Unemployment is something that is hitting the developed world right now unlike it ever has before. People are out searching for jobs now in a way that most employees AND businesses are not used to as new professionals, people changing careers, and experienced professionals all have been forced to polish up their resumé. For some of the numbers, check out our recent post here.
The important thing to note here is that there is a common misconception that the reason why someone doesn’t find work is because of their quality/quantity of experience. However, it’s more about connecting with your personal values, passions, and goals. Once we do that, we can develop resumé, cover letter, and even interview skills to match.
We have recently started to mentor all three of the categories of job seeker mentioned above as part of our mentorship services and the value that we are getting from spending serious time exploring the “WHO” before building a resumé that captures the “WHAT” is massive!
Look at this feedback from Lesley, 38 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada:
“I thought I was looking for work, but I quickly realized I wasn’t giving myself enough credit. After sitting down with Ken I was able to recognize what I truly wanted and how my diverse experiences had given me skills I didn’t even recognize”.
It became clear at this point that the value in giving people meaningful perspective on themselves AND their experiences was the true path to long term success in the job market. This mentorship with Lesley quickly showed that the same mentality that we, at The Boost Institute, have had from the outset about athletes can be very successful when adapted for job seekers!
So how do you actually identify some new aspects of yourself that can impact your job search? Try these simple steps:
- Complete simple exercises such as our “Building Your Own Personal Philosophy” worksheet from our mentorship or reading an article like this one.
- Then write down 5 moments you’ve learned a lot in life and why you chose them. Think back to each of these moments and reflect on the things you were learning at the time that you didn’t know you were learning. For example, when you were fired from a job or cut from a team, what were the things that those situations taught you?
- Now that you have a better idea of who you are, where you want to go, and you’re in a head space of reflection you can move on to the final step. Identify the things on your resumé (or anything in your professional life) that have another level. These are the aspects that have more than what you’ve written on paper so far…the things that you can truly leverage by identifying the transferable skills that they involve.
By connecting your current resumé with the things that are most connected to who you are, you are truly leveraging some of the things that will help you to find, not only a job, but the right job for you.
-Boost
If you want to sign up for our “Job Seekers” mentorship program, we spend 3 hours working through who you are & what you’ve done, in order to connect it to who you want to be and what you want to do. Sign up now by clicking here.
