MINI GUIDES TO FINDING A CAREER YOU LOVE
Part Eighteen: Conclusions
As these guides are about advice from people who have been through, I thought it would be good to end with some of their concluding thoughts.
Part Seventeen: Retirement
It helps to prepare yourself for the impact of retirement. Although it may be something you have been working towards, it can bring out many mixed emotions including a loss of identity and a sense of routine at one end of the spectrum to euphoria of being free at the other.
Part Sixteen: The First 90 Days
Part Fifteen: Self-Employment (Part 2)
If you are marketing yourself as a consultant, it is important that you think about what problems you can solve rather than focussing on previous roles that you have had. If you are setting up as a contractor or interim tailor your areas of expertise to make it clear what you can do for your clients.
Part Fourteen: Self-Employment (Part 1)
If you have not worked for yourself before it can be a daunting proposition. It is important to evaluate your reasons for wanting to be self-employed and understand the advantages and also the disadvantages. The advantages include being in control of what you do and not be involved with office politics. You also have more control over when you work, so if you are looking for a better work life balance then it may be an option.
Part Thirteen: Interviews
When it comes to interviews my advice is preparation, preparation, preparation. Most people find it difficult to talk about themselves and by practicing this gets more familiar.
Part Twelve: Staying Motivated and Strong
Having developed your CV, LinkedIn profile and elevator pitch and identified your routes to market, it is essential to have a clear plan of action.
Part Eleven: Networking (Part 2)
Networking is engaging with people you know, both via work and in your personal life. I advise that you approach networking in a very organised, thorough way.
Part Ten: Networking (Part 1)
Networking is key to securing a great role and it is this topic which elicited the greatest response from my networks when I asked about sharing advice. Studies show between 70% and 80% of all jobs come from people’s networks.
Part Nine: Routes to Market
Now that you have your CV, your elevator pitch and your LinkedIn profile sorted it’s time to take your message to market. There are for main routes to market: recruiters, job boards, your networks and direct approaches. This guide will cover the first two routes.
Part Eight: LinkedIn
LinkedIn plays a very important role in your job search: it is used not only by the vast majority of recruiters but also by in-house recruitment teams and by hiring managers themselves.
Part Seven: CV
I often am asked ‘what does the perfect CV look like?’ and the answer is, it doesn’t exist.
Part Six: Elevator Pitch
Once you have clarity about what you would like you to do next, I would advise you to create a 20-30 second elevator pitch. This will be useful when talking to recruiters and your network and will help with writing your CV and LinkedIn profile.
Part Five: Creating a Clear Message
Having done the exercises as suggested in previous guides it’s now time to start funnelling those down and deciding what is your direction of travel, what is it you really want to do.
Part Four: Exploring Options
I encourage people to take a step back and explore different options rather than automatically applying for a role that is similar to what they have previously been doing. The analysis of your skills and values could help you uncover some alternative options and this ‘crazy ideas’ exercise may uncover more.
Part Three: Values and Drivers
As well as identifying the things that you’re good at and you enjoy it’s also really useful to understand what your career values are. For example do you like autonomy?, do you like structure?, do you like a team around you or do you prefer to work on your own?, how to you like to be managed?, how important is the values of an organisation to you? The ‘good day’ exercise we covered in part two should help you when you look back to understand what your career values are.
Part Two: Identifying Skills
If you find yourself looking for another role it may be a really good time to take stock and work out what you love to do as well as what you are good at. The more you understand yourself, the more you will be able to identify the right career path for you.
Part One: Initial emotions when facing a career move
Whether the decision to leave an organisation was forced or planned you may find that you experience several different emotions such as denial, panic, loss of confidence, euphoria and blame. Rather than a steady change of emotions often you will feel differently day by day.
I have been wanting to write a guide to finding a new job for some time and thought it would be great to include advice from some of the hundreds of individuals that I have coached over the last 10 years.
Purpose of Team Coaching
Organisations often have no clear ideas of what they want from team coaching, partly because there is no widely accepted definition of its purpose. However, it is important that everyone involved with the team coaching process including the sponsor, the leader, the team itself and the coach, have clarity as to what it is and the benefits it will bring.
The Imposter Phenomenon - Why You May Feel Like A Fraud
I recently conducted some research into the effectiveness of coaching in helping individuals overcome the Imposter Phenomenon. I have put two posts together summarising this research: the first is an explanation of what the Imposter Phenomenon is and the second are some tips to help individuals overcome some of the negative symptoms.
Interim Management as a Career
Interim Management can be a highly rewarding and satisfying career choice. But what skills do you need to become an interim manager? This blog explores some key questions you need to ask yourself if you are considering becoming an interim manager.
Where is your depth of expertise? It is absolutely vital as an interim that you understand where your depth of expertise lies. And by this, I do not mean a list of job titles. Clients do not care what you were, only what problems you can solve for them, where you have ‘been there and done it before’. Make sure you have a clear understanding of this before you launch yourself as an interim.
The Use of Self in Coaching
Use of self is a difficult concept to put in words, harder to put into action, and can be demonstrated more easily than described. However, it can be a very effective tool in a coach’s kit bag. Some coaches describe the use of self as simply self-disclosure, where personal information is shared by the coach to help understanding and the development of the coach/coachee relationship.