Career Development During Lockdown #2: Tell your career story

If you followed my advice in tip #1: Curate Your Achievements, you now have several compelling examples of your successes. This is a positive lens through which to view your career, but how can you tell a whole coherent story?

This article will show how you can pull together your experience (however varied it may be), and clearly demonstrate the golden thread that makes real sense of your career history.

You’ll be able to remind yourself of the career moves you made, why you made them, and how you successfully made each transition. At the same time, you’ll discover important values, personal attributes and hints of an underlying purpose that have all driven your career so far.

Not only will this enable you to tell a coherent story, but you’ll also be able to answer that perennial interview question: ‘Tell me about yourself’ with ease and clarity.

Joining the Dots

Ready to Join the Dots in your career? Just download the workbook here and get started.

You’ll find examples from my own career, which covers three distinct strands in the UK and overseas:

·     English teaching from secondary > adult education > university lecturing

·     Career guidance > establishing a university career service > MBA career learning > career coaching business

·     English literature: MPhil > lecturer > Literature festival programmer > moderator and book club convener

At a glance, these may seem very different career paths, but the vital link between them all involves inspiring others towards learning, growth and realizing personal potential. Recognizing this core message makes it so much easier to articulate the why behind each career move, and the purpose that has shaped my career.

Joining the Dots Forwards

When you have this clarity about your career so far, you might also be ready to think about what this means for your future. Some questions this might raise for your future career planning could be:

·     How can you express this purpose and have the impact you’re seeking in your next move?

·     What values have you discovered that perhaps aren’t finding fulfillment in your recent work?

·     Which strengths or interests aren’t finding expression and how can you put that right?

·     What IS the next move going to be?

Feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss these questions, your career story to date and what happens next.

Telling a good story

So now you have a coherent, clear and joined up career story, how can you make the most of this in your applications?

Just knowing that your career really does make sense can make a huge difference! You’ll be able to explain each move clearly and link it to your purpose or motivation – these are always of important to employers and this kind of clarity is refreshing in an application.

At interview, you’ll also be able to explain how you arrived at this point and will have a purpose-driven career story to tell in answer to questions like:

1. Tell me about yourself

2. What brought you here today?

3. Why did you change from x to y?

4. Why are you interested in this role?

When you’ve uncovered your own personal career thread, I’d love to know what it is.

Just drop me a message, and if you’d like to arrange a free de-brief coaching call, we can explore your findings and what this might mean for your next move.

And if you are preparing for interview, don’t forget a special Career Clarity Call to help you practise and refine your interview performance.

Best of luck in Joining the Dots!