20 Career Moves That Are a Complete Waste of Time

In this video, I'm going to show you the top 20 career mistakes that you might be unknowingly making, keeping you stuck in your same boring job. These are the career moves that feel like you're making progress, but are actually just keeping you busy without taking you anywhere. If you've been updating your resume and you are getting nowhere with your job search, please listen carefully. Most of the advice online about finding a dream job is. Is written by people who have never landed a top tier job themselves. But I have, and I want to show you exactly what really goes in to landing amazing jobs that you can follow right now. Most importantly, I'm going to show you all the things you might be doing that are a complete waste of time. Number one, applying to jobs through online job boards. All right, you sit down, open up 12 tabs. Start Rapid firing your resume deep into the void. It feels like you're making progress. Ooh. Today I applied to 12, but this is amateur hour. You're applying to the same jobs as thousands of other people and hoping for the best. And even if you're lucky, you're just becoming another line item in someone's applicant tracking system. These job boards are where average candidates go to die. Top performers. They don't do it like this. They tap into the shadow market of jobs that aren't even yet posted. So here's what you do instead. Identify five companies you would love to work for. Then build connections inside of those organizations and apply via referrals, blaming the economy but not updating your strategy. If I hear another person saying, the job market sucks, no one's hiring. And then I say, when was the last time you learned the skill of applying to dream jobs? And they go, huh? I'm not gonna be on this YouTube channel anymore, okay? I'm gonna shut this channel down right now. One day you're gonna come here, it's gonna be blank. Be like, what happened to Ramit? Oh, he seemed slightly troubled, but he seemed like an overall nice guy. Ramit's gone now, never to be seen again. Now, yes, it may be true that the job market sucks. In fact, in certain industries, it's a very difficult time to get hired. But people still are getting jobs. So what are you doing differently? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to audit your entire job search system. If it's not working, then you don't need to try harder. You need an entire new strategy. Do you know how many people I talk to? They're like, I've sent out Hundreds of resumes. And I go, stop right there. You sent out hundreds of resumes. How many job offers have you gotten? They're like, none in my head. I go, why the f. But out loud, I go, ramit, be nice. Be nice. Your parents taught you to be respectful. I go, if you've applied to over 250 jobs and you have gotten zero job offers, is it possible maybe your strategy is the wrong one? And they're like, this is why I need to be given the Nobel Prize for how I'm still sane in this world. How. How do I talk to this many people doing it wrong? And I have to force myself to be nice. Some of us were born nice. My wife was born nice. I was not. So every day I wake up, I'm fighting a demon inside that says, ramit, just tell them what the they're doing wrong. But I go, no, no, you're in your 40s now. It's time to be nice. Applying to every open job instead of defining what you want. Oh, here you are applying to 100 jobs a week. You're just playing the. It's like me going to the circus circus buffet and keeping on eating food and being like, one of these is going to taste amazing. No, it's not. It's circus circus. And I know it's not good because that's where we went as a kid. Without clarity, you are just creating chaos for yourself. Guys, this is not how winners play the job search game. They do not just randomly send their resume out and then. Wait. That's not how it works. They know their career season. They identify their dream role, and then they identify their dream company, and then they go hunting. Here's how to fix it. First, get clear on what career season you are in. Then define your dream role. I want you to identify five to 10 companies that offer it. I want you to start hunting, circling like you're an orca. Have you seen those videos where the orcas go around? A cute little seal is on a little thing of snow. They go, oh, we're going to get this seal. That's you. You are the orca. I know the seal is cute, but you're not the seal today. You're the orca. Be the orca. Start circling. What's my strategy? How am I gonna identify five relationships there? How am I gonna take em out to coffee, get on a zoom call? How am I gonna identify people who used to work there but don't work there anymore so they'll be even more honest with me, and then I'm gonna tailor all of my job search material to what I have learned setting vague career goals like be more confident. A lot of people tell themselves this is the year I'm gonna step up. I'm gonna be more confident. Cool. Doing what? I'm going to be more confident eating Cheez. Its Is that going to help my job search? These are not goals, they're just affirmations. You want to go to yoga class and do affirmations and talk about manifesting success, please do. But this is a job search and we're here to talk logistics. Here's the Rich Life Approach Define your career season. Which season of your career are you in? Are you in the growth season where you prioritize learning and earning more? You're willing to put in more time, maybe work weekends? Or are you in the lifestyle season where we