Archive for career search
The secret to finding fulfillment in your career
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So how do you know what’s fulfilling for you to help you define your ideal career? The secret is – Values. Values are one of the first things I help my career coaching clients identify in order to understand what would be fulfilling to them. Values are your guideposts to fulfillment and the foundation of figuring this out. Begin figuring out what your values are right away.
To figure out what your values are, you can ask yourself questions like:
- When in the past, professionally, have you felt lit up inside or energized?
- What in your personal life gives you a sense of satisfaction or joy?
- What deep seated personal priorities or values do you hold that are so important to you that if they were taken away, you’d feel frustrated or deprived in some way?
You’ll notice these are hard to answer questions. They’re meant to be that way for a reason. By answering these questions you’re trying to uncover what’s deeply important to you in your life, and then begin to translate that into your career.
I hope this advice was helpful to you. If you still feel lost in your career path, please contact us today to set up a complimentary consultation with one of our Certified Career Coaches.
Hallie Crawford
Atlanta Career Coach
How to find your dream job
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I was working with my career coaching client, Margaret, last week and she made a great point. Sometimes it’s hard to identify specific things you want to have in a dream job, especially when you’re not sure what’s realistic or what’s possible and when you don’t have specific examples.
If you haven’t had a job you truly enjoy, it can be tough to know what you want to do. This is because there are only a few examples to draw from to give you a sense of what would work. Margaret and I came up with this homework together. For the next 3 days, Margaret focused on identifying tangible examples of what she wanted in a job simply by paying attention to her current job, talking to friends, reading books, and noticing what other people did in her workplace. It was a simple exercise that gave her several tangible examples of things she wanted in her dream job.
Try focusing on what you like and don’t like at your current or previous job. You might be surprised to see what you come up with.
Hallie Crawford
Job Search Coach
P.S. If you would like more help identifying your ideal career, check out this FREE REPORT: ”Top Three Tools to Identify Your Ideal Career” today.
The true culprits of job dissatisfaction
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As a career coach, I consistently meet with career coaching clients who feel they’ve lost their sense of purpose in their work. They want to feel more passionate about what they do on a daily basis, and they often feel their work is the culprit. They feel their boss, coworkers, office environment, monotony of their schedule, or cubicle are the reasons for their lack of excitement and motivation for their work and life.
However, the truth is that these factors are actually symptoms of a deeper issue that is the true culprit of their frustration. The deeper issue is that they’ve lost touch with what makes them feel alive and passionate about life.
Our jobs are an important way we express our strengths and talents, and a way for us to feel we’re making a contribution to the world. When our jobs do not allow for this expression, we no longer feel fully alive. Instead we feel frustrated, and our days can feel more like drudgery than excitement.
Therefore, if you’re currently dissatisfied with your job, before running to a job board to find openings, spend some time on the following steps:
1) Identify your strengths
- What do people compliment you on?
- What activities cause you to lose track of time because of your enjoyment?
2) Identify the contribution you want to make to the world
- What issues do you get most passionate about?
- How can you help contribute to the solutions around these issues?
By taking a look at these two issues, you are working with the real culprits to your dissatisfaction at work. If you’d like help in identifying your strengths and the contribution you want to make in the world, contact us for a complimentary consultation.
Darcy Holoweski
Certified Career Coach
How to network AND get work experience at the same time
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Struggling to find a job in your industry? Don’t discount the benefit of volunteering. If you volunteer your time in the field of work you are interested in, you still have the option to work a part-time position and make money outside of that industry if needed. This really helps fill gaps in your resume and allows you to network.
Two key benefits of volunteering:
Networking – While you are volunteering you are able to network and make connections within the industry. Knowing people at your ideal place of work can increase your chances of landing an interview down the road. Not only are you meeting people at the company, they get the chance to see how you are taking the initiative to get your foot in the door.
Work Experience – Volunteering is a great way to get experience in your ideal field of work. This will really help build up your resume and help you decide what you like and don’t like about the industry.
Companies like to see people who are proactive in their job search while being unemployed, not just someone who sits on the couch checking job boards. Get out there and do something.
Hallie Crawford
Job Search Coach
Online submitting is not DEAD
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You might think that when you submit to an online application your resume is going into a deep black hole. While it might feel that way, it’s not always the case.
I’ve had two career coaching clients recently who submitted to online jobs. One client got a phone call within 2 hours to set up an interview. He didn’t get that particular job but through that person he heard about another job and was able to secure a job within 3 weeks of submitting to an online job.
My other client received a call almost immediately. Although the job didn’t end up being a fit, he was again able to build a networking contact who put him in contact with a department that would be a good fit. He is actively pursuing that contact now.
So yes you do want to be cautious about ONLY submitting to online applications and job boards, but you don’t want to completely forget them.
It’s like investing when you need to balance your portfolio with different investment choices; you need a good mix of tactics to land your dream job!
How does Emotional Intelligence affect your job search?
Posted by: | CommentsWatch this video as I comment on this clip from the CBS Early Show. Employees are telling their bosses to take a hike despite the tough economy. The two things to pay attention to are:
1) The percentage of employers is 70% who are valuing EQ (Emotional Intelligence) over IQ.
2) How people get to his burnout point.
If you are slightly unhappy in your job, take stock and see if there are changes you can make to improve it. *Watch the CBS clip here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388856n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea
Hallie Crawford
Certified Career Coach
Desperate for your dream job? – Know when to stop drilling
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My career coaching clients tell me all the time, they want to define their passion and define it as specifically as possible so they can then go out there and find the right job. This idea makes sense right? We all want to know what our dream job is. I help them drill down as far as possible in order to figure this out, but what I’ve found over the years of doing this as a career coach is that you also need to know when to stop drilling.
Here’s a client example: My client Bob and I kept drilling down about what he would be excited about in a career. He basically wanted to own a small business that had a positive impact in people in some way. When you look at this statement, it’s pretty vague. We kept trying to figure out and what kind of business he wanted to own. One day I realized we needed to stop doing this; his passion was business and running a business, not necessarily about a certain type of business. Of course, there were certain businesses he said he didn’t want to run – like a sub shop, a dry cleaner, or a business that would harm people or the environment in some way. The point was, that he wanted to own and operate a small business and make it as successful as possible. That was what was fulfilling to him, not what kind of business he was running.
Keep this in mind when you’re trying to clarify your career direction. You have to narrow it down as far as possible, but you also have to know when to stop.
Hallie Crawford
Ideal Career Coach
Find hot job opportunities in your local newspaper
Posted by: | CommentsWatch this YouTube video as I discuss the importance of reading your local newspaper in order to look for openings in your job search. I read the Atlanta Business Chronicle where I regularly find job opportunities. It may seem old fashioned, but it’s important to keep in touch with what’s happening in your area.
Hallie Crawford
Job Search Coach
