Want to be an astronaut or a baker or a carpenter? Perhaps you’d prefer
to be a chef or a pilot or a successful entrepreneur? Choosing your
options is never going to be that easy; what you need is to collate the
things you are good at with the things you enjoy doing and then see
where that leads you. Analyze your skills first, think about what you
want to use, then choose your job options. Think about your life, and
your future, and like a tree, see where the branches lead to from what
you have done, and what you still want to do with your life.

Steps

1. Analyze your skills by listing your top ten achievements or career events that you are most proud of. You should do this by looking at your achievements, which are your richest source of information providing concrete and tangible evidence of what you have done so far. Use an active verb at the beginning of the phrase, and you’ll hear how much more powerful it sounds.
2. Ask yourself exactly what you did (try: where did I start?) Then think about what happened next (or perhaps – what did I say?).
3. Consider what skills you used when you did the thing you achieved (how did I do that? What did I need to do it?) You’ll end up with very clear statements of your real capabilities.
4. List all of your skills so you can rate them for transferability; most of your skills will transfer to another job quite easily. Think not just “how good am I?” but ask “how much do I enjoy this?” The skills that score most highly on both counts are your most transferable skills and you will be able to use them in many different settings. Write them down (score them out of 10 then add up); the highest skills analysis scores are the ones you can use in your self-marketing statements to best effect. (more…)