want to prioritize our time outside of work? Maybe you have family, maybe you want to go skiing, whatever. Or are you in the reinvention season? This is when you want to completely reinvent yourself, including your role, maybe even your industry. If you don't understand the career season you're in, then you're just applying blankly to random companies. How can you find a job that's perfectly made for you if you don't understand what you are actually looking for? If you want help defining your career season, I put together a free Rich Life quiz. I linked it in the description below that will help you look at roles that are actually a great fit for you. Then you can reverse engineer the skills and relationships and experience needed to land it. Tinkering with your resume for the 47th time. I know you keep adjusting the margins, the verbs, the formatting. Somehow feeling like the formatting of your resume is the thing holding you back. It's not. If your strategy relies on a perfect font you have already lost. Changing your font is not going to change your life. Your resume needs to be good, but tinkering is often a way that we give ourselves busy work instead of focusing on what really matters. A smarter move would be spending that time writing a compelling outreach message to someone who can actually get your resume forwarded internally. Now let's talk about another surface level tweak that people confuse for real progress. Updating LinkedIn every time you get rejected. Can you imagine doing this in the dating world? And hey everybody, I went on Tinder, I got rejected again. Let me fix my profile 62 times a day. It just makes no sense. So why do we do that with our job search? You change every headline you convince yourself this version will finally work. Can I be real? Your headline is probably not the problem. The real problem is that you're trying to approach the job search with a broken strategy and surface level tweaks. What I recommend Instead, focus on building a warm introduction funnel instead of tweaking your profile. And while we're at it, here's another classic way that people stay busy without Getting results. Reading 100 articles about the perfect cover letter. I know you've bookmarked 37 templates. You rewrote the same opening line 12 times and guess what? No one's reading them. It's not working. If I ask you, is it working, the honest answer for most people is no. So? So if it's not working, we're going to stop doing it. Top candidates do not win with COVID letters. They win with referrals. So if you want to do it the right way, here's what to do. Focus on landing a referral that makes your cover letter irrelevant. Next up, feel good career advice that sounds awesome but is totally useless. But before we move on to those traps that secretly waste your time, let me take a moment to talk about something that actually does matter. Protecting your family. Especially if you got kids or people who depend on you, you you want to make sure they are protected and financially secure. One way to do that is making sure you have term life insurance, which is where today's sponsor comes in. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. It's made for busy parents like you all online and on your schedule. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. If you've got kids, and especially if you're young and healthy, it's a great idea to lock in rates now. Now, now. Even if you have life insurance through your employer, that may not offer enough protection for your family and it may not follow you if you leave your job. Fabric has flexible, high quality policies that fit your family and budget like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day. There's no risk. There's a 30 day money back guarantee and you can cancel at any time. Join the thousands of parents who trust fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes@meetfabric.com Ramit Sethi or click the link in the description below. That's one decision that can give you peace of mind. Now let's get back to the career advice that's wasting your time. I need the passion. Everybody give me passion. That way, when I find this Passion that has to magically float down from heaven and enter itself into my mouth. Ah. Now I know exactly what to do with my career. Does passion tell you exactly what your dream job title is? Does passion tell you what your dream role is? Your dream company? Does passion tell you what to say when the interviewer says, why should we hire you? No. Passion is often a word that we use to abstract away all the hard work that we can actually do ourselves. Here's a little reframe for you. Sometimes when you get really good at your job and you are paid well and respected, you become passionate about it. So here's a better way. Pick a skill that companies pay for and commit to becoming exceptional at it. Passion follows mastery, not the other way around. Now, after I crushed approximately 96% of Americans, dreams. Because I just told you that passion may not be the most important ingredient in your life. Let's keep going. Now, I am recording this from LA. There's about 50,000 people right outside my window wearing a wide brimmed hat with a feather inexplicably in it, talking about manifesting. They have a journal. They speak things into existence. They have a vision board. All that's great, but is it helping you land a job? Maybe not. Manifesting is not a strategy. But systems are. So here's the smarter move. Build a system that works. You define your target role. You identify 10 people in that field, you start