| When you're
working out what direction to take, consider... |
|
| What are you like? |
When you're deciding what
direction to take it helps to be clear about how you like to work - would you rather work
alone or with others? Do you look forward to finishing things or to starting them? Do you
like a variety of tasks or one big one? Would you rather plan carefully or play things by
ear? There isn't a "right" answer to these questions, but you'll have some
characteristic habits and will usually stick to these. Not always, of course, which is one
of the things that make life interesting! |
| Your
personal style |
Put those preferences together
and they define your personality, your characteristic personal way of going about things.
If there's a good fit between your personality and the work you're doing then you're
likely to be successful and happy. But a mismatch may make you so miserable that you
can't work well. |
| What's
your MBTI? |
So it makes sense to do a
personality test, provided you pick one of the better ones, and provided also you don't
expect it to describe you perfectly - you're too much of an individual for that. One of
the best known is the Myers-Briggs Type Instrument, which has sixteen main personality
types and is based on the thinking of Carl Jung. There's a simplified version of the MBTI
that you can take online (& yes, it's free). It's called the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, takes a few minutes to do
and will return your four-letter MBTI type with a description of some of the main
characteristics. |
| What do you really want to be doing? |
It sounds as if the answer to
this ought to be obvious, but it can be surprisingly hard to sort it out satisfactorily.
You may have started by feeling "I don't like it here", gone on to "So
where else could I be?" and wound up feeling confused because there's something not
quite right about all the alternatives. One way to get unstuck from this very common trap is to work out
what's really important to you and then use those priorities to measure how well each
alternative fits you. If spending time with your children matters to you, then it doesn't
make sense to look for a job with lots of travel in it (even if everything else is very
attractive). |
| What are you good at doing? |
You buy what you want with
your resources, and in your career & work they're what you know & can do, as well
as what you have. So take stock of your skills, your knowledge & your
achievements. This is good for your confidence - do it properly and you'll find out that
you're better than you may sometimes fear! Sometimes, taking stock shows you that
something's missing, that you could use another skill or a particular bit of knowledge.
It's a good way to develop yourself, and so to keep moving forwards in the right
direction. |
| Make a list of what you can do |
Get a large piece of paper
& head it "I can ...". then list all the things that you're able to do
competently. They'll be both big & small, both at work & away from it, both being
used in your present work & away from it, both in your head and physical. Don't be
modest about this, but write down everything you can think of. If you do this gradually,
over a day or so, you'll be surprised how long the list is. And if you haven't been
working, think of all the ways in which you've managed to keep yourself going &
thinking. Put a star against
the ones you're particularly good at. Those make you special in some way and give you
something extra to offer others. |
| Make another list of what you've achieved |
On another large piece of
paper, start listing all the things you've achieved in your life, big & small. They
might be obstacles you've overcome, new things you've learnt (from studying and from
life), ways of managing difficult problems, ways of surviving pressures or challenges
you've overcome somehow. Other people will know about some of them, while some will be
private. Again, don't be modest; you have to list everything before you can decide whether
to use it to persuade others about you, so get it all down. Take a few days to do it, so
you don't miss anything. |
| What jobs do you fit? |
You can't market yourself
properly until you have a clear idea of what you want, what you've got to offer and what
jobs those fit best. |
| Finding
out what fits best |
If you're in the UK, then you
can get help from your local Careers Guidance company (a privatised part of the Department
for Education & Science). They have a database which gives factual, unbiased
information on different occupations. Find them under Careers Advice in your local Yellow
Pages, or on the Careers Service National Association
website. |
| Occupational
Outlook Handbook |
If you're in the USA, start
with the Occupational Outlook Handbook, a comprehensive database of US occupations - find
it in your local library. If
you're elsewhere in the world, try looking in the Internet search engines for local
information under employment or careers advice or careers guidance. |
| Find out what
employers in your chosen field are looking for |
The short answer is "Ask
them"! Follow up the people who work for them, the people who advise them, the people
in the appropriate professional institutes, the relevant magazines and journals and anyone
else connected with the field. This is where having a healthy network of friends &
contacts is very valuable, because the chances are good that you will know somebody who
knows somebody who ... People
like being asked for advice, so work out who knows what you want to know and ask them to
spare you a few moments to advise you. Most of them will agree. Don't ask them directly
for a job - they probably haven't got one right now and it's embarrassing to say
"No." For more about these tactics, read up on Networking. |
