but shows you which skills you truly enjoy using.
Action: Provide specific examples of your top skills.
Abilities
“Our abilities are perhaps the most fundamental piece of the career puzzle.” Hutchinson and McDonald
Do you know your natural talents? You may be an accomplished musician, athlete, or artist, but it’s likely your abilities go much further. Ability testing defines your natural abilities based on timed work samples, and covers a wide range of abilities including problem solving, spatial relations, verbal memory, observation, idea productivity and visual speed and accuracy. If you want to invest in an accurate assessment you could take the Highlands Ability Battery. Read more online. An alternative is to think about what you do and list your strengths and skills. It’s important to ask others to help you with this as they may see hidden talents in you that you are not aware of.
Action: List your key abilities and strengths.
Interests
You may be great at a whole range of tasks but absolutely loathe the work; perhaps the attention to detail required in analytical work does not play to your strengths, and you want to be able to use your idea generation skills. Make a note of everything you enjoy doing. This does not need to be focused purely on work tasks; thinking more broadly can generate possibilities.
Even if you can’t directly use your interest in a specific job, they can help with the work setting. For example, if you have a love of art and are an accountant, you could seek opportunities within art galleries, museums etc.
Action: Make a note of your top interests.
Have a clear vision of your future work environment
Think about your ideal working environment. What sort of environment would enable you to work at your best? This includes the company, culture, salary, location and anything else you can think of.
Consider the size of organisation. For example, you could be a catering supervisor in a large company and move to be a catering manager in a smaller company. Or be a general manager in a smaller company and change to an operations manager in a medium-size company, etc.
If your travel-to-work distance is 30 minutes, it may seriously constrain your search, so could you extend it to a 90-minute journey? If you have constraints then narrow your search; there’s no point getting excited if you see an ideal job and then realise it’s 100 miles from your home.
Example: Samira
Samira was made redundant from her job as a financial analyst. She was also a fully qualified accountant. She was concerned over being made redundant from a high paid job but had been working on a product she didn’t believe in, with a not very supportive manager, and working for a large city firm with a long daily commute which didn’t give her time for any other interests. By the time she got home from work each day she was ready to just slump in front of the TV. Her ideal working day would be working within a 30-minute journey from home and with the freedom to work from home at least one day a week. She was willing to earn less if it meant she could work with a company she believed in. Employment as an accountant in the charity sector would match many of her needs.
How would you describe your personal style?
The following questions can help you understand yourself. For a more in-depth understanding, you will want to use a personality measure such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Read more online.
•Think about when you are being positive. How would you describe yourself?
•Think about when you are being negative. How would you describe yourself?
•Think about when you’ve been in a difficult situation at work; how was it resolved and what was your part in this?
Write down the keywords that describe you, and then ask close friends or relatives to see if they agree. For each word, give an example of when you used your strengths in a positive way. For example:
Cooperative: I work well with other people. For example, my colleague had a problem with a project and several things needed completing at short notice. I reprioritised what I was doing to help her out, including staying late so that she met her deadline.
Customer focused: I pride myself on doing all I can to achieve customer satisfaction. When I overheard a customer complaining at a till, I took them to one side (so it did not impact on other customers), listened to their problems and dealt with the situation swiftly. This resulted in a letter of thanks to my manager, and a larger order from the customer.
Your responses can help in thinking about the role you want to undertake with a company and how you can best relate to others.
Samira said: “I’m quite an outgoing person who has been forced to work alone for so much of the time. I’m assertive and not afraid to stand up for things I believe in. I am trusting and wonder if at times I can be a bit too trusting. I love change and am not constrained by traditional ways of working. I’m a perfectionist so I do a really good job but it does mean I can be a bit critical of others. I sometimes find it hard to meet deadlines as I can get distracted by other people.”
Action: list your top personal characteristics.
Know your values
When we live a life in line with our values, we concentrate on what is most important to us. This helps in decision making. For example, if health is our number-one priority, it will affect what we eat, how much we exercise and how we spend our leisure time. When we do work that is in line with our values, it is more of a calling than a job. When our values are incongruent with our career, it can lead to stress, discomfort and unhappiness.
My clients work through a values card sort exercise to help them decide between options; they compare shortlisted jobs against their top values. As you move towards your next job, making a choice that does not conflict with your personal values will ensure you are less stressed and more contented. You can identify your values by using a pack of values cards from my website, or use the list of values you can access from www.stevepavlina.com/articles/list-of-values.htm.
You need to identify 5–7 top values to aid decision making. When you look at your list, you may see there is some conflict. If both family and success at work are important to you, what will you do when you get offered a promotion that means working much longer hours? Or you have to travel a lot?
Action: make a note of your top values.
Putting this together
Summarise your answers to all the action steps and use this information to identify potential careers. There is a form to help you on the website. If you are not sure ask people you know or work with a career coach.
As you discuss this with others, make sure to tell them that you don’t want advice, but rather their creative input.
Can you now draw up an ideal job description, outlining what it is that you want to spend your day doing? Also, give thought to what would be the ideal industry
