How To "Create" A Job You're Not Qualified For - Yet

Penelope Trunk on 1/29/08 through her Brazen Careerist blog discusses "How to get a job you're not qualified for"

Her post is not really targeted to the "Getting tired of their own rat race but not ready for a rocking chair" crowd. However, as she points out, getting hired even when you're not qualified is one of the most important skills to have if you want to keep your work life interesting, which applies to your post-career work as well. I have never focused on wealth accumulation, (though I am making sure my retirement finances are optimized) but now I can focus more on making sure my learning curve doesn't go flat-line, and making sure a post career work life is not only not really boring but of some benefit as well.

So here are her three ways to get hired when you're not qualified for the job, but rearranged in my particular order.

1. Take responsibility for your own education.

2. Create a project from a different arena that interests you.

3. Just apply.

Currently, I am at step 1 and creating this weblog is part of that endeavor, both as an educational means and end. The 3 part process of getting a job your not qualified for, also fits in nicely with the Four-Step Process offered by Sam Davidson of CoolPeopleCare. Again, I am currently I am at step one - One: Dream while learning the ropes.

• That dream develops a passion.
  
• The passion develops a plan.
  
• The plan determines the action.
  
• The action helps us to dream better.

I also believe that it means Defining who you are for yourself before defining or re-defining yourself for others. This is also different for those undertaking their odyssey years at the earlier stages of life and those taking them at the later stages (Jason and the argonauts would be a better metaphor for the early stages of life explorations.) At this point, I am not at all sure where this could end up. I see examples which point to new directions that suggest possibilities that could manifest into something 5 or more years from now, but at this point in the journey I am just going to enjoy discovering new things.