Maybe it works for you as well …

    Thanks for sharing!

  • http://onemessagepage.com MarecOne

    When yoy have family and loans then it’s hard to change your job. Have to be 100% sure that everything goes well. Lot of people don’t want to take this risk.

  • Anonymous

    1.  * Free will means that you would be able to do what  you want, when you want, how you want, therefore if there were not a final dimension of fulfillment and completion |for everything imaginable, then there would be no such things as free will; and everything you did mentally and physically would be under some outside spell or control…Free will, is the purpose of a creators life, for if subtracted; he goes insane.  Therefore I say unto you, that everything that you can imagine with emotion is already completed, but the “done” needs the “doing” or the two would not exist.  Its already “done”, so take the time and enjoy the “doing”, for the two are intrinsically connected.  

    “The Cause:  To Do…The Effect: Your reality”  

    2. Never get behind what you are not passionate about, for when insurmountable odds arrive; they will be so!  However with passion for a goal or ambition, there are no obstacles…all is mind!

    3.  God, is the non-judgemental co-painter of reality, once you say IAM or I WANT, You are and YOU DO, Take responsibility for your words, for they create action, which creates form…all is mind!

    http://www.DoingYourDreams.com

  • She’s So Unusual

    Two things:

    1) So many people start blogs but never really follow through on them.  People have told me that since I’m a talented writer I should start one. But it’s not simply a matter of writing ability or command of the English language (or whatever language in which one’s blog happens to be written), it’s all these technical things and time-consumers like SEO, linkbacks, domains…oh my. Someone may start up a blog and write a really nice article but it seems no one is reading it, because there’s this whole thing about “link love” and social networking that really encompasses the other 80% of the time and effort involved. Not many people have the spare time to devote to this stuff, and if they do, they lose time in which they could be doing other things — possibly at their real full-time day job.

    That said, I would love to start a blog myself — I’m currently an out-of-work college grad with absolutely no idea of what I want to do for a paycheck, and am actually too nervous and high-strung to do the standard fry guy (or gal), or retail-store clerk, etc.  Funny that the jobs most people consider “menial” really just don’t pay enough for the work involved. But I mean, how many blogs get started each day — each minute, perhaps — and are left untouched or neglected because people don’t have or simply can’t make, for whatever reason, the commitment to do what’s necessary. They get deluded by things like ProBlogger and personal development blogs like this one and others (no disrespect intended) and believe they’ll be millionaires “plus one” from just writing random things every so often. I don’t have the ability to SEO my creativity or the mental stamina to obsess over Google keywords, do linkbacks and social media, or issue comments everywhere on the web. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been conditioned to an eight-hour workday as of yet, because blogging — for all the Tim Ferrisses and Darren Rowses in the world — isn’t “passive” as much as it truly is a full-time job.

    2) End of rant. I knew right off the bat what that ’80s song lyric was, and “LOL,” I’m actually of the Beeber Dweeber and TwiTard generation. ^_^ Seems to me the social media world, if not the world at large, must’ve taken Talking Heads’ advice and stopped making sense. (Maybe I should start a blog about better living through New Wave and leg warmers!)

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  • Edandbarbarahill

    This is good info.  Having left a professional career, I am now in full commission sales  and making twice as much…but I did my share of “bouncing” before hitting the sweet spot!
    EdReviews2013http://youtu.be/8hPgjUkzyP4

  • EdandBarbara Hill

    using the other 8 hours to learn, train is what many people just fail to do