4 Common Mistakes Candidates Make When Looking for a New Job in the Fire and Security Industry
Below we discuss common mistakes candidates make when looking for a new job in the fire and security industry to help you avoid these common errors. If you’re short on time check out the 1-minute video below. The full article below is a 6-minute read.
Check Out the 1-min Video
Understand Why You Are Moving
This sounds like a simple start but have you really thought about your motivation for moving to a new job? Understanding your own reasons will help you to avoid a number of common mistakes people make in their career progression.
Common Reasons for Leaving a Job
You may well recognise some of these same reasons for leaving a job within your own career path as one of more of these reasons may have influenced your own decision to leave a job in the past.
- Generally unhappy at work.
- Personality clash or other argument with a colleague or manager.
- You feel underpaid.
- You feel undervalued – whether that’s a lack of recognition of your skills or a lack of feedback about your role.
- Not learning new skills.
- A lack of visible career progression – IE no progression plan or signs of your career progressing in your current environment.
- Work life balance. This is one of the key reasons people look to move. Whether for more flexibility or not working on weekend callouts, it’s important to understand how your job and your life will fit together.
Emotional or Rational?
When assessing your reasons for wanting to leave a job it’s important to understand whether you are making a rational decision. It would be rational for someone who wants to be a manager, but is in a company where that opportunity would never arise, to seek a position elsewhere that would include a pathway into management.
However, if you’ve just had an argument with your boss and as a kneejerk reaction have decided to quit your job, you’d have to assess that was an emotional reaction and should be reconsidered until it can make rational sense. Sometimes it is rational to not want to be around toxic people but until you can make your decision tick the rational box it is important to fully consider your reasoning.
Mistake Number 1: Lack of Communication
Whatever your motivation for wanting to leave your current job, a common mistake is not communicating your situation with your current employer to see if a solution can be put into place. It’s completely possible, especially if as an employee you’ve always been easy to manage, that your boss or manager may be unaware how you feel and may be eager to retain you and provide a solution to your issues.
Mistake Number 2: Not Understanding Yourself
Many candidates don’t fully understand what they are aiming to achieve. This could be due to eagerness to leave your current position or another pressure. Taking the time to understand yourself and what you are really hoping to achieve makes it much more likely to happen as the outcome of your job search.
It sounds very simple but fully understanding your own aims, what the correct environment for you is, and where you want to progress to, are key to achieving the career progression that you want. You are much more likely to achieve a clearly set goal that you are focused on so it is important to understand your own aims.
Mistake Number 3: The Incorrect Emphasis
It depends upon the reason that you have chosen to leave your current job, whether rational or emotional, but we see many candidates with the incorrect emphasis to their job search. A job search is a deeply personal endeavour and your reasons are likely very much your own.
However, the common mistakes candidates often make is to place too much emphasis on either the job title or the salary offered. While you may be moving to progress your income or better your job title, and that is undeniably important, discounting the working environment, career progression, the people you’ll work with, new skills or knowledge you may learn and the work / life balance of the role may well mean that before long you’ll be looking to hop jobs again.
Moving to somewhere that has a clear progression pathway for your career will mean that you can drive your career forwards without needing to move jobs again.
Mistake Number 4: Timing
This one is very simple but it is remarkably common. A lot of people wait until they want to leave a job before looking for a new one. It may sound counter-intuitive, of course people don’t look for a new job unless they want one, but the point here is to consider your motivations – especially whether emotional or rational.
If you have already decided to leave a job you’ll set the bar much lower for your next role because you just want to start a new job somewhere (anywhere) else. Whereas if you are content in your current role and are just looking to see how the alternatives out there look, you’ll likely need a better set of work conditions to lure you away from your current company. Whether that’s a new challenge, better pay, a better progression pathway or increased work / life balance, you will be more empowered looking at career alternatives when you’re not desperate to move as quickly as possible.
There Are Lots of Opportunities
The Fire and Security industry has a lot of opportunities for skilled people to progress. If you’re currently happy in your role there is no harm in having a look around to see what the possibilities are.
At the end of the day, you’re not committed to leave just by looking but you may find a better career path or perhaps just be able to open a conversation with your current employer about where you feel your role should be progressing.
Talk to Us
We have a huge amount of recruitment experience and only recruit into the Fire and Security sector. We are partnered with a number of the key employers in the industry and have a wealth of experience across our team. We are always happy to talk to people – it’s a key part of what CSR do – and we’re happy to answer any questions you may have about the best way to progress your career.
We won’t default to telling you to move jobs because we are chasing a commission. We will always give the advice that is best for you personally with your career needs at the heart of all of our advice. Put us to the test and call us today to see how we could help you. Contact us today.
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