One of the key roles I play as a Career Coach is helping my clients understand and leverage their strengths. Many people I meet who are thinking about their next career move can’t easily tell me what their strengths are. It sounds strange, doesn’t it? Why do some people struggle with this?
Interestingly, it is the most common issue I see my clients face.
Many people can’t see ‘the forest for the trees’ and there are many reasons for this. For some, they are so focussed on wanting to get out of their current situation at work. For others, they are perhaps struggling with their boss or a difficult colleague or client. An unrelenting workload and lack of flexibility can also be an issue of concern. Many of my clients come and see me when they just run out of steam and can’t see beyond their current situation, and know they need help finding a way out.
Am I describing you? If your answer is yes, then please be reassured that there is a way out! We need to mine for your strengths. So put your hard hat on, and I will show you why it is so important to mine for, understand and confidently talk about your strengths.
Why Knowing Your Strengths Is So Important
It is important to know your strengths for a number of reasons. It will help you:
- Increase your self confidence
- Find the most suitable future roles
- Be clear about how to sell yourself to recruiters and potential employers
The process of working with a Career Coach to get a clearer picture of what is unique about you, what you are good at and how to promote it, will also help you develop a better selection criteria for whether you should look for opportunities outside your organisation, re-negotiate your current role’s terms or seek a transfer within your organisation, or start to make that career change you’ve been thinking about it.
Knowing Your Strengths Helps You Beat Your Competition
Let’s be really clear. I am seeing over 200 applications to many roles. If you are not 100% clear about your strengths, where you add value and why someone should employ you, there’s plenty of other people who can.
I am not trying to be harsh. I’m your advocate and it’s my role to prepare you for the realities of job seeking in a competitive market. I will help you dig deep (remember, hard hat on), and help remove those blocks that are stopping you from clearly, confidently and professionally promoting yourself to potential employers, via your cover letter, CV/resume and in an interview.
But, you know what? In my experience, your biggest competition is YOU! Once I help you get out of your own way, and see how talented you really are, we will remove the blocks you didn’t even know you had, and get you on top of the ‘to interview’ and ‘shortlist’ pile.
When you have identified and are clear about what you have to offer, others can see it to.
My Approach To Mining For Your Strengths
The first step in uncovering your strengths is a face to face discussion where I will ask you a series of questions about yourself to help determine your skills and attributes.
I will review your CV or resume and use this initial meeting with you to draw out your strengths. This step is just as much about what you share with me, as it is about the way you share it with me. The fact that I am not emotionally attached to your life or your professional experiences, and because I’ve worked with hundreds of individuals, as a HR professional, means I can objectively assess you and provide a well researched and industry relevant perspective as we draw out your strengths.
There are sometimes hard questions to answer, and it may feel a little confronting, so we must take the time to gently uncover your strengths to help you better understand yourself and how we can market you to potential employers.
Your answers will trigger more questions, and we will soon be able to uncover so much about you that you’d either forgotten, not realised, or just hadn’t taken the time recently to think about. This is a very helpful process that often gives people a bounce in their step and the confidence to be more assertive about how they talk about themselves in interviews.
Are you ready? If you’d like to put your hard hat on and mine for your strengths, I’d love to help you.
I am a passionate Career Coach who works with individuals in the explore and search phase of their career journey, helping you realise your strengths through my career coaching and training programs. I enjoy showing people the path to greater career satisfaction and providing insight and tools to help you make your next career move.
