Job Advice Blog

While job hunting you often run into a lot of people telling you to find your passion. This is, admittedly, good advice- but it is not what we are going to focus on today. Today we scrap the idea of “passion” and we turn to the more practical question “what are you good at?” Everyone’s good at something, sometimes it is something they are passionate about- sometimes it isn’t. It is important to remember that you don’t have to be passionate about the field you work in in order to be fulfilled in your work. Sometimes being really good at something is more important than being really passionate about it.
First, and most importantly, look back at the skills that have helped you in the past. Whether it was your ability to focus during college, your ability to network early on in your career, or your ability to sell ice to an eskimo, look back and make notes of it. Make a list of your achievements and ask yourself why you were able to do what you’ve done. If you were valedictorian in high school, was it all due to studying, or do you naturally excel in academic environments. Condense your achievements into the skills that helped you earn them, and write them down. This is your list of tried and true skills.
There are lots of ways to find these tried and true, or innate, skills. Think back to your childhood, what were you good at then? Were you reading before the other kids? Did you know the most about dinosaurs, or your sports team? Think about these things. Often the things we were good at as children map directly on to skills we have later in life.
Another thing to think about with innate skills is what other people notice, especially if you don’t notice it yourself. What comes so naturally to you that you hardly even notice that you are doing it well? Think back to times when you’ve been caught off guard by someone complimenting your work, this often happens when you are so good at something that you don’t even feel like you are doing a good job. Focus on theses skill sets, these are often the most important ones.
Finally you want to focus on the skills you have worked to gain. We all have innate skills, but we also all have things we are good at because we have logged the time and effort it takes to get good at them. Maybe you were once bad at sales, but you took a class or got a mentor, and now you are dynamite. Thing about things like this, the places you logged the time to get good. These skills are just as important as any others.
Once you have this list you will know your skill set. This will make it much easier to find a job that you are good at. This is just as important as being able to find a job that you love. Ideally you can make these work in combination with your values and passions, but if not you will at least know where to go to find a job that you can excel in.