If I say the word résumé, I expect that you will have a good idea of what I am referring to. Simply put, a résumé is (ideally) a one to two-page document that highlights your education, skills, and job history. The purpose of a résumé is to obtain a job interview. But this is not the only use for a résumé. I am a big fan of the late Joseph Campbell. During his time as a professor at Sarah Lawrence College a student in their senior year walked up to Campbell looking for direction in life after graduating college. Campbell’s short answer was “follow your bliss”. To expand this thought a bit, I believe what Campbell was saying to his student was to find those things in life that brought the student joy, satisfaction, and sense of worth. My belief on this is the same as Campbell’s. This is the guidance to I give to Clients, and others I meet who are looking for direction in their Career. And really this is the core of what my Coaching Practice is about. But how do we find our bliss? And can bliss exist in our Career? I believe it can. One tool I have found very useful to discover our bliss; those things that make use happy, feel satisfied, feel that we have worth we already have in our job tool box. What follows is how we can use our résumé in a new way; to discover which career will give us best satisfaction. I refer to this type of satisfaction in our life as best Business Quality of Life (BQL).
Below is step by step process to leverage your Résumé to find Career Happiness:
1) Get your Résumé Current: In part 3 of Career Jump Start, I gave instructions, and guidelines on how to create a quality résumé. To arrive at a perfect final version can take time. If you are not 100% complete on your final version, this is OK. Just get your most recent revision, run spell check, and do whatever clean up on formatting that is needed.
2) Print out your Résumé: I know – old school – but works the best for this exercise. This will become clearer as we progress into the later steps.
3) Locate Your Favorite Past Job: Go through the previous jobs on your résumé (including volunteer jobs) and number the job you liked most - mark this job in pencil or pen “#1”
4) Locate your Second Favorite Job: Review the remaining jobs on your résumé, and decide what job you liked second best – mark this job in pencil or pen as “#2”.
5) Rank your other Favorite Jobs: Continue your review of past jobs, and rank the jobs on your résumé based on those you liked the most; those jobs that gave you most happiness, sense of satisfaction, and worth. Note: My suggestion is to have at least three job ranked – if you are in the middle or end of your career, the list may go to 5 or even more. My suggestion is to stop at your top five.
6) Create a Job Matrix: Once you have your favorite jobs ranked, start a new document. This can be handwritten, or can be on word processor, or spreadsheet – your choice. Just keep in mind you are creating matrix. Call this new document “Job Happiness Matrix”.
7) Label your Job Happiness Matrix: Your new document can be a table or spreadsheet – any too that you like where you can create a matrix with columns and rows. matrix. In the first row, first column, name the column “Best Job and Ranking”. Label the second column “Things I liked Most”. When you are done, label the third column “Things I disliked the most”.
8) List Job Number One: List your favorite job position in the 2nd row of the Column labeled “Best Job and Ranking”. Now, list your 2nd favorite job in the third row, just below your first favorite job.
9) Populate the Matrix with your Favorite Jobs: Continue listing your favorite jobs in the first column, until you have finished listing your most favorite jobs. Again, my suggestion – stop at your top five jobs.
10) Populate with the Things You Liked Most: Once you have all your favorite jobs listed, go to the 2nd column, “Things I liked Most” and use bullet points to capture those things in your top favorite job that you like most. Examples: These will vary by person, but some examples for this column might be “I got to work from home”, or “My management supported me”, or “My opinions were listened to by management” or “Great Bonuses”. List up to five things you liked about your favorite job. Continue this process for all the jobs you listed, until you have content for all the jobs under the column “Things I liked Most”
12) Populate with the Things you Disliked: When you have finished populating with all the things you liked about your favorite jobs, go back starting with your favorite job and start working on column #3, “Things I disliked the most”. Again, use bullet points to list those things you like the least, or even hated about each job, starting with your favorite job. Examples: Again, this will vary with the individual, but some examples might be “I hated the commute”, or “I did not trust my boss”, or “I got new bosses every 6 months” – and yes – this actually happened to me!
13) Complete the Matrix: Once you have the table/matrix completed, save it and put it away for the day. Good work. For the rest of the day, put this work out of your mind.
14) High Light Important Items in the Matrix: The day following completion of the table/matrix – go back to the “Job Happiness Matrix”, and look for things that particularly stand out to you. This can be both items that you liked, or things that you strongly disliked. Look for patterns. Bold or circle those items that seem to repeat, or in other ways, stand out to you. And save the document for reference later.
Once you have finished the process, you have identified those things that are desirable in your in your next job and career, and like-wise those things that you dislike, and hopefully can avoid or minimize in your next job. You have identified aspects of your career, and your past jobs that have brought you real happiness, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment. These elements were discovered through reviewing your own real-life job experiences. You have also captured the evil sisters – those things in past jobs that you have disliked – things that have gotten in the way of our Business Quality of Life (BQL). These are red flags as we continue on our career path. Those elements in your matrix that were circled become sign posts that will give direction in your next career move. And the tool you have created, can be used to help you decide on which jobs to pursue, and which jobs to accept. If your next job offer is 80% to 100% aligned with things that we like most from our jobs – your chances for success, and satisfaction are high. By contrast, if your next job offer aligns with only 60% or lower of the things that we like most, and if it contains many elements of things that we disliked on previous jobs, your chances for success and job happiness are not good. If you put effort into the process I have given, you will see that your résumé can serve more than one purpose. It can not only as a key to securing a job interview, but you can also leverage your résumé as a tool to discover what jobs will make us the happiest in our next career move. Your résumé is trying to tell you something. You just need to heat the message, and take note.
