Career Coaching - Career Review

Are you considering a career move?

Whether you are embarking on a career move or not it's a good idea to conduct a career review I think at least annually.

Your expectations, needs and wants do change and this applies to your career as much as any other aspects of your life and this warrants a review.

A career review does not necessarily mean a career change. In fact the review may tell you that in most important aspects of your needs and wants your current career is well suited. Perhaps with some small adjustments you can make it the career you truly want. For example you are feeling somewhat demotivated because your boss micro-manages you and you decide to have a conversation with them about a level of delegation that would help to lift your motivation level.

A career review is also useful if you are feeling disconnected from your work and this is affecting your job satisfaction. Perhaps you have got to the stage that you feel sick on a regular basis on a Sunday night or Monday morning. 

How do you go about conducting your career review?

I think that a mind map is a good tool to use here and taking the steps as follows:

1. Draw a circle in the middle of a page of blank A4 paper and write your full name plus 'who am I?' inside it.

2. Now brainstorm all of your current values - what is important to me? For example, my health, my family/friends, my work, my finances, my community, my charitable contributions.

3. Now draw lines from the inner circle, one for each of the values that you have identified.

4. Write the value along each line.

5. Now draw shorter lines emanating from each value and write on these what is important to you about each value. For example, you might write on the health value, time to take varied exercise each day, eat healthily, limit alcohol and sugar. Against my finances you might write work to achieve financial independence so I can choose what I do next.

6. Once you have exhausted the development of your values map you can hone in on any area and for now your focus is on your career.

7. Firstly what insight can you gain about your career from your whole map? For example, does your current career enable you to meet your other values such as for example spending your weekends with your family and friends or does it mean working most weekends?

8. Now, looking at the work area, are you doing the things that you enjoy? For example you may have written on the work arm of your diagram 'developing people' though your current work is mostly on your own and there is little scope for developing people.

9. Usually clues will be presented by your 'values map' which may point to you wanting to consider a career move of some sort along a continuum of more or less radical change. For example if the big picture shouts the desire for 'freedom' you may start working at a plan that involves a move to working for yourself.

10. Jot down some thoughts that you have from completing this exercise. The next step is to do some more research. A book I have found to be useful is 'what colour is my parachute?' within which there is a 'flower' to complete which will provide you with a picture of your ideal career. For example on one petal you note what skills you enjoy using and on another your remuneration needs.

Let me know how you get on with this exercise. If you feel stuck in your career and want some help to achieve a satisfying career for you, do get in touch with me via www.westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk.