Whether it’s Christmas time, Easter time or your summer holidays, if you hate your job then there’s always that dreaded thought at the back of your head.  “Once this is over, I’ll have to go back to work.”  Now to be honest, the vast majority of people don’t look forward to going back to work after their holidays.  But for some people, their intense dislike of their work situation can actually affect the enjoyment of their leisure time. I’ve certainly experienced this.  I’ve had jobs where I was so stressed that I would be worrying about them on a Friday night, just when the weekend had started!  Even when I wasn’t massively stressed, I used to envy those people who loved their jobs.  And there genuinely some people out there who do.  And quite often they seemed to be the ones who were doing really well.

The dread of going back to work was one of the first signs that I had to change career.  I used to work in legal admin and in my 20’s and early 30’s I basically just wanted to live for the weekend.  Work during the week was something to be tolerated, and on the weekend was ‘me’ time when I could have some fun.  I used to like the people I worked with, but the work itself was so dry.  I wasn’t expressing myself at all in what I was doing. And the older I got, the more this became an issue.   I wanted to be myself at work, as well as during my free time.  Why should work be something completely at odds with who I was as a person?

So I took a course in life coaching and found that I loved it.  My coaching work progressed and I decided to specialise in career coaching and now I have developed a niche for career coaching for introverts (see Introvert At Work).  But the memories of my time working in legal admin haven’t gone, so I can remember the feelings of dread coming over me on Easter Monday, when I knew I would be going back to work the next day.

So how do you feel about going back to work after Easter?  Do any of these feelings strike a chord with you?

• You tense up immediately.  You can’t stand the thought of going back.
• You don’t really have any strong feelings.  Work is dull and so are your feelings about it.
• You are obliged to go back to work, but you know deep down you’re meant to do something else.
• You feel fine about it now, but you know when you do actually go back to work that that little inner voice will be telling you that you really should change career to something else.

From my experience, if you do have any of the above feelings, then it's worth investigating them. Those feelings are there for a reason.  If you've spent a long time ignoring them, then why not get them out into the open and take a good look at them.   Who knows.  It might be the first step to something truly exciting and nourishing.  I know I've never regretted making the move from legal admin to career coaching.  And I want to help others look forward to going back to their work, just the same that I do.

When I was younger, I naively believed that the best candidates got the job.  That job positions were always awarded to the person best qualified.  But one thing that has become more apparent to me over the years, is that it’s not just your ability to do the job.  It’s also about how people perceive your ability to do the job.

Perception is something that is key to your career.  You need to be able to market yourselves these days.  There isn’t the job security of the old days, so there is no longer a job for life.  So without that security you need to be able to make people aware of what you bring to the table to get a new job in the current economy.  This is never more important than in interviews.  Poor performance at the interview stage will on most occasions fatally scupper your chances of landing that job.

So all the candidate has to do is be good at interviews!......which is great.  Except a lot of people dread interviews and/or don’t know how to approach them.  Unfortunately a lot of people, when marketing themselves to potential employers, fail to have a strategy for how they are going to approach such an important task.  Now during the boom times this wasn’t quite so important.  There were plenty of jobs available and if you didn’t get the one you were currently going for, then chances were that another worthwhile position would come up soon.  But those days have gone.  There is so much competition for the few places that are going, that interviews assume even greater importance.

But a lot of people still sell themselves short by not properly preparing for an interview.  And they make a cardinal mistake of making the interview about them, rather than the company they are looking to join.  That might sound a bit bizarre, considering the interviewee is the one being assessed to see if they are suitable for the job.  But what I mean by that is that too many people talk about irrelevant information when marketing themselves to potential employers.  Relevance should be a key plank in your strategy when contacting firms or responding to job advertisements.  The “so what” question should always be asked – “I can do x”...”So what?”  Is what you’re talking about of relevance to that job, that department, or that company?  You might have some marvellous accomplishments in your career.  But are they related to what you are going for now?  Is it similar work, problems, issues that you would need to deal with in this new position?

Relevance isn’t the only issue to look at when preparing for an interview.  But it is a key one.  If you’re talking about a lot of achievements that simply aren’t relevant to what you’re going for, then what are the chances that the interviewer is going to be interested?  Top quality performance in the interview equates to making your interviewer sit up and take notice.  If another candidate makes their work history relevant to the job, and you don’t, then who do you think will have performed better?  If you’ve sold yourself short due to poor performance then you’re doing yourself a disfavour.  And possibly the company itself.  They may land themselves with a poorer candidate because you didn’t perform well at the interview stage.

So if you want to increase your chances of landing a job, then the first step in your interview strategy is to consider relevance.  Because remember, it's the best performer at the interview stage who invariably gets the job, not the best candidate.

I was watching Channel 4 last week and saw this year’s version of the Secret Policeman’s Ball.  Normally the show is based in the UK, but this year it was staged in the US, in New York.  So it was interesting to see which British comedians they would choose to have on the show, as I’m not sure how well known enough some of them would be to be recognised by an American audience.

One of the British comedians chosen was Jimmy Carr.  Now this was interesting for me because I remember seeing Jimmy perform many years ago when he was just starting out.  It was in my local pub “The Catcher In The Rye” in North London.  The pub manager had just introduced comedy nights on Sunday nights and Jimmy was performing at the very first one.  Now I like Jimmy Carr, but I’ll always remember that night as he had a tough old time.  The members of the audience sat next to what passed for a stage were giving him some terrible stick.  I thought he was really funny but they obviously weren’t ‘getting’ his comedy and weren’t afraid to tell him so....in very rude terms!  I also remember when he left the stage he was blushing bright red.  

Now this was about 10 or 11 years ago.  I’ve watched Jimmy’s career get bigger and bigger.  In fact it didn’t seem like 5 minutes after that night in my local pub that he was appearing on television and doing really well.  For me this shows that he must have tremendous amounts of self-belief and persistence to deal with nights like the one I saw.  I know some people might be saying, “Well that was only one night and in the grand scheme of things that’s not much.”  But how many other disappointing nights did he have to endure?  And more to the point, how many people would have the balls to get up on stage in the first place and do stand up comedy?  Let alone endure a night (or maybe several nights) like that one, and still come back for more?

Your attitude isn’t the only ingredient in being successful.  You have to be good at what you do.  Despite the ridiculous comments that Jimmy got from some of the audience that night, it was obvious he was genuinely funny.  But the idea of an overnight success is a myth.  The young performers you see on talent shows such as the X Factor have usually been performing for years, since they were young kids.  This is particularly true when people are changing career.  Despite what people want to hear, career change can take a while.  It might involve taking stepping stones from one career to another, picking up new skills each time, all relevant to the career you eventually want to do.  But if you show a bit of persistence, self-belief and patience, then you can really get some amazing results.  Who knows....in 10 years time you could go from performing in front a huge audience at Madison Square Garden in New York.  You’ll never know unless you give it a try.