FINDING THE RIGHT JOB

Before you start job hunting it is important to take some time to understand what you truly want from a job. This will help make your search more efficient and avoid you making a career decision you come to regret.

When most people decide it is time to find a new job they search through websites, professional publications and newspapers hoping that their perfect job will jump out and present itself to them. In reality, this is a pretty inefficient way of searching for your next career move.

Think about how you approach other major decisions in life. Usually they are a bit more structured. Take for instance buying a car. Before buyers start heading to the show rooms and arranging test drives, they generally define a specific set of criteria that will guide their purchase, often on paper, but if not at least in their minds. For instance, are they looking for a small car, family car, luxury saloon or a monster truck? Will it be manual or automatic? Petrol, diesel or electric? New or second hand? They are also likely to have a good idea of their budget.

Unfortunately, very few people apply the same process to understanding what it is they are looking for in their next career move. As a result, significant time and energy can be wasted trawling through job postings looking for some undefined needle in a very large haystack.

Therefore, before you start your job search, I would strongly suggest that you put down on paper some of the key parameters you’re looking for in your next job. This doesn’t have to be an exhaustive list of everything you’ve ever wanted in a job, but it is a useful starting point to help focus your search. Once you’ve got your list on paper, I would also advise categorising each item as either essential or desirable.

As a starting point, consider the industry sectors you would like to work in, the geographic area you are willing to cover, your minimum salary requirements, desirable working hours, and the key responsibilities you would like (or dislike) in a job. It is likely that you may think you know the answers to these questions but writing them down will help you crystallise your thoughts. Once you’ve done this go through the list and mark each criteria as either essential or desirable. Which of the criteria are you willing to be flexible on and which are the ones you must have? In the documents section of this website there is a “Defining Your Criteria” form in Word to help you. This can either be downloaded and typed into or printed and filled out by hand.

The likelihood is that once you’ve written this list down, you will probably not look at it very often as in most parts it will be committed to memory. However, the process of writing the list down is very helpful in forcing you to give consideration to specific points and answer questions that you would probably not have done otherwise.