Seven Questions for Today's Job Seeker

As a career management professional, I love to ask questions of clients. And the reason I love to ask questions is that I almost always get answers that reveal important information to help me better serve them. Take, for example, my recent interaction with a job seeker who had lost his job and wanted to update his resume. When I asked him this basic question:

What is your new target goal work-wise?

he indicated he had "not a clue" what he wanted to do in the future. Armed with this single bit of information, we quickly shifted from resume-writing to a career transition conversation. The client, by his own admission, was nowhere near ready to write a resume, yet that's what he thought he was "supposed" to do because he didn't know where else to start. When asked about his overall job search strategy, he said his search so far had been one of "Throw some mud and see what sticks."

At the conclusion of our coaching session, he offered "For the first time in months, I feel like there's some hope for me." Hope, indeed! As a job seeker, if you have "not a clue" what you want to do regarding a job or a career, do yourself a favor and take a few steps back before you try to go forward and write a new resume. As a way of getting started with that process, listed below are some questions for you to ask yourself. Take some time to craft your answers. You will then be much better equipped to move forward in the various job search phases, including resume writing.

Question 1: Who are you?

Question 2: What do you want?

Question 3: When you consider your greatest achievements, accomplishments and successes in the last five years, what five come to mind?

Question 4: Where do you want to work?

Question 5: Why are you the best candidate for the job?

Question 6: How will you add value to an organization?

Question 7: How much money do you expect in exchange for your talent?

Homework Exercise:

To get started with this activity today, pick one of the questions from the above list. Do your very best to come up with thoughts and ideas to help formulate answers to each respective question. Tomorrow, pick another question and the day after, yet another. Within a week's time, perhaps you will have compiled some solid information about the who, what, when, where, why, how and how much of an amazing job seeker named Y-O-U!

cross-posted billiesucherblog

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