Author: Brian Kail, MBA, CPC, CCC is a Career and Business Coach. For more information see AscendProCoach.com
Below is step by step process to leverage your Résumé to find Career Happiness:
1) Get your Résumé Current: In part 3 of Career Jump Start, I gave instructions, and guidelines on how to create a quality résumé. To arrive at a perfect final version can take time. If you are not 100% complete on your final version, this is OK. Just get your most recent revision, run spell check, and do whatever clean up on formatting that is needed.
2) Print out your Résumé: I know – old school – but works the best for this exercise. This will become clearer as we progress into the later steps.
3) Locate Your Favorite Past Job: Go through the previous jobs on your résumé (including volunteer jobs) and number the job you liked most - mark this job in pencil or pen “#1”
4) Locate your Second Favorite Job: Review the remaining jobs on your résumé, and decide what job you liked second best – mark this job in pencil or pen as “#2”.
5) Rank your other Favorite Jobs: Continue your review of past jobs, and rank the jobs on your résumé based on those you liked the most; those jobs that gave you most happiness, sense of satisfaction, and worth. Note: My suggestion is to have at least three job ranked – if you are in the middle or end of your career, the list may go to 5 or even more. My suggestion is to stop at your top five.
6) Create a Job Matrix: Once you have your favorite jobs ranked, start a new document. This can be handwritten, or can be on word processor, or spreadsheet – your choice. Just keep in mind you are creating matrix. Call this new document “Job Happiness Matrix”.
7) Label your Job Happiness Matrix: Your new document can be a table or spreadsheet – any too that you like where you can create a matrix with columns and rows. matrix. In the first row, first column, name the column “Best Job and Ranking”. Label the second column “Things I liked Most”. When you are done, label the third column “Things I disliked the most”.
8) List Job Number One: List your favorite job position in the 2nd row of the Column labeled “Best Job and Ranking”. Now, list your 2nd favorite job in the third row, just below your first favorite job.
9) Populate the Matrix with your Favorite Jobs: Continue listing your favorite jobs in the first column, until you have finished listing your most favorite jobs. Again, my suggestion – stop at your top five jobs.
10) Populate with the Things You Liked Most: Once you have all your favorite jobs listed, go to the 2nd column, “Things I liked Most” and use bullet points to capture those things in your top favorite job that you like most. Examples: These will vary by person, but some examples for this column might be “I got to work from home”, or “My management supported me”, or “My opinions were listened to by management” or “Great Bonuses”. List up to five things you liked about your favorite job. Continue this process for all the jobs you listed, until you have content for all the jobs under the column “Things I liked Most”
12) Populate with the Things you Disliked: When you have finished populating with all the things you liked about your favorite jobs, go back starting with your favorite job and start working on column #3, “Things I disliked the most”. Again, use bullet points to list those things you like the least, or even hated about each job, starting with your favorite job. Examples: Again, this will vary with the individual, but some examples might be “I hated the commute”, or “I did not trust my boss”, or “I got new bosses every 6 months” – and yes – this actually happened to me!
13) Complete the Matrix: Once you have the table/matrix completed, save it and put it away for the day. Good work. For the rest of the day, put this work out of your mind.
14) High Light Important Items in the Matrix: The day following completion of the table/matrix – go back to the “Job Happiness Matrix”, and look for things that particularly stand out to you. This can be both items that you liked, or things that you strongly disliked. Look for patterns. Bold or circle those items that seem to repeat, or in other ways, stand out to you. And save the document for reference later.
Once you have finished the process, you have identified those things that are desirable in your in your next job and career, and like-wise those things that you dislike, and hopefully can avoid or minimize in your next job. You have identified aspects of your career, and your past jobs that have brought you real happiness, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment. These elements were discovered through reviewing your own real-life job experiences. You have also captured the evil sisters – those things in past jobs that you have disliked – things that have gotten in the way of our Business Quality of Life (BQL). These are red flags as we continue on our career path. Those elements in your matrix that were circled become sign posts that will give direction in your next career move. And the tool you have created, can be used to help you decide on which jobs to pursue, and which jobs to accept. If your next job offer is 80% to 100% aligned with things that we like most from our jobs – your chances for success, and satisfaction are high. By contrast, if your next job offer aligns with only 60% or lower of the things that we like most, and if it contains many elements of things that we disliked on previous jobs, your chances for success and job happiness are not good. If you put effort into the process I have given, you will see that your résumé can serve more than one purpose. It can not only as a key to securing a job interview, but you can also leverage your résumé as a tool to discover what jobs will make us the happiest in our next career move. Your résumé is trying to tell you something. You just need to heat the message, and take note.
Author: Brian Kail, MBA, CPC, CCC is a Career and Business Coach. For more information see AscendProCoach.com
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