Written by Career Coach Katie Schrage
This is the third and final blog in a series that walks you through finding the right employer. The first step centered on identifying your personal non-negotiables as an employee. The second step focused on the importance of and the how-to of researching potential employers. This third and final step will address how to identify the right role for you and your personality.
We are most successful in a role that is a best match for our skills, experience, interests and personality. Some of those are clear to us; others we need help in assessing. This is where a career coach can be the resource that helps you find your most satisfying career.
A career coach will help you to identify:
- Your Skills & Abilities:
- Marketable Skills: Skills and strengths that are of value to future employers. A career coach will assist in identifying which of your past experiences and current skills would be most useful in the career that you are working towards. There are many tools available to use, including assessments, self-reflection and brainstorming.
- Transferable Skills: Skills that you can bring to your employer from past work, education or life experiences. These may not be directly related to the job description, but your career coach can help you communicate how these will be valuable to a future employer. These skills show you are experienced, demonstrate versatility, and provide incentive to hire you.
- Inactive/Potential Skills: Skills that you may not have practiced recently, or perhaps you have only recently begun understanding. Your career coach can help you identify what are the most important skills to develop and provide you with resources and accountability to build them.
- Your Interests and Passions: Activities, philosophies, and knowledge that have helped to build who you are. You hold these dear to you. They make you tick. A career coach will help you identify if you would like to keep those passions as a hobby, or if they can realistically bring you income. A career coach can also help you map out how to bring your interests and passions into your career. A career coach will be able to help you determine what the market is demanding and if your interests overlap.
- Personality Traits: Part of your inherent skills that have to do with your cultural fit. These are important because these indicate whether you will fit into the work environment of your future employer. One of the top reasons people are not hired for a position is their failure to “mesh” with the culture, spirit and values of a company or staff.
- Accomplishments & Strengths: Part of who you are, what is important to you and what you have to offer. Your career coach will help you filter through all of your successes and strengths to identify the ones that will prove worthy to a future employer. Your career coach will also guide you through communicating those confidently, and identifying what strengths are most important to you and why.
While the journey of identifying all of the above is one that must be done alone, often having someone to guide you, share ideas with, and hold you accountable proves to be most successful. A career coach will provide you with a clear program, short and long term goals, a variety of assessments, exercises and as much assistance as you feel necessary.