Career Checkup

Smart people don't wait until they're sick to go to the doctor.  They don't put off visits to the dentist until their teeth are falling out of their mouth.  They change the oil in their car before the engine blows up.  So why does the average American worker think about his or her career only after something goes wrong... like an unanticipated job loss?

Experts suggest a personal career checkup once a year or more.  Here is a checklist you can use to assess the health of your own career.  This is just an overview... for a comprehensive professional checkup, contact Business Development Group!

Read each of the following "career tests" our lab has ordered up for you.  Grade yourself on each (be honest -- you can only cheat yourself!) using a 0 to 4 scale:

Keep track of your grades.  You'll need them later on.

The 70/30 Test

How much of your day to day work duties do you love?  Like?  Feel neutral about?  Dislike?  Hate?

No one loves everything about their job.  But if you're in the right job for you, you should be able to say that 70% or more of your work tasks and responsibilities are in either the "like" or the "love" category.  In other words, you enjoy most of what you do.

How about you?

The Labeling Test

Job titles ("engineer"... "accountant"... "bungee jumping instructor") are social labels.  They're convenient shortcuts by which we label ourselves and by means of which others pigeonhole (and, sometimes, stereotype) us.

How do you feel about your job title?  When, at a party or social gathering, someone asks you, "What do you do?" are you proud to tell them?  Or do you hem and haw and find a way to evade the question?  Do you say, "Well, I work as an ______________, but what I really love is __________?"

The Strengths Test

A good job for you plays to your strengths.  It calls on abilities and capabilities that are among your best.  How can you recognize a strength?  It's something that comes naturally to you (perhaps so naturally that you tend to take it for granted or think, "Can't everybody do this?").  It's something that probably emerged early in your life... something you can look back and recognize as having started to emerge in your grade school years.  It's something that impresses others, that makes others say "you have a natural gift for that".  

Most of us have only two or three clear strengths that "lead the pack" and represent our strong suits.  To what extent does your job center on the use of these strengths on a day to day basis?

The Flow Test

"Flow" is a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (wow, I wonder how long it took him to learn how to spell his name back in kindergarten?).  It refers to the feeling you get when you're so immersed in something that you lose track of time.  Athletes call this being "in the zone".  

Think about some times when you were so caught up in something you were doing that everything else seemed to vanish, leaving only you and the activity you were engaged in.  Now ask yourself, how often does this happen to you at work?  Good jobs provide frequent opportunities for flow through the use of skills you find enjoyable in this way.

The Style Test

If you're an introvert, do you get to shut out the outer world and concentrate on private, solitary tasks at work?  If you're an extravert, do you get frequent opportunities to meet and interact with and collaborate with others?

If you're a big-picture, visionary type, does your job involve working with ideas, concepts, theories, strategies, or creative possibilities?  If you're a detail-oriented, practical type, does your involve working with tangible, concrete, short-range, hands-on realities that you can see or touch?

If you're an analytical type, do you have the chance to apply your logical reasoning capabilities to your job?  If you're an empathic type, do you get to link your values and your people sensitivities to your work?

If you're a focused, convergent type, do you work in a structured, organized environment that allows you to track your progress and cross things off your to-do list?  If you're a flexible, divergent type, does your job allow you sufficient freedom, autonomy, spontaneity, and opportunities to mix work and play?

The Growth Test

Are you learning new things at work every day, week, month?  Are you stretching your capabilities?  Or are you stuck in a rut, stagnant, doing the same old thing over and over and over and over?

Does your job provide answers to the question, "What makes you more valuable (or more marketable) as an employee than you were six months ago?"

The Diversification Test

This test is about the balance between being a specialist and being a generalist.  Good jobs provide a delicate balance between these two extremes.

Being a specialist means doing some things better than anyone else you know, digging deep into a particular skill or field, or becoming the resident expert about something nobody else cares about.  But if you're not careful, you can become too narrow... learning more and more about less and less, until finally, you know everything about nothing.  A danger signal:  you don't know how to hold a conversation with anyone unless they share, and want to talk about, one of your areas of expertise.

Being a generalist means wearing different hats, being able to do many different things, knowing how to connect to a variety of different people and different environments.  But if you're not careful, you can become too shallow... the "jack (or jill) of all trades, master of none" syndrome.  A danger signal:  you get lost whenever a conversation turns to anything that is remotely technical or specialized.

The Networking Test

Jobs provide access to networks -- groups of people who share common experiences, ideas, and values.  If you're in the right network for you (swimming in the right pond), you enjoy talking about the kinds of things others in your company or field like discussing, and are eager to learn more about such matters.  If you're in the wrong network for you, you know lots of people, but they're the "wrong" people for you.  They can't open the doors you want opened, they seem different from you in all the important ways that matter, and (speaking frankly) they bore, frustrate, or confuse you more than anything else.

The Bottom Line Test

Can you cost-justify your current position?  How?

Jobs exist for the purpose of solving problems:  the way you earn your keep is to trade solutions (which you help generate using your skills) for a paycheck.  If you haven't solved (or helped solve) any problems on the job in the past month, your real job title is Turf Protection Specialist, regardless of what it says on your resume or your business card.  If so, be careful... employment is not an entitlement.

Are you a profit center or a cost center on the job?  Why should your employer turn to you (rather than to someone else inside or outside the company) for the kinds of solutions you can provide?

The Portability Test

Since the average job in America now lasts only 3.6 years (that's three point six, in case you need new bifocals), it's imperative that the job you have now open doors, rather than close them.

Are you developing skills, knowledge, connections, credentials, or other tools on the job that could help you find a new way to make a living if you lost your present job tomorrow?  If you were forced to change careers (not just jobs) tomorrow, would you know what to do?  Are you developing options on the job, or just marking time until retirement?

Grading Yourself

Add your ten "grades" above to generate a composite grade.  Turn it into a letter grade as follows:

Okay, this grade won't be entered on any transcript or any permanent record anywhere.  But the effectiveness of the rest of your life is your grade.  So start doing your homework today!

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