building real relationships. We don't just need a vision, although that's very helpful. We need a system to make that vision a reality. And speaking of bad hats and bad advice, let's talk about where some of it comes from. Taking advice from random career coaches. I know you scrolled TikTok and somebody said, you need to be your authentic self. You clicked follow. Great. Now you're unemployed and authentic or confidence is the strategy. I never hired somebody because they were confident. I hired somebody because they were good, because they could answer my questions and they could teach me something in the interview. What should you do instead? I want you to get advice from people who have actually hired other people. These are people who have hired dozens of people. They've managed teams. They understand how real careers grow. Would you be willing to take somebody out to coffee or even talk to them on Zoom and say, look, here's what I've been doing. It's not working. Can you give me direct, honest feedback about what I might not be seeing about myself? If you're willing to get that kind of help, you might be ready to land your dream job. And while we're talking about expensive mistakes, let me tell you about one that can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Thinking that another degree is the golden ticket. Too many people are not sure what to do next. And so what do they do? They default to going back to grad school. It feels responsible, but unless your dream job requires a degree or you know for certain that you're going to make more money, this may just be expensive. Procrastination. Instead of spending $80,000 in two or three years, I'd recommend you spend three months getting clarity. Learn the skill of landing a job before spending tens of thousands of dollars on grad school, which the primary intention is not even to get you a job. Use informational interviews. Do job shadowing. Do short term freelancing to test if that path is really what you want. I have a free download that will show you exactly how to start landing your dream job. Getting another certification just in case you sign up for yet another certification course or weekend bootcamp because it might help. Sometimes these things can be helpful, but a lot of times people are doing this to avoid the harder work of what really moves the needle. This is often a fear based move disguised as productivity. The same as a lot of people going to grad school. And it's not a strategy. Try this instead. Don't collect certificates. Collect proof that you can do the job. Build a portfolio, solve a real world problem or ask someone to vouch for you. This is a good time for me to remind you you don't always have to rely on a 9 to 5 to make more money. You you might actually be able to make a side income and actually turn that into a full time income. Ask yourself what's one profitable skill I already have that people would pay me for? You know, a lot of people are just winging it with money. They're guessing about investing. They're trying to save when they can and then deep down they just hope it'll all work out. But that's not the way we want to approach money. That is why I created my money coaching program so you can stop guessing and finally take control of your money. In my money coaching program, you'll get monthly coaching from my team and me. Step by step playbooks for earning more and paying off debt and investing. Plus the accountability to really follow through. Imagine logging in and seeing the exact next move for your money. No more confusion, no more homework that you've assigned yourself to figure it out later. That's exactly what my money coaching program does for for you. Go to iwt.com moneycoaching or click the link in the description below to join us today. Let's talk about loyalty. Because while it is a great personal value, sometimes it can ruin your career if you don't understand the nuances of how it works. Waiting for your manager to notice your hard work. You stay late, you hit your deadlines, you take on extra tasks and yet no promotion, no recognition. And after a while you start to recognize it as a pattern. Here's the fix. Schedule a one on one meeting with your boss. Bring receipts and make a clear ask. Tell them I want to know what it takes to get a promotion or I want to know what it takes to be excellent at my job and to increase my compensation. Promotions and raises don't go to the quiet and loyal. They go to people who advocate for themselves and add value to the business. If you want to take that conversation even further, I made a video showing you exactly how to prep for your next negotiation, including scripts and templates and examples of successful salary increases. I will link it below next Trying to fix a dysfunctional team. You keep giving feedback. You stay positive. You play therapist and mediator and coach and you talk to your manager all the time. Well, if nothing changes and you want a better outcome, stop trying to save them. Focus on yourself and your career. Look for a place where high performers are the norm, not the exception. Staying for stability. When the job is killing you, you tell yourself at least a paycheck is steady. Meanwhile, Sunday night you start to dread it. Mondays is horrible. You live for the weekends because what stability looks like might actually just be career rot. You trading years of your life for a paycheck and feeling awful every day. I think that's a trap. Here's what I want you to remember. Stability is not just a paycheck. Stability can also be about feeling