The eight step process
The career coaching industry has discovered that career planning involves a predictable pattern. It doesn’t matter if you plan a career on your own or with the help of a career guidance company, you must follow the following eight discreet steps. Read on for more information.
discovering who you are
If you don’t know who you really are, how can you tell a potential employer about yourself? How can you know what kind of job is right for you? Answer: you can’t. That’s why 47% of new hires leave their job within 12-18 months of starting, even though they were eminently qualified for the position; having won the position over strong competition. This is why you can often get the feeling in the interview that the interviewer has no idea who you really are.
To find out who you are, you need to take some psychological tests; AND THEN CONFIRM THAT IT IS CORRECT. Armed that way, you know if you need to be in a job where activity and urgency are key, or where patience and concern for people are paramount, or where detail and caution are essential, or where ideas and creativity are paramount. boosters. Some of those are you. Some are not. You should go for the jobs that suit those personal traits AND STAY AWAY FROM THE JOBS THAT DO NOT. Note that we haven’t even talked about his abilities yet. Having discovered who you are, or at least having articulated who you are, how do you tell others without bragging?
Create a life story that tells the full picture of who you are
Next, you need to throw that traditional resume out the window as quickly as possible. It’s a boring laundry list that exhausts resume readers as much as it pains you to write it. Inject life into the resume so that it showcases the personality traits and strengths you discovered in step one above, using facts, evidence, understatements, but emotion.
Keep this part on one page and attach the laundry list as page two. That’s it: a two-page resume that should take around 15 hours to prepare if you want to get to the root of who you really are. Such a resume will serve you forever. Future job changes will only affect a small part of the task list on page two.
Succinctly describing who you are
With the hard work of the resume now in place and your own understanding of your personal drivers, summarize the image of yourself with a one-paragraph bio, describing what you want and who you are. If done correctly, it will attract anyone who is interested in you and scare away anyone who shouldn’t be (thank goodness).
To go with the bio, create a single sentence that captures your essence, like Coca-Cola’s slogan: “The pause that refreshes” or Nike: “Just do it.” The simple phrase says a lot to the reader or listener and allows you to paint a brief picture of the essence of who you are on that 3 story elevator ride with a stranger.
Defining what you want that will make you happy
With an understanding of who you are and what you can do, define the ideal position for you. Now, focus your efforts on it. Be so clear that any prospective employer knows exactly what he is looking for. Avoid being everything to everyone. It will leave readers confused and skeptical about you. Avoid making concessions. If defining is so difficult at this stage, take the time to create a personal mission statement, articulating your purpose in life, your vision of where and what you ultimately want out of life, as well as the values you will cherish as the you seek (such as honesty, openness, integrity, whatever appeals to you personally).
Learn how to find the job you want
Job hunting is NOT about submitting your resume to an advertised position where dozens of people will be equally qualified. That’s playing the losing lottery game. Only casinos (read businessmen) win and you lose. Avoid this at all costs. Job hunting is also not about networking. It is non-offensive and purposeful networking; it’s about having a clear method with a proven statistical probability that you’ll connect with your dream job. Enroll in a proven program to learn these steps that anyone can use, or learn them from a friend who has been there (successfully). Your chances of finding a job will increase about 200 times with this handy ability in your back pocket.
Creating a marketing plan or campaign
Take the five steps above and commit to them in writing. Then develop a checklist to guide you as you establish a well-defined job search schedule, delving into the statistical probability of the invisible job market with your success assured by chaos theory and your own confidence in your new defined self.
find what you want
Start organizing gatherings of people from all walks of life, by interviewing them (instead of the other way around), find out what is happening in the world that is of interest to you. DO NOT OPENLY SEEK A JOB. This connection process will often lead to an unexpected and unpredictable opportunity, although you will never know where or when in advance. Success in this search process is determined by chaos theory (such as the ‘coincidence’ of meeting someone you meet when you travel to another part of the world) and is often expressed by the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. That is, there are only six connections between where you are today and the dream job you want. (Test: Look at a previous successful job search. How many different people did you have to chain to find it?)
Negotiating the best offer for you
Step seven above will often lead you to not one, but two or four great opportunities that crop up around the same time. (Chaos theory again: explains why at some point when you hail a cab there is none and at other times four or five cabs arrive in the same minutes.) To have found someone who adores your natural talents is to find an employer who really wants you. You will never be in a better position to negotiate. This is the time to carefully work out negotiations for the salary and benefits you want and the employer has available to you (in secret, away from their prying questions, mind you). Simple methods usable by everyday people are at your beck and call as you turn around the employer for exposure of the benefits that are actually available to you. Most people who use these techniques make $5-$10k more than they would have hoped for.
All the best in your job search!