CAREER
Key steps on your career journey
We have all experienced confusion, doubt and uncertainty about our careers at some point in our lives. Career transition, redundancy, end of a contract or the time we spent in a certain country has come to an end… the possibilities are endless. What is the best way to deal with it?
I always advise anyone to take a holistic approach, engaging both the mind and the heart. You will not know where to go if you are not 100% sure about where you are now. Figuring that out requires more than logic, it also involves intuition, feelings and looking inside, as opposed to just looking back.
It is really important to understand what choices and decisions have brought you to this point in life (which are not neces- sarily bad ones!), as well as who you are as a person right now. Therefore, deter- mining your values, motivators and driv- ers is crucial, and so is building awareness of how you became who you are, where are you at right now and then deciding on where you want to go next – goals. The final stage is defining the steps to get there – imple- mentation.
material that will serve your job search or career transition extremely well.
Cultural and organisational fit is not always on our mind when we apply for jobs, but it is crucial.
Knowing what is important to you: work/life balance, making a difference with your work, financial rewards, recognition, growth and development etc will help you determine the type of indus- try and role that is most suitable for you. Once you are clear on that, you can start researching the industry and the role as well as looking at your preferred companies operating in that space. Cultural and organisational fit is not always on our mind when we apply for jobs, but it is crucial. Is the organisation traditional or cutting edge, leading with innovation? What are the values and mission of this company? What behaviours are valued in this company? How are peo- ple rewarded and incentivised? Does
the core business activity of this company align with your moral and social values? These are some of the questions you should be asking yourself as you do your research and start applying.
If you are interested in the initial self-discovery process you can do it yourself by downloading 10 Questions for Ultimate Career Clarity from
www.whatwork.co.uk/blog.
You can also work with a coach. The coach will ask you those all-important questions to find out what is going on ‘behind the scenes’, not just in your mind but also in your heart. The coach will hold a mirror to you, metaphorically speaking, so that you can start to see things more clearly and weave your stories into
Of course, many of you will ask: “but where and how do I find opportunities that are right for me?” There isn’t a single answer to this question unfortunately. A combination of online and of- fline search, networking and working with recruiters or head- hunters where appropriate is a good starting point. Depending on the role and industry you are in or targeting, you could be relying more on networking: LinkedIn, other social media plat- forms, events and professional associations. Or you could be fo- cusing more on online vacancies, from job boards through to
Knowing what is important to you will help you determine the type of industry and role that is most suitable for you.
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