List what you love

This series is all about Building Your Ideal Position. Let's recap the last four weeks:
  1. Observe- we started out slow, observing interactions and feedback, focusing on when people are already telling you that you are valuable.
  2. Ask- then we stepped it up by actively soliciting feedback from people who know you well.
  3. Find your core values- an inward exercise to hone in on your values.
  4. Personality matters- expanding on your values, looking at your personality, and how it is described in different ways.

Now what do you do with all of this?! Well, you turn it into what you have to offer a company, others, the world. Because as you have been learning- only you can be you, and there is value in that.
You have spent time gathering data and learning about how to talk about your assets, values and preferences. Now we will begin to mirror that to what is being asked for.   
This week you will search in order to compile a list of points that most interest you. 

  • Start with companies that already interest you. Visit their career section and peruse their open positions. Don't restrict yourself to positions that you might qualify for, read through anything you might find interesting. This will give you an overall idea of what the company is looking for and how they talk about that. As you go, copy and save any job responsibilities that resonate with you. If it sounds interesting, or intrigues you, add it to your list.
  • Then broaden your search. Use any job search site of your choice. You can start with big ones like Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Idealist, Dice, Angel List, The Muse, Career Builder, Zip Recruiter, Mediabistro, Dribble, Coroflot ... just to name a few. That should cover a wide range of industries and positions from Start Ups, design, construction, high tech and so on. The reason to use aggregator sites like this is so you can enter in keywords rather than positions titles. It is great if you don't yet know what your Ideal Position is called. Start by entering some of those descriptors that you have discovered over the last few exercises. Maybe you were a "troubleshooter" or a "promoter". Put those keywords into the search to see what comes up! Read through those job descriptions with the same goal as above- if something in the role sounds interesting, then add that bullet point to your list.
  • Know you are going for a certain type of position? Search Workable for standard job descriptions, and then continue to add the interesting aspects of those descriptions to your list. You might even find that more than one position title is interesting to you!
These exercises allow you to refine what types of companies and positions appeal to you AND will fit your personality, are in line with your values, and are probably things you are already doing well (based on that feedback you observed and gathered). Now you know how companies are talking about those things that you are naturally inclined towards and actually interested in doing! So get that list going, and check back next week for more actionable next steps.

Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash

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