Strengths: How to apply them for greater career satisfaction. Part 3.

In my previous 2 blogs, I laid out a strategy for identifying your top strengths, and then translating them into potential career roles, all toward helping you find ways to increase your career satisfaction.

Now let’s spend a little time talking about specific career-satisfaction-boosting strategies. One thing I’ve noticed in my 20 plus years as a career counselor is that people love the identifying their strengths, but then aren’t sure how to apply them in their careers more successfully. Here are strategies for doing that!

Strategy #1: Get involved in projects that use your strengths. Keep your antennae up for opportunities, and if you have this kind of relationship with your manager say “I really enjoy project management and I would like an opportunity to apply that within my work. We don’t need to make it a permanent part of my job role but if I can get my hands dirty with that it would be satisfying for me and likely beneficial for the organization and it would allow me to build some experience.” You can look at it as short-term experiment.

Strategy #2: Research jobs where those titles, the roles are key. Example: Get on LinkedIn.com or Indeed.com and just type in a role title and see what profile and job descriptions pop up. I predict that when you look at those titles they may feel a little flat because you’ll be missing half of the equation—passions—which I’ll cover in a future blog.

Strategy #3: Explore different applications of your strength. Sometimes called Career Experiments, these are short-term, low risk activities that expose you to a career skill or area you’re considering for your future. Think about your top strengths and roles of interest to you, and then consider any of these activities to “get your hands dirty” and learn more:

• A field trip / job shadow to observe someone using that skill
• Reading a book
• Take a short class or online tutorial to expose you to that skill
• Execute a short, self-designed practice project

You can ask your manager to support you in these efforts, saying something like, “I’m investigating future career options for myself, and I’d like to get some hands-on exposure to X (name skill area). One idea I have is that I could Y (name career experiment). Would that be okay with you? Or do you have another idea that would help me achieve that goal?”

And be sure to join me in my next blog, where I will address the other half of upping your career satisfaction…building more passion into your work.