Stop aimlessly drifting the careers ocean says York’s job finder general Simon Wallace, in the third part of his guide to landing the job of your dreams
Part 3: Career Anchors
In the last part I asked you to write down what you are good at. There are, of course, certain other considerations when looking for a job. I call these Career Anchors. Not because of their restrictive nature but because they can help you locate a specific job without searching the whole ocean. We shall look at the main anchors and then the minor anchors.
Firstly, how much do you need to earn? (Note: this is different to how much you would like to earn). A simple and effective way of doing this is to add up your outgoings such as mortgage/rent, utility bills, food, motoring costs, entertainment etc. If you are in a relationship, work out what your contribution to these costs is going to be. This figure will let you know how much minimum you need to earn (after tax). Add this figure to your list.
Secondly, you need to work out where you are going to work. This relates to both geographical location and what sort of environment. How far can you commute? Can you move to another area? Do you want to work indoors or outdoors? Do you want to work in an office or in a shop? Do you want to work for a specific company? Put these requirements on the list.
Thirdly, you need to know when you can work; what hours. Can you work Monday to Friday 9 to 5 or do you need to be more flexible with your hours? Do you want to work everyday or do you just want some part time work? Add your “hours” requirements to the list.
So you should now have the anchors of your job: what you are good at, how much it pays, where it is and what hours you work. This series is all about your ideal job though, so we need to add a few more criteria to the list.
Who do you want to work with? What opportunities do you want to have? What is the culture of the company you work for? These are the “real” motivators in the work place (for further information search the internet for “motivation in the workplace”). This is what makes the difference between an OK job and an ideal job.
Now that you have your ideal job description, it is time to go out and start looking for it. You don’t need to worry about job adverts, CVs and interview though yet; that is what the crowd does. In the next part I’ll teach you how to get a few steps ahead of the crowd.
Next part – Learning
- See the rest of the Job Finder General series here
- Follow Simon on Twitter
- Click here for the B&A Careers website