Contributed by SME: Jerry Fu, PharmD, PCC, Career and Leadership Coach, Acaria Health

The names are made up, but the story is real.

Ken and Sarah work for the same staffing agency. Both were called up to cover shifts at a pharmacy that needed extra help for their staff. Each of them had the opportunity to learn the pharmacy systems and culture while assisting with daily tasks.

Here’s where their paths begin to diverge.

Ken seemed to only do what was directly asked of him. Worse, he made a scene whenever asked to do something he deemed too inconvenient or “not his job.”

“I’m a temp,” he thought. “They should be happy I’m doing anything at all.”

Ken kept doing the absolute minimum. Or he chose to not do a task assigned to him if he thought they weren’t going to check on him.

Ken continued to justify his stance in his mind. “They need me more than I need them,” he reasoned.

After the pharmacy had observed about a week’s worth of Ken’s passive work ethic and childish attitude, they requested the agency to cancel Ken’s remaining assigned pharmacy shifts.

In contrast, Sarah was pleasant, humble, always learning, and always willing to go the extra mile when covering her shift.

In fact, her job performance was so consistently good, the pharmacy kept bringing her back week after week. Eventually, they offered to buy her out of the agency to bring her on full-time.

Incidentally, the buyout fee is typically about twenty percent of the salary offered. So this was a major investment by the pharmacy and an equally strong statement about how much they wanted Sarah to join their team.

How is it that two pharmacists from the same agency could have such opposite fates?

Here are some thoughts to consider.

Every job opportunity is an audition.

Even as interviews are still used to screen potential hires, the best companies understand the best way to evaluate work ethic is to see people in action. Some companies will even contract new hires for thirty days (state labor laws permitting) before they get official offers. You don’t know how well someone fits in your organization until you see how they handle day to day challenges. Ken’s audition lasted only one week. In contrast, Sarah’s audition landed her an eventual job offer.

Every audition affects your reputation.

Trust is the currency you have to earn. No one else can do that for you. Earning more trust leads to bigger opportunities and responsibilities. Losing trust leads to lost jobs and fewer opportunities. These statements seem obvious. Yet people struggling to find work seem to forget these when their jobs are on the line. The danger is when people like Ken deceive themselves about their hireability. Meanwhile, Sarah established and maintained her reputation well enough to get hired.

Your reputation designs and defines your career.

You shape your reputation not through big decisions, but the day-to-day small ones that demonstrate you’re creative, adaptable, hard-working, and reliable. Ken’s reputation cost him work and pay. While his agency might still be able to find him more opportunities, enough bad reviews from customers could lead his agency to drop Ken altogether if he’s not helping them pull in enough business. But that’s a risk Ken was willing to take. Are you?

Don’t let Ken’s journey become your own. You can have a career like Sarah’s, if you’re willing to be intentional and mindful whenever your boss assigns you a task you don’t want to do but know you need to.