What Is Your Perfect Job?
Have you taken the time to sit down and reflect on what would be your perfect job?
Would it be indoors, outdoors, a combination of the two? Does it involve physical activity, or not? Would you be working with others, or working independently? Do you want to be training others or learning? Would you like to work from home or in an office? It is important to think about these things when you are looking for your perfect job.
Research and reflect
Once you have decided on the perfect job you need to think about your skills and personal characteristics. Do your characteristics (skills, interests, motivations, temperament, etc.) fit with the requirements / characteristics of your perfect job?
Are there some jobs you should avoid?
The more you learn about jobs from reading, talking to people or hands-on work experience, the more discerning you become in identifying positive connections and negative mis-matches.
Completing the exercise below will help you to focus on job areas which are most likely to interest you. Don't expect to find a perfect match. for most there isn't just one type of work which is suitable – there may well be several. You can find out information on various jobs by going to www.onetonline.org
Themes
- Rather than trying to pinpoint the perfect job, look for themes – think about the type of work you like to do – the type of books or magazines you like to read, the hobbies you have, the activities you enjoy
- For a few weeks, browse through job advertisements note and record those which appeal to you and mark off those which don't.
- Review this regularly to see if any broad patterns emerge. For example, do you automatically favour jobs which involve problem-solving or dealing with people and instantly discard those which require persuasive skills or working in the money markets?
Discuss
- Talk over your ideas with people who are both objective and supportive….family, friends, your career advisor. This “sounding board” approach may help clarify your career ideas.
Plan
- Once you have clarified your ideas and looked at your options, it’s time to starting putting some plans in place. Whatever you’ve chosen to do, making it happen takes time. Having a clear plan keeps you on track, allows you to see how much progress you’ve made and avoids wasting unnecessary time.
- Break down the possible routes and identify the networking opportunities available. This enables you to create a personal action plan that will help you achieve your goals. Do you need to speak to anyone to get more information? Do you need some additional schooling? Identify the people you need to speak to and set up a plan to get in touch with them. You can go online to discover learning opportunities.
Once you have identified your career goals, consider how to achieve them. Often there are a number of routes to your desired goal e.g. via further study, training programs or “working your way up”. If direct entry is not possible you may need to adopt a “stepping stones” approach.
For example, sales experience could lead to marketing, volunteer work may increase your chances of getting into a post graduate course in social work, secretarial jobs might help get you into the publishing field.
Now that you have identified some of the routes into the careers you are interested in, think about which route you would prefer to take. What action does that require? What stepping stones might you use as a back up plan?
Need some additional help to find Your Perfect Job? Drop me a note.
To your job search success
Fran Watson
P.S. Click here for some of Coach Wooden's quotes