Find your best job in 2008

By LIZ RYAN

Freedom News Service

If you are contemplating a few days off from work, a holiday rest and a happy return to a wonderful job afterward, I am thrilled for you! For lots of people, the new year brings with it an annual resolution to find a better job, whatever it takes.

Finding a better job is one of the very most common New Year’s resolutions - along with really, truly getting to the gym. Here are some tips for zeroing in on the job universe.

When thinking about making a job or career change, there are three things to consider:

• What do I enjoy doing?

• What am I good at?

• What sort of work will pay me what I need to earn?

These questions are usually not difficult to answer, one by one. The trick to a successful job search is to find the place where these three priorities intersect! I know lots of talented people, for instance, who would love to spend their time singing operatic arias or salsa dancing. But these aren’t typically professions that will pay a person enough to live on - not outside of a very few metropolitan areas, anyway. It is wonderful to say “Follow your bliss, and the money will come,” but for people who have fixed expenses like rent and gasoline, that may not be a practical solution.

Lots of us spend years doing work that we don’t love simply because someone offered us the job at one point, and we tried it and found that we could do it pretty well. One friend of mine spent 15 years working in the accounting department of a major airline before realizing that he’d really like to be an airline pilot. That career shift took some effort - hundreds of hours of flying lessons and a major salary drop when he finally got his foot in the door with a small commercial carrier. But he got to his goal.

It may be that the career shift that’s best for you doesn’t involve dramatic changes - sometimes a switch in location, industry or function will do it. An associate of mine recently moved from a marketing role to a spot in a human resources department, something she’d always wanted to try.

The new year is a great time to investigate new possibilities for your working life.

How do you begin researching your next career move? A great place to start is online. A Google search of “Marketing Research Careers,” for instance, will yield you dozens of informative sources where you can begin your research. A visit to your local library and a chat with the librarian about career-research resources is another good idea.

Your college’s career placement office has loads of information on almost any career direction in which you might be interested. You can contact them for help even if you graduated when Lyndon Johnson was in office - that’s what career placement departments are for.

Don’t let another year go by without taking the career bull by the horns and finding a job you love. It’s your work day - why waste it on a job that isn’t paying you back?

Liz Ryan is a former Fortune 500 VP, a 25-year HR veteran and an expert on careers and the new millennium workplace. An award-winning entrepreneur and workplace adviser, Ryan is author of "Happy About Online Networking" and founder of the global online community www.AskLizRyan.com. E-mail Ryan at liz@asklizryan.com.