Get that Job in 7 simple steps. Peter Storr

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      You may think that it’s obvious to you what your interests are. But it’s worth going through this exercise because many of us don’t make the link between our interests and the world of work. They don’t have to be the same (you may have an interest in the natural world but don’t necessarily want a career in it), but it may prompt some ideas. And if you can work in an area where you have a personal interest, it won’t feel as much like work.

      Ask yourself these questions and write the answers down:

       Determining your values

      As well as working out what interests us, determining our values can also help us to identify what we want from our work. Values are our core beliefs about what is right and wrong and what is important to us. The culture we were brought up in, the way we were parented, our religion and our experiences as children and as adults all have an impact on our values. They can be treated as a route map: an inner voice or guide – or sometimes our conscience – and ultimately lead us to determining our behaviours and attitudes.

      When we act against these values, we get a ‘pricking’ of our conscience. Psychologists call this ‘cognitive dissonance’. It’s an unpleasant feeling and it’s unpleasant for a reason: it’s there in order to prompt us to change either the belief/attitude or the behaviour, to make the tension go away. If you were vegetarian and got a job in a butcher’s shop, for example, the tension between your values and your behaviour would make it harder to perform well because you wouldn’t enjoy it. It’s always worth listening to this tension – this inner voice – because when we behave in accordance with our values, we become more fulfilled by what we’re doing.

       Rokeach’s list of personal values

      A well-known model of values was developed in the 1970s by Milton Rokeach, a Polish-American social psychologist. He suggested that the following values have an impact on our behaviour and we will each have our particular favourites – the ones that guide us the most. Read the following list and choose the five that say the most about how you prefer to behave in order to achieve what you want in life.

      If you can, think about the order of importance for you of your five values. How do they help you when things get tough? What do they say about how you can conduct your job search? And how do they help you determine or have an influence on the line of work you are most suited to?

       Determining what motivates you

      Motivation has been studied for close to 100 years. Initially, the research seemed to be saying that people are primarily motivated by money; if we want people to work harder, we pay them more. If we had enough money, we wouldn’t work.

      We now know that this is far too simplistic. Of course, money can be a motivator to us, and when you are out of work it may be a key driver towards getting employment. This, of course, is entirely natural and understandable. But it’s important to realise that once we are in work, and our basic survival needs are met, then for most of us money ceases to be the powerful motivator it was to start with.

      There are other things that cause us to be satisfied with work apart from a good salary: like-minded colleagues or a nice corner office, for example. However, research over the last 50 years or so has tended to concentrate on money as being СКАЧАТЬ