Читать книгу Career Management - Carolyn Boyes - Страница 7

One of the first things you can do to get on track in your career is take a personal inventory. This means looking at what you are really good at. Include not only your work skills and knowledge but also your natural talents and personal strengths.

The most thorough way to do this is to list each job role or activity you’ve carried out in the past and analyse each in turn. Think about the skills you used as well as any knowledge you gained. You will probably identify certain skills that you use consistently more than others.

case study The first job Sally had was in insurance. She had to deal with numbers and information all day long. She was bored and constantly passed over for promotion. Sally spent 10 years thinking she would never have much of a career. Then her company went through hard times and her job was made redundant. Sally took the opportunity to take a hard look at her skills and experience. She took a psychometric test, which confirmed that she needed a job focused on people. Now she works in a small company doing direct sales. “My biggest skill is in talking to people,” she says. “I feel much happier and I have been so successful that I was promoted after a year!”

Next, look at the broad areas below. How do you rate your own skills in each of the areas: above average – good – average – below average? Write down the results.

• People. For example, influencing people, persuading, supporting, helping, negotiating with, selling to, entertaining or teaching them.

• Ideas. Being innovative, experimental, visionary or creative; being able to think well in the abstract, about future possibilities; how to change things for the better or improvise, design.

• Things. For example, manual work, dealing with machinery or equipment, using tools, having practical skills.

• Data. For example, handling details of numbers or information, interpreting and presenting data, IT, organizing and administrating.

Compare your list of the skills you have used in the past to the list of what you are good at. You can then make a new list combining the two: what you are good at and what you have experience in. This gives you an inventory of the strengths you will be selling in your career.

Find out whether you are naturally better with people, ideas, things or data.