· Identifying what was important to me. My search was structured around my husband’s education, which meant, specifically in the Wichita area. But beyond location, I had to figure out what I wanted to do. Breaking that down into smaller categories was very helpful. Specifically, doing the Flower Exercise from the book What Color Is Your Parachute helped me list out my preferences free from job titles which helped me keep an open mind while searching.
· Training myself to think in transferable skill sets. Again, What Color Is Your Parachute led me through some very helpful exercises in identifying these groupings and then thinking about different types of jobs I could use them in. I also took the StrengthsQuest (also called the StrengthsFinder) assessment which helped me focus in on what I was really good at. This also ended up being very beneficial when I got to the interview part of the process. But the details of that are for another day.
· Figuring out where to search. I knew I had to search in the Wichita area, and I knew that my first preference would be to work at a University so I found all of the schools in the area. I then bookmarked the Human Resources website for each school and started checking them every other day for positions. Some of my friends used job posting boards like higheredjobs.com or careerbuilder.com but because I knew I was geographically restricted, at this early point in my search, these didn’t make much sense for me. Later I expanded my search but this was my starting place.
No comments:
Post a Comment