Doing a Deep Dive
In Part 1 of this series we talked about career assessment. Let’s take a deeper look at what you get from this self-assessment process. Maybe you’ve taken one of them before, where you answer a number of questions and, based on your responses, you received some ideas for careers that may be a good fit for you. Personality assessments are also popular, where your personality type can be matched with possible careers. That’s important information, and our career coaches use these assessments with many of our clients, but it’s only part of the picture. We believe in looking at the big picture and understanding what makes our clients tick and what they need in life. That’s especially true for our intrepid career explorers! We want to know your strengths, but just as importantly we want to see what your interests are, what personal traits you possess and what work values are important to you. Is workplace environment something you value more than salary? Is recognition important to you or is intellectual challenge something that you can’t do without? We want to know, and we want you to be clear as to what really matters to you so you can align those values with your choice of career.
Of course doing an assessment of your skill set is another part of the puzzle. We all have developed a variety of skills, and most of us have more transferable skills than we realize. Those are the skills that you can carry into a new job or career so Career Explorers really need to take stock of what they are capable of. But it’s not only looking back at what you’ve done. We want to assess which skills you want to bring forward into your next role, since you may not want to use the same skill set you employed in the past. The bottom line is that we want you to find that sweet spot and that perfect career that matches your personality, uses your interests, incorporates your values and utilizes your skills as much as possible. It can be done, and it’s actually crucial that you think in those terms in order to find career fulfillment. Sure, you can probably find a job without doing a deep dive into who you really are and what you need to be happy, but you don’t want to repeat the mistakes that many people make. We’re seen too many people change positions frequently in search of the “perfect job”, or end up staying in a job for too long without knowing how to get out. It takes some time and effort, but knowing what you really need in terms of career satisfaction can get you on the path to finding work that feeds your soul and calls to you, and gives you that peace of mind where you wouldn’t even think of making a change.
Challenges and Strategies
Yes, it’s a lot of work and it’s not easy to look in the mirror and see what you really need in a career to be happy, but it is time well spent. Of course there will be challenges along the way, and you will probably encounter roadblocks, such as lack of motivation, fear of change and self-doubt but these can all be dealt with. In Part 2 of this series we’ll tell you how, and we will present strategies for moving forward in your career exploration journey once you learn how to deal with these blocks. Be brave, Explorer! You are already on your way to finding what you are meant to do for a living!
Explorers are brave souls. It takes courage to look in the mirror and realize that what you are doing just isn’t working out. Like many of us you may have jumped into a career just out of school and stayed with it because it was the easy thing to do. Or maybe you found yourself in a career that made sense at the time but something changed. We want different things as we get older and our priorities are different. Maybe now, helping people and contributing to society means a lot, whereas making money and climbing the corporate ladder was what mattered in the past. Yes, it takes courage to make a big change and open your mind to possibilities, but Career Explorers know that it’s even scarier to get stuck in a rut and just go through the motions. You deserve better, and you deserve to be doing work that brings fulfillment and speaks to your true nature!
