They say that our lives are the sum of the choices we make, and that specifically reflects in how we develop as professionals. Throughout our careers, we are bound to make all sorts of decisions that impact our performance. However, taking the job is easy, but turning your Career into a coherent story is what truly makes a difference in the long run. So how can we build a career narrative where all our choices, skills and experiences make sense for us in the big picture both personally and professionally?

Last week I met Kostas Karantzis, who shared his experiences working as an engineer for Oracle UK, as well as how he got the job that not only allows him to thrive in his field, but also makes sense within his career roadmap. Let’s go over the key takeaways and how you can apply his advice to your own career choices:

Seek for potential within a job, and not just what the job entails

Recently hired as a Cloud Systems Reliability Engineer, Kostas describes his appetite for challenges and how working in a global team makes a difference in terms of learning opportunities. “I view my job as an opportunity to level-up my skills, I’m looking for the chance to learn and be challenged” – he says while showcasing the perks of working with a freshly formed team of 50 people from all over the world.

So why is sharing know-how on a global level relevant if you’re looking for a technical job?

To put things into perspective, just think of your next job as a home you want to move in: you’re not just looking for the things that fulfill your goals on a short term, you’re also looking for potential. You’re seeking for opportunities to change that home, and adapt it to different needs, because in time, our goals change and so do we. Let’s say you want to improve your skills within a technical niche, and two years later you realize that the market has changed, and you need to learn different ones. Whether the company you want to work for is giving you the chance to learn and improve your expertise or not is a valuable question to ask yourself. That’s why joining a company that enables you to succeed by offering you resources from all corners of the world can make a difference.

Unique-Selling Points can help you decide

Talking to Kostas made it clear for me that if you’re looking for a position within a technical field, it’s crucial that you seek for Unique-Selling-Points from your employer. From his perspective, “working with systems at a truly impressive scale and being part of a global team that sits on the base of the majority of every Cloud Service provided by Oracle is very rare on the market and one of the core reasons why I joined in”. Interacting with global and regional teams to sustain Infrastructure reliability may not be an easy job, but it’s what gets Kostas’ career path to allow opportunities to create new things.

If you can’t decide whether a job is right for you or not, considering your employer’s unique traits can be very helpful. If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind career journey, relying on a one-of-a-kind job offer can definitely give you a head start.

It’s not you, it’s the environment

The beauty of having a dream job, as I’ve learned from Kostas, is not just about the opportunity of building up your skills in the field you love; it’s about working in an environment that is best for you. In his job, he admits that “although we are expected to come up with solutions to complicated issues on a regular basis”, he still enjoys work-life balance, as he is not being compelled by his job: “working here makes me feel free to discover new technologies, and I am most grateful for that”.

They say that doing business with the people you’d normally go out for lunch is a good indicator of a successful communication. This is why working in a healthy environment with a team that connects with you is beneficial not just for your professional success, but also for you as person, because it helps you feel genuinely happy at work. If you’re aiming for a technical job, don’t just focus on hard skills and what the company has to offer in terms of technologies, but take a look at the people behind the brand, who they really are as individuals and how working in that environment actually feels like.

Will the job work for you in the future? Ask your long-term goals.

I’ve learned this by talking to Kostas and hearing about his plans for the future as an engineer for Oracle: “It’s my goal to become a core member of Oracle's Cloud Services global team and level up my skills three times”. So whether you’re a starter or a pro in your field, there’s the backbone of your job strategy that must remain solid throughout all your career choices – your long-term goals. These can guide and help you focus on the things that matter the most to your performance. Finding value in your job is all about considering the goals you want to accomplish and what knowledge you aim to build up throughout your experience within a company.

Talking to Kostas made me realize that the real challenge behind searching for your dream job is not about finding one that you would fit in, but rather finding one that will fit you and what you truly want to gain from it. Seek for the place that makes you excited about waking up in the morning, and success will only come naturally – “it has been almost three months and I have already written software that has great value to operations on a regular basis”, Kostas said.

In the bigger picture, the day that counts the most will not be the first one on the job, but the one when you look back at the experiences you’ve had and discover that you’ve had a truly memorable journey that changed you, both as a professional and as a person.

Andreea Clair:

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