How to increase employability?
There are times when catching up with friends, the topic that we will be talking about — how’s your job? how’s work? and work.
Especially during post-pandemic, most of us have perceived work, job, career very differently compared to pre pandemic. Life priorities and our lifestyle have been pretty much different. If you have questions such as “hmm, I think I would want to pivot…. I have thought about..new working environment… hmm… I would like to give it a try…”
It’s always alright to pivot and widening the way we want to experience life, especially our career. Hence, the main problem is not the end goal (as in to get employed) — as in how do I looked for the best or ideal job/career.
But the one thing we can constantly work on regardless of which career path we choose — it is about increasing our very own employability. Once we are confident with our own employability, the probability of landing to your dream career will not be that far fetch.
These are some of the steps I always share with my friends, clients and mentees over a cup of coffee. hope you will find this useful.
There will be time we asked ourselves — maybe it’s time for me to move on from this current job or thinking what’s next for myself after this. Let’s start from learning some tips on how to increase our employability.
Here are the 5 tips that I would like to share with you and you can start doing immediately:
1. Profile and Craft your Unique Story.
What do I mean by profile — it is not always about your resume or CV.
But let’s start to think about how would you want your audience (your next interviewer) to get to know you, think from that approach.
Unique story starts with you being you.
If you have five years working experience, think about what are the main highlight you wanted to share with the audience, what are the main key things you learned about yourself. Profile yourself — will guide you to look at your core value that you believe in. If you know the core value that you valued for yourself, this will be the differentiating factor compared to other candidates.
Think and write about your forte — work skills that you are proud of, for example, if you are really good in excel, powerpoint, making pitch deck and etc, just highlight the 2–3 skills that you are very proud of. And think about the record, for example, how many times you have successfully complete a certain task and etc. It is not always about the recognition or award you received, it is about how many times you have completed, how many people you have helped or impacted, what are the success stories.
Draw your life chart — highlight personal achievement and professional achievement for each of the year. When we pen it down on a paper, we can see and we know which of that particular event you would want to share to your audience.
Once you have few points after you have done the exercise above, then you can start by connecting the dots and come out with a strong compelling story as in why you are currently looking for a shift, change or pivot in your career.
2. Develop your unique career-design game plan
Give yourself a timeline
Now, draw three column on that A4 paper. What are the short term, mid term and long term career pivot strategy for yourself. Every career pivot is a new learning curve. Allowing yourself to be able to lay out all the options is crucial. The main mindset shift before drawing a game plan would be stop overthinking, just stop that imposter syndrome that you have for years, stop associating your self-identity to the next career you plan to move on.
Design your career and curate the job that fits your interests, beliefs, and life activities that you want to do. It is not about the work-life-balance anymore, but it is about integrating your career strategically with your desired lifestyle that matter. Start with this end goal in mind would definitely help you feel more fulfilled in the next career journey.
Years ago, I have been thinking a lot about what is career, well, there will be those moment in life, where you start to question a lot about what you want to do, and also why you want to do what you want to do.
According to the State of the Global Workplace 2022 report by Gallup, we spent 81,396 hours working. The only thing we spend more time doing is sleeping. If we spend so much of life at work, how is life at work going?”
“According to the world’s worker, not well. Gallup finds 60% of people are emotionally detached at work and 19% are miserable.
But is that a surprise, or a statistical explanation of the obvious?”
Excerpt from Gallup CEO, Jon Clifton.
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My dear friends, I have came to also some awakening moments in life while I think about my career, it has to be really something deeply, madly truly I CARE about. Therefore, my definition of career is as below:
It has to be something you care enough. The cause is important in a career, you can perform your skills to contribute to the greater cause that will give you the sense of purpose.
The industry that you believe in that could bring change.
And the people, look for a company or organisation culture and belief that fits your archetype.
Expand your job consideration factor to the people as well, think about the community that you are going to impact, think about the clients of that company, think about the people involved, and lastly, how do you see yourself contributing in that particular job.
All these questions will help you to create your own meaning at work. Hence, while you are answering your interviewer’s question, you already have the deeper sense of ownership with the job you are applying.
3. Don’t rush — keep an open mind to explore and start doing the career curation work.
Start by identifying your own set of criteria and needs from the next career: What you want in the next job? What do you need from work in order to stay motivated? All these leading questions will help you in your later part while you are going for interview and negotiating for the benefit or salary package.
Not all the time it is about industry selection. For example, a specialist, probably you are very much looking into how can you apply that very specific skillset that the company is looking for. But let’s not be too restricted by that, keep an open mind to explore. Who knows even is different industry, you are able to perform the same skill set but in a different context. If you are a generalist, you can also be listing down your top 2–3 skills that you enjoy doing, that you would want to sharpen, that you would want to challenge yourself. Don’t let just industry-change scare you, just do the homework, connect to the people, who knows people might actually looking for that skills that you are good at!
Play your strength cards.
We all have a few cards on hand. Be it people skill, computer skills, digital skills, presentation skills and etc. You have that few cards on your hand that you are always confident about, you know you are good in that kind of card. Look for the environment that can allow you to play your strength cards. Don’t rush, keep searching, keep connecting and communicating with people.
Work on Excelsheet
Open that few tabs. List down the most desirable organisation you want to work in and clearly articulate why that organisation, which department you want to get into, this process helps you to think critically and analytically.
Research about the company background, leadership, organisational chart, what kind of values, missions and visions are they practicing, look into the newsroom, gallery. Connect to people who are working in that organisation, speak to them, understand the environment before you click apply and submit your resume.
4. I NEED TO CAPITALISE THIS TIP:
SWITCHING THE MINDSET FROM LOOKING FOR A JOB TO INTERVIEWING THE RIGHT MATCH FOR YOU YOURSELF.
I would say this is going to make a huge difference when you have done step 1 to 3 and come to this step. Because you would know what questions you want to ask your interviewer about the job, about the position, about the expectation and about the future growth plan of the organisation. But, ask in the appropriate context, of course. This is when you have a clear purpose and clear why of that particular career plan for you yourself.
Map the organisational aspiration to your own career-blueprint — it is an on-going learning journey no matter how, but if we are clear with what we want first before stepping into a new career, you can save a lot of time, you will know what is matching for you, and what is not. and this will make your decision-making process become more informed, more strategic and holistic for you yourself.
Now, ask yourself this — how do you want to grow yourself in the next career pivot. The next career maybe, probably has to be a little bit more challenging, so you grow right, it has to be some exciting element there for you to look forward.
Be clear about how do you want to build your life around it. I know you might have lots of questions by now… so. the fifth tip here would be:
5. Work together with a career coach or career mentor to stay accountable in this journey!
Your career mentor or coach going to help you with :
Formulating the plan, following through your plan, through this process, you are getting clearer with your own career-blueprint too. You get to know yourself better too.
Career coaching process is also a process of clarifying those questions mentioned above, and what do you need to take note when you are doing the career-shopping. You probably might asked — what all that has to do with increasing employability — because when you know what you want, you are gaining the upper hand in this job-market.
Have fun & Good luck :)
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Connect with me to exchange more insights and understand more about your next career plan —
pennyleong.enrich@gmail.com
