As the last quarter of the year approaches its end, many are contemplating the challenges to tackle in the coming year. Thinking about what else to achieve, what mountains to conquer, constantly moving forward – this is indeed a great mindset. However, when contemplating the future, it is crucial not to forget the past and conduct a personal inventory, especially considering that the new year often marks the beginning of job searches.
There is an unwritten yet golden rule – your most crucial achievements lie in the last five years of your work experience. Overlooking them causes many things to be forgotten. During your year-end inventory, we invite you to reflect using various thinking perspectives:
✅ What work-related accomplishment am I most proud of? When pondering this question, there is often a mistake in considering only the “discovery of a new planet” as an achievement. However, organizational goals are not necessarily about constant growth and expansion. Perhaps this year, your goal was to streamline existing processes in the organization, and you achieved it? This is also a fantastic goal to be proud of.
✅ “Who does not work does not make mistakes.” During interviews, you will spend most of the time talking about your achievements. Still, you can strengthen your image by thinking about the mistakes you’ve made, what they taught you, and what you took away from them. Evaluate what the mistakes were, contemplate how you would act in a similar situation next time, and what you would do differently. Analyzing your mistakes helps reveal your complete personality – both during prosperous times and challenging moments.
✅ Strengths vs Weaknesses. This might be a classic in the genre, but with proper reflection, it can become quite a lever. The experiences of the past year likely revealed where you are strong and where you might need improvement (remember – perfection does not exist). There is a somewhat paradoxical tendency for people to notice their flaws more than their strengths, which is faulty thinking. To conduct a comprehensive analysis of these traits, we must clearly understand what we can credit ourselves for this year and where, unfortunately, we may fall short. When thinking about future changes, this will help us better understand the organizational culture and management style where we have the potential to shine.
In summary, for everyone planning to start job searches for new positions in the new year, we invite you to conduct a sincere analysis of your achievements, mistakes, strengths, and weaknesses during the remaining months of the year. This will not only help you clearly distinguish which positions you genuinely want to send your CV to and which ones you don’t but also facilitate the journey through interview stages when you will need to answer these questions not for yourself but for a potential employer 🤝
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