Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in – Bill Bradley

Finding the job you want is easier now as more companies are opening their company again for more workers. After more than a year of looking for any job and any company to hire you, you may wonder why some people can easily get a job while others have a hard time.

Experts are saying that employers are looking for ambition in job applicants for the year 2011. Ambition is defined by Wikipedia as “the desire for personal achievement. It provides the motivation and determination necessary to achieve goals in life. Ambitious people seek to be the best at what they choose to do for attainment, power, or superiority.” Ambition is said to be the old-fashioned fire in the belly that drives people to excel in whatever they want to excel in whether school, sports, politics or business. Changes in the economy has caused employers to consider that job applicants with this trait as having the edge over those with technical know-how simply because it is not enough to do “just the job.”

Employers have realized that ambition played a crucial role in how their companies have kept growing, how their companies were able to survive and even surpassed the global economic crisis. These people, no matter what kind of work clothes they wear, worked beyond their job description. Ambition usually brings with it persistence and usually this is the reason they do what needs to be done, they push to do whatever that was needed at that time, no matter how rough the going is, they do not give up. They do not become discourage easily and so even when a project is going bad they stay to finish it because they believe they can do it, they have confidence in themselves and in their ability to finish the project.

Not all people are ambitious which is the reason employers recruit the applicants who are. Ambition comes from nature, meaning you were born with it, and half comes from the influence of family, educators, mentors and other influential figures in your life. But not all ambitious people do well professionally and this is because they also need to have what experts call the emotional intelligence. This is the ability to focus outside of yourself and understand what the other people need and want. This also means being able to listen to others, being able to accept inputs of other people, and most especially being able to recognize your mistake.

There are a lot of myths, or should I say misconceptions about ambition that has made it sometimes an unpopular word. People sometimes think that ambition is all about work, when in fact ambition is not limited to professional work. There are different kinds of ambition, and this is not limited to an ambition to become the President of the United States or the CEO of Uniform Point. It may be a burning desire to run the New York City marathon or travel the world in 365 days. Whatever these may be, it may be that one person has several ambitions but one will strive and persist to reach that ambition.

So for all job applicants, if you have ambitions, let it show so your would-be employers would realize that but then always keep it in moderation. Pursue your goals effectively but have a care and a little emotional intelligence so you would not want to alienate your colleagues. For parents, create an environment for your children where they can try out different personas, skills, and have the opportunity to experience failure and success. For those who feel that they don’t have much ambition, work on it because it is still possible to nurture it in you. Rememeber, it is only half genetics and the other half is environment.