Thought I’d share a question that was posed to me recently, along with my reply, in the hopes that it might support you in determining if a job is a good fit.
 
Dear Coach Sue,

I've been stressing a lot with this job, and I'm not sure to what extent this stress is normal. I know stress/frustration is normal with a new job, but I'm having a very difficult time with the work, and feel like I'm struggling and taking way too long to complete projects I'm being assigned.  I guess I'm just used to succeeding easily, and this is a major challenge.  Could you give me some insight on the major signs that a job isn't right for me?

Signed,
Stressed and Recently Employed College Grad

Dear Stressed and Recently Employed College Grad…
 
When it comes to assessing whether a new job is right for you, a few things come to mind.  First, I’d suggest paying attention to the times you feel most stressed as well as the parts of the work that you do enjoy (assuming there’s something you enjoy about it).  What are you doing when you feel stressed?  What are you doing when you don’t feel so stressed and when you’re enjoying the work and/or work setting.  It could be that parts of this job go against the grain of your personality or that the job has you using skill sets that you don’t particularly enjoy using.  Personality Type plays a major role in work satisfaction.  For example, Extraverts tend to like a lot of variety and people contact while Introverts need time for reflection and prefer to handle one project at a time.  Sensors prefer concrete tasks while Intuitives prefer to play with ‘outside the box’ possibilities.  These are just a few examples that relate to Type and work preferences.  You can use the book, Do What You Are and the website: personalitypage.com to identify your personality type and explore this job relative to your Type.  Skills are another piece of the puzzle.  Think back to the other jobs you had pending prior to taking this one and the ones that excited you most.  What were the job descriptions for these positions…what were you going to be ‘doing’ (work activities) in these jobs?  What excited you about them?  How do those jobs that were exciting differ from this one?  Think about the jobs that turned you off…but you went through the application motions anyway.  What turned you off about them?  What work activities were involved in the jobs that turned you off? 

Another thing to consider is that there’s always a learning curve with a new job and some of the stress you’re experiencing could be related to new job overload.  So, another question to ponder is whether or not you think you’d enjoy the work if it came easier to you.  It is true that the ‘work world’ is very different from school (so you’re still adjusting) but work environments, industries, work functions, etc. vary significantly from one employer to another.  It could just be that while you were excited about having a job search potentially finalized, this position just may not be the right fit for you.
 
Above all, don’t take it as a personal failure if you’re not able to adjust to this job.  You don’t want to force yourself to go through the motions and continue to develop knowledge and skills in areas that turn you off.  It’s not always easy to do so, but try to think of this as a laboratory experiment where you’re ‘performing’ but you’re also a ‘detached observer’ curiously noticing what’s working and what’s not working for you.  Use that knowledge and insight to guide you as you move forward.
 
Sincerely,
Coach Sue

Until next time…
Sue Posluszny
www.careeroptions4me.com

For more information about me and my qualifications, please click here.