National Careers Week: Debunking the social media myths about work

It’s National Careers Week and if your mind is moving towards your job choices, you may also be influenced by the ways careers can be represented on social media.

To help debunk and demystify some of the cliches surrounding the hashtags you may come across about work, employability advisor and TikTok careers coach Ami Hewitt has shared some of her expert advice with BBC Bitesize.

Let me ask you a question. Who do you picture when you think of someone that has been successful in their career? Perhaps it's someone well-known, surrounded by the latest in luxury and living their best life.

Or you may have seen people use hashtags such as #FakeItUntilYouMakeIt, #GirlBoss or the phrase 'Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never work a day in your life’. What do they really mean, and do these messages actually apply in the real world?

A bit like selfie filters on social media apps, phrases and hashtags like this can give an unrealistic view of the world of work, so let's take a detailed look at some of them.

#Girlboss

Social media could lead you to believe that to be a successful career woman, you should own your own company, have the latest designer clothes and the newest phone - but this simply isn’t true. For a start, you don't need to be a boss to excel in your chosen career.

We need to remember that success doesn’t have one defined measure. It is not defined by what you see posted on social media, and you shouldn’t measure your own success against what you see online.

There is more that deems you as ‘successful’ than just your career. Friendships, hobbies and morals for example, these are all equally important elements of who you are. As an employability advisor I think success is to be happy, satisfied in life, work, and with who you are as a person.

#FakeItUntilYouMakeIt

If only it were that easy!

In the world of work, it would be unrealistic to think that you could have a successful career by pretending to know what you are doing. Equally, if you are dishonest about the skills you have then you could land yourself in hot water, working in a job that you aren’t comfortable in, with less support than you need.

Each individual job requires different skills that will let you become successful within that role. For example, let’s think about working as a barista in a coffee shop. It is a customer-facing role, which means you are interacting and communicating directly with members of the public.

In these roles, skills such as excellent communication, customer service and problem solving will be very useful. If we compare that to a job delivering newspapers, this is less customer-facing. Different skills such as time management, organisation and self motivation would be more useful here.

We can’t fake these skills. You need to take the time to develop them in your job, and some will come more naturally than others. It’s likely that you will have some already, from going to school, being a part of a sports team or from hobbies you enjoy.

In every job, work or life experience opportunity that you take on, you will be developing key transferable skills that are helping you navigate a pathway for your future.

'Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never work a day in your life'

That's not entirely true. I’ve worked with engineers, social media managers, chief executives, actors, sales professionals, and many more people in different job roles. Even the ones who love their job will still say that it feels like work, and work can be hard sometimes. Just like life, you will have good days, weeks, months and others will be more challenging, regardless of your passion in that area.

Being able to manage those harder days is an important part of working life, and this is where a skill called resilience comes into play, or as I like to call it ‘bounce back ability’. Resilience is our ‘bounce back ability’ in the face of difficulty or challenge. It’s your ability to pick yourself back up after you have fallen down, and it is one skill that can be the hardest to master.

In your career journey, you will get setbacks. You won’t always be successful in your job applications or in every interview. But don’t let that make you give up. Listen to the feedback you are given, learn from your mistakes and come back stronger.

#LivingMyBestLife

This can bring up pictures of private jets, selfies in fancy restaurants, and exotic holiday destinations. Sure, these things are nice - but do they really define a happy life?

I believe that to live your best life, you need to find out what motivates you and makes you happy. When starting out on your career journey, you need to think about what gets you out of bed in the morning. This could be things like helping people, being outside, working with other people, or it could be the money. Everyone will have a different answer.

In your teenage years, you might not even know what motivates you yet. Despite the pressure you may feel, that is OK. People I work with - of all ages - are still also trying to figure this out. What makes you happy can change at different times of your life.

If you are at the start of your career journey, it can feel daunting, but I want to assure you that it is an exciting time.

Don't be blinded by a filtered view of success that we can find online. Think about what motivates you, be open-minded to new experiences and be resilient.

Remember - #Thisisyourjourney