valued and challenge and yes, being paid fairly. If your job is not giving you any of that, then it's not stable and it may be time to find another one that actually gets you excited and challenges you. Speaking of challenging, let me challenge another harmful belief. Assuming that all jobs are toxic, basically everyone in Gen Z I'm talking to you thinking oh my God, all bosses are toxic. What are you talking about? There are a lot of great jobs out there that pay you well, that that respect you, that challenge you and will teach you stuff. All right, I understand the feeling though a lot of people have had bad experiences with a manager company. Now you think every boss is a micromanager and every company's Gonna grind you into the ground. But that's not true. There are great companies out there. They have supportive teams. They have healthy cultures. You may not have targeted them with precision. And if you've never actually met somebody who works at a great job, then I can understand why you would think all companies are toxic. But there's a lot of healthy jobs out there that will pay you well right now. Letting fear keep you stuck for years. The average American stays at a job for just under four years before making a move. But four years can feel like an eternity. If you are not respected at work, you tell yourself, I'll start looking next year. I can't leave my team high and dry. There's no jobs out there. The market is bad. Then a year passes, another year. Then your dreams start to get quieter, and suddenly there's a lot more excuses and rationalizations. Can we flip the script? Let's take one small step this week. Update your contacts, book one coffee, or even apply to just one dream job. That's it. I just want you to start taking baby steps. If you've made it this far, you already know you've probably fallen for at least some of these career traps. And that's okay. Most of us have. The good news is now you know what to look for and what to do instead. So if you want more of this no BS Advanced, and you're done wasting time on people telling you, just be confident, hit that subscribe button. I release new videos every week to help you get hired, get paid, and use money to live your rich life. Let's keep going. Why are you guys going into a bunch of rooms with broke people who are unemployed? Why are you doing that? Why are you grabbing coffee with anyone who will say yes? Is this what it feels like to be desperate? Hold on. Let me remind myself what I look like when I was in my college years. Oh, okay. It's. It's bringing me back. Got it. I remember what it was like. Okay? I have a lot of compassion. Now, listen, I know it feels good to send all these messages. LinkedIn. Click, click, click. Is it working? If the answer is no, it's a dead end. Here's a smarter move. Build a VIP network of people who can actually help you get hired. Okay? Focus on strategic relationship building, not volume. Do you all see the pattern I'm talking about today? Less quantity, more quality, less relevant random clicking, more quiet, hard work behind the scenes. And then when you are ready to pounce, you've done the work. All right, you over prepare, you rehearse. Every answer. You obsess over gaps in your resume. Well, as a hiring manager, I can tell you less than 1 in 100 people does this. But if you're one of these freaks who does this, you've probably gotten somewhat far. But I want to say this. Sometimes you are over preparing for a job that you're not even going to like. Like, have you actually gotten honest with yourself and said, am I simply going for a job that's out there because I want any job? Am I simply going for a job because I think that it's going to give me status or other people are going to be impressed? What if the highest, best paying job is actually not the one I want, but I want to find something that's a fit? This is how I want you to think. Try this instead. I want you to show how your experience makes you uniquely valuable to this company. Company. Show them that the best hire is the best fit. It's not the perfect one, the most flawless one, it's you. And tell them why. You're not sure exactly what you want. So you do nothing. Weeks turn into months. Months turn into years. You ever see those sad videos where a little elephant gets stuck in the mud? You go oh my God this is so sad. This little baby is just sitting there. You are the little baby elephant. You're cute, but you're stuck. And the craziest thing is there's a little pathway that you can climb to get out but you're not doing anything. You want to change it. Here's how to move forward. The feeling of confusion is your signal. It is time to move. Let's get moving. You don't need a perfect 10 year plan. You need a 90 day action plan. You start there and each day you adapt and you're going to get smarter and smarter over time. If you are still feeling confused, join my money coaching program. Get the systems, the scripts, the step by step guidance to build a rich life on your terms. Now some of these moves you're going to stop doing immediately because you were honest with yourself. You said is this working? No. Do I want to send another 250 resumes? No. Others are going to take a little bit longer to let go of their identity based. That's fine, it takes time. But if you keep doing what you've always done, you're going to stay exactly stuck in that little elephant mud patch. If you want the step by step plan to land your dream job, watch this video next. It's time to stop wasting your time and actually start building your rich life.