There are 3 critical inputs to any Job Application.
If you skip any of them, you will be heading for a suboptimal outcome.
These are:
- Self-assessment (revealing your own unique value and prefererences)
- Market assessment (understanding the mega-trends in job market and the world)
- Understanding the process (how the entire process works in the real world)
1. To assess yourself requires a deep dive into your past, present and future.
We have developed over 20 Exercises over the years to enable anyone to get a clear picture of who they are in their career and their overall life.
These are listed below and are all available in our Members Area and in my book.
Exercise 1 - What gives you satisfaction in life?
Exercise 2 - The Living on Purpose Exercise
Exercise 3 ? Setting Goals Around My Priorities
Exercise 4 ? Preferred Skills
Exercise 5 - Career Values
Exercise 6 - Work Satisfiers
Exercise 7 - Career Settings
Exercise 8 - Career Constraints
Exercise 9 - Life-Work Balance
Exercise 10 - Target role
Exercise 11 - Organisation/Industry
Exercise 12 - Boss
Exercise 13 - Location
Exercise 14 - Environment
Exercise 15 - Compensation
Exercise 16 - Alignment of professional and personal goals
Exercise 17 - Lifestyle Analysis
Exercise 18 - Self-analysis words - for YOU to complete
Exercise 19 - Self-analysis - for SOMEONE ELSE to complete ABOUT YOU
Exercise 20 - Write your own job target
Exercise 21 - Employment History
Exercise 22 ? Developing Your Skills & Experience Inventory
Exercise 23 - Your Achievements
Exercise 24 - Academic, Training, Special skills and Other attributes
This is a lot of Exercises and takes a fair bit of time to complete them all, but it will build a COMPLETE Career and Life profile for you and anyone else who invests the time to complete them.
It is the starting point in our 7-step life/career coaching process:
And while that model is primarily geared towards the employee model, it is increasingly being used for the growing number of people who are starting their own business, entering the gig economy, becoming internet and/or network marketing entrepreneurs, etc.
2. Assess the market to position yourself for an uncertain future
This requires an in-depth look at the trends in the marketplace. The old truths no longer apply.
In my original book, written way back in the 90s, I had written at length about the ICT mega-trends ? in other words how Internationalisation, Competition and Technology were changing the entire landscape of how work got done and the new types of work emerging.
And I was spot on.
Since then, the pace has quickened and has changed the world forever.
COVID-19 has accelerated and magnified many of the trends that were already well underway ? eg digital transformation, workplace flexibility, climate change and many others, including the ?side effects? of the economic, business and workplace changes that COVID-19 has brought, but the momentum on some of these trends have now made them unstoppable.
If we are to survive and thrive in this new economy, it is incumbent upon us all to understand the direction and speed of these changes so we can take advantage of the opportunities that are offered while avoiding the threats that are posed.
The world has become more volatile, more unpredictable, more difficult to plan lives and careers and more difficult to know how to prepare for such an uncertain future.
In short, we need to open our eyes and ears and
pay greater attention to what?s going on in the world.
For it is your business when the wall next door catches fire. Horace
One glaring example of all these increasing difficulties is for students who need to decide which degree to take, when in some cases, the first year of a degree becomes 100% obsolete by the time the degree is completed. That?s how fast things are moving.
They have to place bets on what skills are going to be in demand in the workplace in 3 or 4 years? time and in the new normal, it?ll only be the exceptionally blessed/lucky student who can pick the winners correctly.
Many will get it wrong.
What trends am I talking about?
How about this one:
Many of these changes have profound implications for employees, employers, businesses and governments and we are all trying to figure them out as they affect us and our eco-system.
I will cover other trends in other blogposts but make no mistake ? the world is indeed changing.
2. Understand the Job Application process from beginning to end as each will impact the others
© Peter Fleming FCMA All rights reserved
Doing all this on your own can be daunting.
It can look like a long journey and sometimes it certainly can be, but as a career coach, I help people to shorten (and sweeten) that journey by making it easier, faster, more enjoyable and more fruitful.
In fact, understanding and following the process is essential for any one of us who is interested in having a great job, leading to a great life.
Of course, there?s much more to these themes than I can include in this article but stay tuned for future blogposts here.
If you prefer to get it all in one place, you can download my best-selling book
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, LOVE WHAT YOU DO
at a special member?s price.
Till next time, always remember I am rooting for you!
With love & blessings
Peter Fleming FCMA
Your Career Success Coach