Ready Yourself for Your Job Search – Get Clear About What You Have
by Angela Loëb
After you get clear of the baggage and get clear about what you want, you want to get clear about what you have to offer. In the READY module of the Job Search Boot Camp, we like to call this your Value Proposition.
Below are 4 areas we suggest you self-examine so you can bring it all together for a prospective employer. This will be especially important for when you’re faced with that all-important question, “Why should I hire you?”
1. Traits
Traits are how you do what you do. Traits describe how you show up in the world. Are you adventuresome, persistent, loyal, artistic, thorough, etc.? If you need a little help coming up with the words, consider a taking a couple of personality/behavioral assessments. Friends, colleagues and family members might also be a good source of descriptive words about your style. We highly recommend using the list offered by Richard Bolles in What Color Is Your Parachute? He suggests you circle what you think are your top 10 traits. You could do that and then cross-check your results with what the assessments and your friends tell you.
Remember, you need to claim those traits that you truly have – not the ones you only aspire to have or that you’ve maybe been too modest to claim as truly yours. This exercise requires total self-honesty.
2. Talents & Skills
Make an inventory your special talents and skills. Write everything that comes to mind, even if it seems too obvious. Chances are what comes easy to you may be just what makes you unique and special. If an aptitude is in your genetic coding, it would be unwise to deny it. Identify it so you can use it in your career. For a good look at the differences between talents and skills, read my article, Part I: Cultivating Your Individual Brand.
3. Strengths & Weaknesses
I once heard a great twist on the definitions of strengths and weaknesses. Instead of looking at these as simply a list of skills where you’re strong and weak, consider looking at yourself from an energetic point of view. Think about what you do that strengthens you and what you do that weakens you. You bet there will be a correlation between those actions and how you they affect your energy levels.
In addition to writing this list based on your self-observations, you could also buy the book StrengthFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. With the book comes a special code that you can use to go online and take the test to determine your top 5 strengths.
4. Accomplishments
When you sit down to examine your accomplishments in order to determine your value and worth to a future employer, remember to keep in mind those accomplishments that came out of the work you really enjoyed doing. What I mean is that we have a tendency to be good girls and boys who get results because we are trained to be that way, and because we need to in order to get the gold-star recognition or the needed paycheck.
What I’d like you to do is to focus on those accomplishments in which you got results because you were doing something that ignited you and satisfied your soul.
Why do I suggest you focus on the soul-satisfying accomplishments versus any old accomplishments? Because I know firsthand, and by many years of observing job seekers, that it’s far better to find the work you love than it is to settle for less. I also know that if you are going to settle for less, at least have your eyes wide open when you do it. Life is too short to die an unlived life!
Now that you know how to ready yourself for your job search, it’s time to get cracking.
I’ll leave you with a short poem that inspired my comment above. It’s from Dawna Markova, in her book I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion.
I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
Angela Loëb is an author, speaker and co-owner of Great Occupations. She and her partner, Jay Markunas, help people make successful career transitions through workshops, “pajama learning” webclasses, personalized consulting sessions, as well as through The Job Search Boot Camp Show. Find out more at www.greatoccupations.com.
Coming up next on The Job Search Boot Camp Show…
Job Search Makes a Quantum Leap into the 21st Century
Saturday, 11/6 10:00am (Central)
Special Guest: Deanne Arnath, President and CEO of Career Wizards
President and CEO of Career Wizards, Deanne Arnath, joins us to discuss a cutting-edge option her company offers, which combines the next evolution in resumes with networking and interviewing in a way that accelerates your career transition. What once seemed like sci-fi is now reality. Tune in to hear where technology is taking us… correction, has already taken us… into this next decade of the 21st century!
To listen in, turn on your speakers and go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/JobSearchBootCamp
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