Professional capacity
Can you succeed in a job or company with no previous experience?
If you wish to remain employable or operational, since the world of work changes rapidly, it is important to remember three things:
Most of what you learned in school or college is of very limited use
Most future jobs do not exist today
A large percentage of jobs within organizations remain vacant because there are not enough people willing and able to do those jobs
One of the things that will help you protect your professional career in the future is to find out if you have the potential for jobs you did not do in the past. You must be able to demonstrate that potential to others. But first, you must solve it yourself.
Here are three simple questions that, according to science, will help you determine if you are likely to excel at things you have never done.
Are you excited about the job?
Hundreds of scientific studies have shown that career interests tend to correlate with professional skills. This means that you are more likely to be good at something if you really care. Therefore, even if you still do not have the right skills for a given job, being interested in that job will increase the likelihood that you can acquire them.
In the same vein, academic reviews indicate that you are much more likely to be good at something when you are intrinsically motivated by it, and committed or enthusiastic about that role.
That said, the correlation between interests and capabilities is not perfect, so follow your passion is not a guaranteed formula to have a great performance. On the contrary, when your passion aligns with your skills, and those skills, in turn, are aligned with a job, can you be sure that you have what it takes to excel?
Is it the right job for your personality?
Your personality is the sum total of your predispositions and habits, how you think, feel and act most of the time compared to others. In other words, it is what makes you.
Academic studies show that personality can also predict the success of your career. For example, being outgoing gives you an advantage in jobs that require a lot of interpersonal relationships, such as sales, customer service and public relations jobs; but being an introvert will give you an advantage when it comes to working independently, focusing on detailed tasks for long periods of time, and listening to others (instead of being the center of attention).
In that sense, talent can be seen to a large extent as a particular feature of personality. If you find a job or activity that is perfectly suited to your style and behavior preferences, you can turn your personality into a powerful tool for creating a successful career. Of course, it is perfectly possible to learn and develop skills for jobs that are less appropriate for our personality, but it will require more time, effort and will not always be pleasant.
Are you training your abilities?
Your willingness and ability to grow and adapt your skill set to the changing landscape of work is one of the most important ingredients in the success of your professional career. That's because it predicts your likelihood of improving on anything, including jobs that do not yet exist. It consists of unprocessed mental horsepower, as well as curiosity and drive.
People who learn quickly, who are interested in people, ideas and novel experiences, and who persist even in tasks that are not intrinsically motivating, are much better equipped to acquire new skills. In turn, they become good at things they have never done before.
Basically, this is why so many employers are making curiosity one of the key hiring criteria, and why it is so important to demonstrate it during job interviews.
One last tip: the best way to put these three principles into practice is to get feedback from others, particularly from people who know you well and who feel comfortable giving you honest opinions about your potential. While it is easy to determine if something is interesting or not, you will better understand what new jobs really are for you, how your personality differs from others and how much you can learn quickly, if you ask other people to tell you.
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