DEFINING JOB EXPERIENCE

A lot of time, people feel that they’re building work experience to help them get ahead in their career when they’re actually only passing the time. If you do the same thing over and over again, you’re only getting experience in doing that one thing. That’s not really gaining experience. Working for years at something doesn’t automatically make you an expert at it.

For example, you may have been cooking for 20 years but that doesn’t make you chef material. Therefore, even though you’ve had all of that experience in cooking, it doesn’t really mean anything. Experience that you gain has more to do with you and how you approach things.

Working for years at something like modifying last year’s budget, updating memos, or improving the goals of last year can be tedious, unchallenging, predictable and boring. If you’re performing these duties without using any critical thinking, analysis or innovation, you’re getting experience, but you’re probably not improving at how you do things. You can see how this doesn’t really count.

The difference between people that are achieving things at work and people that aren’t is the difference between just sitting at work for another year and actually gaining experience through another year of working. The people that build up their experience are those that also build their futures. This is something you can do also and you don’t have to change jobs.

To build experience, you offer the best you’ve got at work to gain diversity, depth, learning and challenges involved. Seize and create your own opportunities. In this way, you’ll continue to improve. You can tell that you’re gaining experience when you can solve your own errors. You learn how to build knowledge and use it to solve harder problems. Your contributions are more valuable each year. Stepping outside of your comfort zone helps you acquire new skills. You also embrace new ideas and realize that you don’t know as much as you thought.

People gain experience by trying new things, pitching ideas, pushing the envelope, taking accountability, offering innovative solutions to problems, and continuing to learn and make a difference. The people that work toward these things are the people that gain the experience needed to further their careers and achieve their goals.