Your Possibilities: Career Focus

In our Your Possibilities post last week, we shared an overview of our general approach to supporting those of you in career, retirement, or life transitions.

Whether you’re looking to further your education, make a career pivot, work on a promotion, plan for retirement, change your focus to family, health and wellness, or volunteering in your community, there are lots of moving parts and you may find yourself stuck.

Today, we’re focusing on your career approach. To help you think about this, we’ve put together some key steps in the career strategy journey to give you a framework as you’re looking for work, making a pivot, or considering a promotion.

Life Priorities

• Naming your life priorities is a great way to help you identify, articulate, and claim the things that really matter to you.
• You can use your priorities to intentionally seek out a career or new position that will support you in creating a life of meaning, satisfaction, and success.
• What are the things that matter most to you in your life?

Top Skills and Strengths

• Studies continue to show that the more you use your core skills and strengths, the more motivated, engaged, and satisfied you are with your life.
• We’ve found that it’s important to consider the things you do well that you love doing. We find that this is when you’re most likely to show up at your best.
• What are the things you’re doing when you’re at your best?

Working Conditions

• Being in an environment that’s a good fit for you is just as important as using the skills you love.
• Think about the way you work, communicate, collaborate, give/receive feedback, and the relationships you want to have. 
• What are the working conditions where you’re most likely to thrive?

Your Connections

• Once you’ve defined your priorities, skills, and work environment, it’s important to reach out to your connections to learn more about what might be possible.
• Be sure to have a couple of sentences ready to help people understand where you’re at in the career process as well as some questions you’d like answered.
• Who can you connect with to learn more about work or companies that interest you (or who could help you think about opportunities within your existing company)?

Your Stories

• Now that you’ve been connecting with people and giving them an idea of what you’re up to, it’s important to gather what you’ve learned about yourself, the accomplishments you’re most proud of, and the work you’d like to do.
• Being able to craft stories of who you are and the work you’re proud of doing, is a winning combination for your cover letter, your resume, and at interviews.
• What are some stories that describe you at your best, and how might you tell them in an engaging way?

It’s important to remember that your work should be the right fit for you.

As you look through the steps above, think about the whole of you. What pieces are you missing as you consider the type of work and environment that could be next for you?

Let us know what you find!