This is a guest post by Michele Wahlder. Michele is a Life & Career Coach, the founder of Life Possibilities, LLC and author of Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude—26 Solutions for Life’s Little Challenges.
You might fall into a career that you love by chance or you may have known since you were a child what you wanted to do when you grew up and ended up loving your chosen profession. For many of us, though, finding a career we love is not so easy.
Most of us have gone through the trial and error process, but it’s not a very strategic method for the activity you’ll be doing for forty hours a week until you retire. Considering the amount of time we spend comparing brands at the supermarket or researching vacations, shouldn’t we put a little more time and research into our career choice too?
If you’re contemplating a career move, reassessing your mid-life career choice or just entering the job market, consider working through the Three E’s to Finding the Career You Love: Exploration, Evaluation, Execution.
EXPLORATION
Before you start your job search, the first thing you’ll want to do is assess your work values. Ask yourself what you need in order to be happy in your work environment. Prepare a standard set of questions to ask on an interview based on the values you are not willing to set aside. These values provide a template for what any career you pursue should look like.
Then, assess your strengths. Once you have defined what you are naturally talented at, focus on how you can optimize those strengths and write a competitive edge statement that explains what makes you unique, different and valuable.
The final step in the Exploration stage is to find the common “golden” threads that run through your interests and brainstorm careers that would incorporate them. For example, you may find that most of your interests tend to be individual activities that allow your mind to go somewhere else, such as reading, cycling, and playing computer games.
If you thrive working alone and enjoy the “escape” of everyday life, then think of careers that might let you use those interests. Perhaps, you’d enjoy being a writer, a truck driver, or a computer programmer. Write down all the potential careers based on your interests. Don’t edit or censor at this point, jot it all down, everything from a vague interest or silly idea to a dream job.
EVALUATION
Once you’ve explored and discovered your work values, your strengths, your interests, and brainstormed career options, it’s time to evaluate what jobs may actually be suitable for you.
Take your list of jobs and compare and contrast it with your work values and your strengths. You may find that even though being a truck driver aligns with your interests, one of your values is to have the option to work from home. Or, you may not be a very good driver. Narrow your list down to the jobs that fit with your values, use your strengths, and include some of your interests.
Once you’ve narrowed down your options, do a little “on the road” evaluating for your top three job choices—job shadowing, internships, web-research, and informational interviews.
EXECUTION
Now that you’ve learned about your options, pick the one that is the best fit for you. Then find out as much about the industry and the opportunities within that career field as you can. Re-write your resume to position yourself for this career or begin building the foundational components of the new business you would like to start.
Connect with professional organizations in your industry, take any training or educational courses you need to be competitive, and get out there and submit your resume or start that business.
Congratulations, you have arrived at a career choice that will utilize your talents, skills, and passions!
Here is a bonus video to help you get the job of your dreams.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 5:30 am
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