Tip #5: Focus on your strengths
Transform your job search with 20 Job Search Tips in 20 Days
This email is part of a series “20 Job Search Tips in 20 Days”. Every day in December, you’ll receive a job search tip for career changers.
Job Search Tip #5: Focus on your strengths
So far you’ve received tips on navigating job descriptions, creating a growth mindset, finding your advocates and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Today, we are going to talk about focusing on your strengths. If the other tips didn’t resonate as much with your job search experience, hopefully, this one does.
Finding and focusing on your strength is the single most powerful method to succeed in the job search. What that means is, uncovering what unique skills you have TODAY and using them as the foundation of your job search. If you are pivoting into a new career in tech, that means your transferable skills from other industries. If you are looking for your next job in tech, that means your unique work experience.
What are your strengths? Any work experience that you’ve been through!
This can be transferable skills from past industries or past jobs.
Any work you’ve done, paid or unpaid, even in training, can be considered a skill, which in turn, is a strength.
Working in specific industries or with specific tools or technologies is helpful to stand out in jobs that are asking for specific experience in that industry or tool.
Tools like Salesforce, POS systems, Booking management systems, Geospatial mapping, Analytics, etc.
Industries like law, medical, finance, govt, etc.
Find a set of strengths that help YOU stand out.
Let’s get started!
First, let’s uncover your unique skills:
Make a list of all your work experience in the past 5 years (no matter how short). This can include anything from volunteering, school projects, internships, full time work, personal projects, anything!
Write out the top 3 activities you are MOST proud of from EACH work experience
Find a job good description of a target role you’re excited about. Put the job description into an online doc and bold/highlight the key terms that are MOST important to that role.
Make a list of all the key terms you highlight.
Next, let’s match your unique skills with the skills in the job description:
Review the list of skills from the job description
Match your outcomes to the list of skills
Reframe your outcomes in terms that use the words listed in the list of skills
➡️ Try this template to make it easier
Focusing on your strengths is SO important. While the job search can feel like a long and tedious process, when you remind yourself of your strengths, you are less likely to lose motivation and more likely to find creative ways to apply, network, to continue your job search.
Recognizing your unique strengths is a KEY determining factor in how successful you are in your job search.
NOT the skills you have, but your RECOGNITION and focus on your unique skillset during the job search process.
How one career changer leaned into his strengths
When Aaron started his job search he already knew he wanted to focus on legal-tech companies. This was a wise decision due to his previous career as a lawyer. After completing software engineering training, he was ready to make the move to the tech world.
Aaron’s professional strengths were focused on his industry knowledge as a lawyer. He started networking in the legal-tech space, because he understood that his experience as a lawyer makes him a more desirable candidate to founders of legal-tech companies.
By focusing on his strengths in the law industry, he was able to:
niche down
get noticed faster
connect with the right people
Here’s the post that helped him land a job offer. Since the legal-tech space is a niche industry, he posted about a podcast he listened to, which helped him connect with the podcast founder, who in turn connected him to a community of legal-tech companies.
By focusing on your strengths, you are building the confidence that will make you shine in your job search. Remember, you have a LOT to offer, focus on your strengths.
To everyone job searching during the holidays… you got this, keep going 🌟
If you missed them, here are the 3 previous tips: