A common question that's often asked of me as a career coach from my clients will go
something like this. "You know, Bill, I've been working the same job for the last 20
years and, quite frankly, I'm burned out on it, I want to make a change. I want to do
something different. I don't know what that something is. I don't know if it's going to
be doing the same thing but for a different company, maybe going into business myself,
I just don't know what the answer is. Can you take a look at my skills on my resume
and tell me what you think I would be a great fit for?"
My name is Bill Benoist, I'm a certified professional career coach here in Silicon Valley and I
primarily work with individuals in mid to late career. I like to say I help them find
jobs that feel their passion rather than zapping it. In today's video, I want to share with
you how I go about helping individuals make a career move, a pivot or a transition.
First and foremost, it's not about your current skills, it is about your core values, it's
about the strengths that you have. What is it that you are most passionate about? A lot
of times I'll sit there and say, "So what are your values?" People will struggle with
this so I'm going to give you a couple of resources and exercises that you can do to
determine your core values because, again, it has to start with this foundation. Before
we ever look at what is it that you believe you would enjoy doing next in life, it has
to start with, "Well, what are your core values? What is it that's most important for you?"
One, one that I think was a favorite of mine was the Gallup Strength Finder. The Gallup
Strength Finder, it's a book that you buy. You can order it on Amazon or it's pretty
much off of just about every bookstore that I've ever gone to. It's a book, it's filled
with 34 chapters, and in each chapter talks about one of the core strengths. You don't
read the book immediately, what you do is after you buy the book you go to the end of
the book and it'll be a little sticker there that you'll peel off and it'll have you go
to a specific website for the Strength Finders assessment.
It's an assessment, it will take about 30 minutes to complete. You put a little access
code in and when you complete it you're going to receive your top five core signature strengths.
What Gallup believes is that we hold onto these strengths since we're very young. In
other words, they develop at a very young age but we maintain these over time, that
they just get stronger and stronger and stronger.
Give you an example. My core strength is connectedness, I am a people person. I got to tell you, I
am definitely a people person, I am doing what I love to do and I'm using my number
one core strength as a career coach. Another great resource is www.authentichappiness.org.
Now, before you think this is a wu-wu site or anything like that, authentichappiness.org
sits on the Penn State servers. There is a discipline in psychology called Positive Psychology
and the person that is often considered the father of Positive Psychology is one of the
... I think he is now the director of this department. His named is Dr. Martin Seligman
and a lot of his work is based upon his research out there.
You can go to authentichappiness.org, doesn't cost anything. You do have to register for
this and it's only because you have the scientific community that is always extrapolating data
and running research papers on this. One of the best assessments out there is something
called the DIA Character Strikes. It's also about 30 minutes to complete and this is going
to come back with what it says are your core values.
Now, another one is one that I actually use with my clients, I call it the hierarchy of
criteria. The way this works is you get a sheet of paper and you divide it in half so
there's two columns there. In the first column, I want you to number it one through 13 and
I want the top to say what is most important. Then look at this, the 13 items, I want you
to start thinking about what is it that's most important for you in a job?
Everybody's going to be a little bit different. Somebody might have salary as number one,
somebody might have flexibility as number one, somebody might have commute as number
one. You're going to sit there and you're going to list what is most important for you
when it comes to a job. Like most people, you're going to get stuck right around the
fourth or fifth item but keep at it because it will start coming to you.
It may take you about 10 minutes because you'll probably get stuck again at right around number
eight, but it's really super important that you have a list of 13 there, 13 items of what
is most important for you in a job. Now, once you list I want you to look at that list and
ask yourself this question. "If I could only have one of those items on this list, just
one, what would it be?" That's what you're going to put on the right hand side of the
column and you're going to call that column must haves or the very most important.
Once you figure that must have out, that number one, I want you to cross it off your list
on the left hand side. Then looking at that list again, you have 12 items left, what is
it that is most important? If you could only have one of those 12, what would it be? You're
going to cross that off the list and you're going to put it on the other side.
You got it, that's what you're going to be doing for the rest of this exercise. You're
going to look at the left-hand side, ask yourself, "Okay, I have 10 items left. If I could only
have one of these, only one, what would it be?" You're going to cross it off the left
hand side and you're going to move it over to the right hand side.
By the time you're done, you've moved all 13 items from the left hand side but you've
re-prioritized them to the right hand side. This is going to be what is absolutely most
important for you. Then we're going to take the top five items and those top five items
are going to be your core values. If you're serious about making a career change, making
a pivot, maybe even opening up your own business, want you to remember it's not based upon your
skill set, it's based upon your core values, that has to be the foundation.
This is the first video in a series of videos of making a career change. In my next video,
I'm going to talk about exploring opportunities out there. If you haven't already subscribed
to this channel, what better reason than to subscribe now. Hit the bell notification,
that way you're not going to miss anything moving forward. I look forward to seeing you
in the next video. For now, thanks for stopping by.