Now you will have some data about yourself. You might have lots, or just a very little, it's all fine. The next step of the process is to start to get that data gathered and use it to give us some ideas about the types of organisations and jobs that would and would not suit you.

Remember the distinction between how you work and what you do. The fact that you love helping people doesn't mean you will most enjoy being a nurse, you might equally enjoy being a manager, looking after staff well, or a working in a factory and be a brilliant friend to your colleagues. What we will do here is to apply what you have learned about yourself to both what you want to do and how you want to do it.

A good place to start is to remove the things you really hate. Take a piece of paper. Bring together the things that really annoy you from the previous exercise along with things that really go against your values.

This might be that you don't believe in animal testing, war, or really hate being financially uncertain about your future.

They can be whatever you wish, but capture, in general terms, things that you won't do. Not an exhaustive list of professions, just a prompt to yourself.

Now use the list of other dimensions of work below to identify other aspects you don't want to work for (for example, if you dislike uncertainty you may not wish to work for small companies). Some will prompt you to think of things you do like, so note these. Add other dimensions that are important to you.

Dimensions:

• Size - how big is the organisation, your part of it?
• Culture - how does the company interact with the outside world? What does it stand for? How are people treated?
• People - what type of people do you get on well with? How would your boss work with you? What type of people would you like to work with, have reporting to you?
• Meaning - does it matter what the organisation does? Does it matter what you do?
• Time - how much time do you want to devote to work? Do you prefer small chunks of work? A long project you can get stuck into?
• Distance - How far away is OK?
• Feedback - do you like knowing if you succeeded quickly? Do you prefer to be measured objectively?
• Risk - how much risk and uncertainty would you be OK with - about your hours? Your pay? The amount of travel?
• Status - how important is it that you are recognised by the organisation? Your colleagues?

Remember it's at least as important how you work as what you do. Most people don't think that they would have ended up in the jobs they have, but they can see how they ended up in the type of organisation that they did.

Now you have a lot of information about what you do and do not want to do. The next step of the process is translating this into types of work and attributes of companies. Of course, this bit is actually easy, you have just written these attributes down, but noting your reactions to the various dimensions.

So, now just aggregate these together. For example:
e.g. i know i want to work for a small company, no more than 30 -40 employees. i want it to be within a 30 minute easy commute to work. i dont want a heavy rules based organisation, i want it to be relaxed and trusting and like minded people. i want to be able to make a contribution that makes a difference. id like to be able to use the skills i already have and learn new ones. and ideally in a totally perfect world, i'd like it to have something to do with animals - an animal charity - even better...

Now this doesn't meant that you now know everything about the work that you want to do and organisation that you want to do it in. It does mean that you now know more than you did before, and that's the point of the process, just keeping moving forwards.

Being too practical too early.
Many people worry at this point that they are being unrealistic, or they discount something they really like against a dimension because they think it's impractical or not the sort of thing that they will get to achieve.

You might be right.

However, it's at least possible you could be wrong. Or that you just don't yet see how you are wrong.

For example, you might want to be very visible, even famous in your job. Who are you to say that this is unrealistic? There are people famous in every field from project management to chemical analysis - not just in politics, sport or entertainment.

It's just too early for anyone to know if your desire is practical or not yet. This isn't the point in the process to worry about that, so trust it and go with it, and we'll worry about practicalities later.

The being specific worry.
You have just saved yourself a lot of time and later on, heartbreak.

Although many of us will worry that being specific, especially this specific means that they will count themselves out of lots of possible jobs.

The answer to the worry? You're right. You will. That's the idea.

The alternative is that you have lots of jobs available, and you have no way in which to distinguish what is the best option. You are more likely to end up in an unsuitable job, and not be happy.

Being specific will make it harder to find a job. However it will save you a lot of wasted time as you now know the 99.9% of jobs it's not worth looking at. It will save you even more time in the long run, as although it may take longer to get a job that you specifically know you want, it's going to save you being unhappy and moving on from it.

Next: Look after yourself: dealing with the roller-coaster
to main CV page

Got a suggestion?, email Dave

Can't find what you want? - use the search!

WWW www.arrod.co.uk