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Today I have a friend who called me and asking for some advice over his new job. He felt that he has been leverage by his company. He has been changing jobs after jobs over the last two years. I do not really know how I can advise him on this matter.

Every company got their own systemic perspective. They got their own culture, their own set of thinking and their own company policy. We can either fit into their system or we look for another system elsewhere.

I asked my friend why he left his job; he replied that he could not find any job satisfaction. So I asked him when was the last time that he found a job satisfaction in his job, and how he feels about it and how did it happened?

He mentioned to me that was his latest job before he got retrenched. Despite that, he really likes the job a lot and he always got up early and feeling so motivated to work. I addition, he was given the role he likes and he enjoyed empowerment and the authority to make decisions. Through the conversation, I felt that he was a bit lost. He felt that his degree and his job role do not complement each other. He also mentioned that he does not think this job is going to add any values to his resume in future.

For the moment, besides taking up this job, he has also been looking for other jobs offer. I do not wish to impose my thoughts on him that he should give himself at least 6 months to see if he was not suitable for the job. From my knowledge, he has been changing 6-7 jobs for the past two years; I became worried for him.

Is job hopping becoming the fad recently? Sometime, having a degree may not be a wonderful thing, this is like giving ourselves added cushion and excuse to be choosy. When I was working in StandardCharterd bank, a customer ever told me his successful story and how he was once given an opportunity to work as a lowly clerk in a computer firm, however he worked very hard and proved himself that in the end, he was made the director of the company and given 15% company shares. The point that I am driving here again is expectation.

When you have a degree, you expect to be given a higher paid for job, you naturally expect more from the organization. Can we imagine ourselves as a degree student doing lowest paid job like distributing flyers? I felt that this was fun especially if you are doing for charity sake. There was a book that was published some time back,” If you want to be rich, do not go to school.” I think I can relate that the author was trying to tell us that school kills off your creativity and we tend to think within the box.

If we put aside our pride and work equally hard with those without degree, we would have a slight edge, but if we became complacent, we would be indifferent from others. Firstly, my friend needs to know which field he is keen to pursue. From there, he got to consider the different alternatives and options to get into his goal. Revisit his path after 1 year and see if there is any progression, if not, he should revisit his options and assess it again. By sending his resume now, he is set to leave his company if there is any better offer that comes by. By looking for another options, will he able to concentrate fully on his job? How does it help if another job offer comes by? How will it affect him if the next job offered turned out worse?

In my opinion, one should learn how to manage his/her expectation and equipped the skills to see things from a different platform, only then we will not be faced with too many disappointment.