10 self-report exercises to promote your job search

One of the many strategies for job searching is having relevant and up-to-date information about yourself so that you can align yourself with job adverts and  employers within your professional field.

It takes hard work and diligence to prepare well for your job search and often this task is undertaken alone, without the support of a qualified career consultant.

To help you with your decision making and overall preparation it is useful to complete self-report questionnaires, personal inventories and different job focused exercises. The results of these will give you a full picture of whether you are heading in the right job direction or not.

This list is written in a suggested chronological way of tackling self-discovery. So start at Number One.

Self-reporting job tools

1. Raising your self-awareness:
   • You want to know as much as you can about yourself and the way you communicate, how you manage stress, how you lead and other aspects of your personality. Completing a personality questionnaire where there are no right or wrong answers can help you understand yourself better.  These personality tests should be administered and interpreted by a registered Level B practitioner as you will want good feedback and use the report for preparing yourself for interviews.
   • If you don’t take a formal test, you can use different tick sheets that can help you identify your communication styles, how you manage stress, etc.
     • RECOMMENDATION: What makes you tick?  Personal Characteristics
2. Identifying priorities:
   • Prior to starting  your job search, you need to know what are your priorities and how to deal with them.  You know that all successful career transitions are the result of careful planning, so think carefully about what is the most important thing to think about and what to tackle first. How confident are you that you can sell yourself?  Is your CV ready to be sent out?  Do you need to think about other aspects of your life whilst job searching?
     • RECOMMENDATION: Needs and Concerns
3. Clarification of skills:
   • Every job seeker needs to be crystal clear about what they bring to their new employer, so recognising your portfolio of technical and soft skills is important.  Competencies and abilities are other names used to describe your strengths. Are you a good communicator?  Do you like and can you problem solve?  What are your negotiating skills like?
     • RECOMMENDATION: Transferable and Self-Managed Skills
4. Understanding your preferred work environments and values:
   • All jobs are not the same. job titles are often meaningless and company culture differs from organisation to organisation. Being a manager of a team of three is very different to managing a diverse team over three different locations. You need to be clear about what matters and what is important to you. DO you want to work regular hours or shifts? Outdoors or in?  Simple choices can help you clarify any thought you have about what is important and why you want to job search where you do.
   • RECOMMENDATION: Where do you want to work? Personal and Work Values
5. Recognising your career interests:
   • It is not a science, however it is clear that you will get more job satisfaction if you work in an area which you are passionate about; one that clearly interests you. This passion could stem from a hobby or from a deep rooted feeling of ethics. Either way, you need to be clear about the sectors and fields that offer work where you would be content, happy and reach your potential.
     • RECOMMENDATION: Interest questionnaires
6.  Rating achievements:
   • Your successes need to be documented well, qualified with facts and figures, for your CV and LinkedIn profile.  You will want to be able to readily access these achievements to rehearse for interviews so starting a portfolio of stories {PAR} or {STAR} and listing them will be a great help to you in the long run.
     • RECOMMENDATION: Profiling your achievements
7.  Defining areas for development:
   • Nobody is perfect! Getting a new job is a challenge and as you explore more about the work you want to do, the environment, culture and potential companies you will realise that, on reading job descriptions, you may have some gaps in your own work history. Will these prevent your from achieving you goal?  Does your skill set need updating?  Would relocating make your job search more successful?
     • RECOMMENDATION: Personal SWOT Analysis
8. Plotting next steps:
   • With all the work you have been doing on yourself, now is the time to look over everything, collate the findings and outcomes and be clear about who you are, what you have to offer, where you want to be and how you are going to get there.
     • RECOMMENDATION: Re-evaluation[pullquote]It’s a job getting a job[/pullquote]
9. Clear goal setting:
   • With everything prepared you can now make a clear goal and set yourself targets to achieve this.  Set yourself up in an environment conducive to job searching and set to reaching your objective.  Remember that goals should be SMART.
     • RECOMMENDATION: Career and Personal Objective Setting
10. Areas for discussion – work life balance wheel
    • Working on your own to discover how to approach your job search effectively can be lonely and at times, depressing.  If you need support with any areas and suggestions on how to overcome the challenges, think aobut working with a career management consutlant.
      • RECOMMENDATION: Work Life Balance Wheel

If you would like any of the above recommended worksheets, please email and ask for them. 

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