After the struggle of searching for places to apply at, applying, and going through the interview process, you arrive at your new job. As crappy as it is, most will say, “a job is a job.”
While there is plenty to learn from the process of acquiring a job, what I would like to point out is in regards to the training that everyone must go through. Once you’re hired, the next step before you start – beside the paperwork – is to train, to learn what you will be doing.
You may be handed a small manual. You may be told to shadow someone. You may be shown what you will be doing and asked to run through it once or twice. Other than that, there isn’t much more to the training. In fact, I would bet that after training for any job, you will be nervous about not doing what you need to do right, efficiently, or flawlessly. Simply because you weren’t trained well.
You won’t master anything even with a manual. You won’t master anything by watching someone else do it. (How great would that be if we did though!) You won’t master anything by doing it once or twice. In fact, I wouldn’t even call any of that training. Training for something results in a sense of preparedness which this doesn’t produce.
No employers care about that though. They shouldn’t. Actually, they’re smart not to!
Employers – and now you – know that there is no better training than training on your feet. By that I mean getting thrown into what you need to do and being expected to do it right even with the haunting lack of preparedness.
As people, the best way to learn is to do. We can read, we can watch, we can shadow, we can even give something a shot or two, but the most effective and quickest way to learn anything is to jump in and do it.
For the next time you have an interest in doing something, catch yourself when you begin to “train” for it too long. And to simplify it for you, I can even tell you how long “too long” is. If training for something as important as a job only takes a few hours (maybe a day), then whatever you are training for better be more important than a job if you are training longer for it.
I could have told you from the beginning to not spend much time researching stuff and instead, do. But that would be an insult to the way the world works. The same way that skipping the barely helpful training for a job would be.
Stay Positive & For Best Results, Do
Garth E. Beyer
