We’ve covered quite a lot of ground during our exploration of the top five reasons career-seekers pick certain opportunities over others. We hope there’s still some room for more, because we’re not done yet! Take a look at the next entry on our list.
- CAREER-SEEKERS WANT LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES.
Nobody likes being stuck under a rock.
That’s certainly how it would feel to be doing the same job for years, without any new processes, equipment and methods to master. And in an age where everything is changing, improving and evolving, it makes no sense to be left behind in the past.
We are drawn to career opportunities that have the potential to help us enrich our knowledge, experience and technique. We strive to become the best versions of ourselves every day, and we need environments that will support our pursuits. Our motivations may be many and varied, from building up professional capacity to help with tasks, to increasing our value as experts, to expanding our networks. But one of the constants for professional improvement is a learning-driven environment. Our commitment to excellence cannot thrive in a job that won’t allow us to keep up with the changing times.
If companies do not offer avenues for employees to learn and improve as professionals, it’s an understatement to say their efficiency will suffer. While the rest of the industry has moved on to new technologies and strategies, companies that are lagging behind will not function at their best compared to the competition and will lose business opportunities. Apart from that, they will find it even more difficult to avoid attrition as existing employees move to other companies that embrace improvement. On the other hand, employees may try to initiate learning within backwards companies, but may encounter resistance from the leadership and thus decide to just leave.
Improvement is part of an organic process through which organizations collectively become better versions of themselves. This involves not only learning something new, but also learning the right way to do things that were previously done wrong. Professional learning – the kind that career-seekers are attracted to – is constructive, cumulative, adaptive and corrective. There’s no limit to the value of professional learning for both industries and the workforce. After all, it is through such learning that these two groups understand how to work together.