WHY WOULD ANYBODY HIRE ME?
If you can′t identify what you′re good at, how can you sell yourself to a company? Based on many studies, reports and practical knowledge of career management and outplacement, we know that organizations look for three things when they hire someone:
1. Business and technical skills.
2. Market knowledge and experience based on specific situations.
3. Personality traits that fit the culture of their organization.
Armed with this knowledge, you can then assess yourself. Hard to do? Yes. Must be done? Yes.
Don′t exaggerate but don′t short change yourself either. Identify as many achievements in your life as you can. What was the situation? What action did you take? What was the result? These achievements do not necessarily have to be business situations. Events in our personal lives take fully as many skills and test our mettle as do those in our business lives.
After you have identified as many achievements as you can - try for 20 - go back. What strengths did you draw on in each of those situations? Write them down.
Look at these strengths. Do any appear several times? Do you have a real or perceived weakness? Does it appear? Do trends appear?
What did you achieve? Did you achieve anything? Were you satisfied with the results?
Now look again at your strengths. Which of these situations presented you with an opportunity to do something you really enjoyed? When you can link a real strength with enjoyment, you are looking at the core of yourself.
Next time we will figure out what we enjoy.