How Do I Change Jobs / Careers – Part 6
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
How Do I Change Jobs / Careers – Part 6
(you may wish to read “How Do I change Jobs / Careers” – parts 1 through 5 prior to reading this)
How Do I change Jobs / Careers – Marketable Skills
Did you do your homework from Part 5 of “How Do I change Jobs / Careers?” The list below will help you identify your top skill sets. Once you mark the skill sets that you ‘own’ go back and grade them with an ‘A,’ ‘B’ or ‘C.’ The ones you mark with an ‘A’, will be skill sets that you have three or more good stories of success, ‘B’s’ will be those you have at least two stories of success and ‘C’s’ will be those that you have just one story to tell.
Skills & Capabilities for changing jobs / careers
___ Ability to get things done quickly
___ Action oriented
___ Ambitious
___ Analyze situation rapidly
___ Astute researcher
___ Bring order out of chaos
___ Bring creativity in others Broad administrative skills
___ Consistently find new alternatives
___ Conceptual thinker
___ Contacts at high levels
___ Creative
___ Decisive
___ Diplomatic
___ Direct large meetings skillfully
___ Easily win peoples confidence
___ Effective at dealing with the public
___ Effective at organizing labor
___ Effective moderator and mediator
___ Enterprising / dynamic
___ Entrepreneurial strengths
___ Excellent recruiter
___ Excellent Trainer
___ Exceptional people skills
___ Exceptional team player
___ Flair for putting on events
___ Genuine & sincere
___ Grasp technical matters quickly
___ Handle rapid change easily
___ High achiever / gives 100%
___ High energy / enthusiastic
___ Highly articulate
___ Highly charismatic
___ Highly competitive
___ Highly professional
___ Highly social / outgoing
___ Highly organized
___ In-depth technical knowledge
___ Industry leader
___ Innovator / imaginative
___ Inspire others to top performance
___ Instincts for what will sell
___ Introduce change smoothly
___ Intuitive decision maker
___ Know international markets
___ Knowledge of key markets
___ Likable, friendly
___ Loyal
___ Make forceful group presentations
___ Meet demanding objectives
___ Motivator
___ Natural leader
___ Operations-oriented
___ Perfectionist
___ Perform against tight deadlines
___ Persistent
___ Personal contacts for new business
___ Plan major conferences
___ Precise thinker, logical
___ Problem solver
___ Proven record of success
___ Public speaker
___ Quick thinker
___ Recognized authority in my area
___ Relate easily to people at all levels
___ Reliable / responsible
___ Remain calm under pressure
___ Resourceful
___ Risk taker
___ Seasoned competitor
___ Self-motivated
___ Sense of command
___ Sense of humor
___ Shirt-sleeve approach / hands on
___ Simplify complex problems
___ Skilled at governmental affairs
___ Skilled at union relations
___ Skillful / seasoned negotiator
___ Sophisticated
___ Source of ideas that work
___ Special visual and design taste
___ Strong at consumer selling
___ Strong at corporate selling
___ Strong executive image / presence
___ Strong group communicator
___ Strong social skills
___ Strong theoretical grounding
___ Strong verbal communicator
___ Successfully promote new ideas
___ Superior sales closing skills
___ Superior writing skills
___ Synthesize diverse ideas
___ Tactician / strategic thinker
___ Troubleshooter / problem solver
___ Verbally persuasive / compelling
___ Versatile
___ Very personable & good natured
___ Very positive / upbeat
___ Visionary
___ Well respected
___ Willing to try new approaches
___ Win cooperation at all levels
___ Work alone or as part of a team
From The Professional Job Changing System – Bob Gerberg
In part 3 of “How Do I Change Jobs / Careers” you identified the industry or industries that you wish to pursue; now you have to research what skill sets those industries are looking for… and ‘sell’ those skill sets in your resume and the stories you will tell when it comes time to interview. Remember… your stories have to be about delivering results. You will be hired for your ‘deliverables,’ for your ability to solve their problems.
Once you have identified these top skills, write down the stories that you can tell that talk about a particular situation where you used this skill to deliver a specific result. Remember your being able to solve their problems will help set you apart from the competition.
From this point on in your career, you should take some time each week to write in a Success Journal. Write down anything that you did that week that is noteworthy in someone’s mind. We tend to become more modest as we get older and do what we do more innately… Your Success Journal will not only be a great resource the next time you are looking to change jobs / careers, it will also be a wonderful asset for year end reviews.
If you have not done so yet… Answer the following questions and we will discuss these in future blogs:
Who are your target companies (in the industries you have selected)?
What are your weaknesses?
What obstacle are you running in to, or likely to run in to?
What position(s) are you qualified and desirous of pursuing?
Do those positions or titles change by industry?
What size company would you like to work for… or do you have a preference?
What type of culture do you thrive in?
What are you absolutes in this new position?
Where do you want to be in 3, 5, 7, 10 years once you change jobs / careers?
What is the market paying at your level?
Who will your competition be? i.e. older, younger, better educated, more experience, less experience, more diverse industry experience, etc.
How are you going to compete in each of those areas?
How are you going to get your product (YOU) to market? In other words, how are you going to get in front of the decision makers?
What are you going to put on your resume?
How will your resume stand out form the millions in the market today?
What is your plan to win the phone interview… the face-to face interview(s)?
Begin answering these questions today! We will continue to drill down a little deeper as we continue our topic of “How Do I Change Jobs / Careers.”
Patrick Sanders
If you have a sense of urgency, please feel free to pick up the phone and call me at 800-784-6105 for a free Career Consultation.