How to Use Qualifications to Make Your Career Shine - Extra Edition 2/3: A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss!? Think Positively About Changing Jobs.

Here is the second maxim! When it comes to your career, I would like you to think using "I" as the subject for everything as much as possible. What kind of life do I want to choose? What kind of people do I want to be with? What do I feel makes me happy? I have written this article based on those thoughts.

I actually make a lot of jokes about how many times I have changed jobs (laughs). While it is a fact that can easily lead to being judged as a bit of a "problem person" if you are not careful as someone who "repeatedly changes jobs," I have never been troubled by it.

I have felt firsthand that facts generally considered negative are not actually universal truths. This is exactly the case with changing jobs. Depending on how you phrase it, think about it, and communicate it, the impression you give others changes significantly. And the way you perceive the facts about yourself also changes greatly.

I am by no means trying to encourage you to change jobs, but I hope that if you gain even a little bit of insight, you will realize that you can build a way of working that is unique to you and suited to the current era without being bound by fixed ideas!

VOL.2 A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss!? Think Positively About Changing Jobs.

A column about thinking about your career through qualifications. Due to its popularity, we are delivering an extra 3-part series of columns thinking about careers and ways of living. A story about changing jobs that you want to think about positively right now.

Escaping the curse of "Three years on a stone"

"You should stay at one workplace for at least three years..." When I started working as a new graduate, this was a common social belief. If you don't have three years of experience, it's difficult to change jobs again. Your character and grit will be questioned... I think those were the reasons. In an era when that was the norm, I quit my company after one year and three months. Since then, in the blink of an eye, I have changed jobs 10 times... But in reality, I have never once suffered a disadvantage because of this number of job changes. I have never had a bad experience in an interview or been rejected because of the number of times I have changed jobs. On the contrary, I personally only feel the benefits, and I feel that having gained a lot of experience in many workplaces has become my confidence and my "selling point." I think the reason I was able to change jobs positively is because I have a "reason for changing jobs" that I can talk about with confidence.

Communicate your reason for changing jobs by "positively reframing" it

The direct reason I quit my company after one year and three months was "because I ruined my health." But as I was looking for the next path with an eye toward changing jobs, I had found a new goal about three months prior: "to become a judicial scrivener." Therefore, the reason for changing jobs was "resigning to aim for qualification acquisition." When I quit a judicial scrivener's office and changed jobs to an IT company, the reason was "because I wanted to try corporate legal affairs." The reason I changed from a small office to a large judicial scrivener's office was "because I wanted to do work that wasn't limited to judicial scrivener duties." By the way, these reasons can also be expressed negatively. You could say that you thought you couldn't grow any further here, that the scope of work wouldn't expand, or that it was boring... After all, you wouldn't change jobs if you didn't have some kind of dissatisfaction. However, I believe it is important to always pair changing jobs with a "new challenge" or a "new goal." Even if it started with a negative reason, I want you to create a situation for yourself where you are "changing jobs because you want to do X," and when you tell people, please communicate the more positive reason.

Set your own conditions for changing jobs

When I was asked in interviews, I communicated my positive reasons for changing jobs with confidence, and everyone was convinced and said, "I see." It may also be important that I myself do not have even a millimeter of guilty feelings. Even though I have changed jobs many times, I have never just built my career haphazardly by saying "I'm bored, so next!" In my case, I set my own conditions for changing jobs. That is, "when I myself felt that I had done everything I could at this workplace." This is entirely my own judgment. It doesn't matter if others think there should still be things I can do. For example, I once quit a job because I was being bullied by my boss. Even at this time, the moment I could judge that I had exhausted all the means I could take and had made all the efforts I could, I decided to resign. Bullying at school is surely the same. It is nonsense to stay in a place that doesn't suit you and keep killing your own abilities. Running away is also justice.

Changing jobs, side jobs... Cultivating the power to survive in the current era

The greatest treasure that changing jobs has given me is knowing through experience that there is not just one common sense, and that there are countless common senses for each community. My perspective has expanded overwhelmingly. Also, I have experienced jumping into unknown worlds and the process of building relationships from scratch in away situations many times, and I think I have acquired flexibility, thick-skinned resilience, and toughness. Of course, all my work skills have also been useful. From an era where mastering one path was considered a virtue, we have become a society where changing jobs is normal and side jobs are tolerated. It has become an era where it is fine to start a new challenge at any age, and it is also acceptable to have multiple jobs simultaneously. I think "positive job changes" have become easier to realize depending on your own way of thinking. Let's cherish the spirit of "leaving no trace behind when you fly away" and flexibly create a way of living that is unique to you and suits the current era.