The document outlines a four-step exercise to help individuals identify their ideal job by evaluating their past activities and preferences. It encourages creating a comprehensive list of activities, rating satisfaction levels, analyzing enjoyable versus unenjoyable tasks, and identifying patterns that reveal personal interests and strengths. This reflective process aims to provide insights that will simplify the job search and target suitable opportunities.

1. Starting Your Job Search:
Figure Out What You Like to Do

2. Then
“What do you
want to be when
you grow up?”
“What exactly do you
want your day-to-day
job experience to
be like?”
Now

3. If you could choose your ideal job
(within reason, of course), what would
you actually be doing and under what
conditions would you be doing it?

4. Consider:
Big or small company?
By yourself or in a team?
In an office or on the road?
At a desk or outside?
Financial motivation
or emotional motivation?
Animals? People? Kids?

5. To help you answer that question,
do the following 4-step exercise.

6. 1. Develop a list
of activities

7. Write down as many activities as
you can think of (job-related and
otherwise) that you have done
over the years. It doesn’t matter
whether you enjoyed the activity.

8. If you have had limited professional
work experience, don’t worry.
Write down leisure activities or
specific tasks that you performed
on your own or in an organization.

9. Examples:
✔ Recruited and hired new waiters and waitresses
✔ Conducted training programs
✔ Greeted and seated guests
✔ Developed and wrote training manuals
✔ Sold raffle tickets door to door
✔ Managed Little League baseball team
✔ Served food in homeless shelter
✔ Collected stamps
✔ Worked as a stage manager for an amateur theater group
✔ Did volunteer work in a hospital
✔ Headed PTA fundraising drive

10. Write down as many of these tasks
as possible. The more activities the
better this exercise works.

11. 2. Measure your
likes and dislikes

12. Assign a satisfaction/dissatisfaction
rating to each item on the list.
Don’t overthink.

13. Use a scale of –10 to +10.
Enjoyable tasks get a 9 or 10.
Unenjoyable tasks get a -9 or -10.

14. 3. Analyze your list

15. Isolate tasks that come out on
opposite ends of the spectrum
(7 or above & -7 and below)

16. Think about each item and ask
yourself, “What about this activity
did I enjoy or find awful?”

17. 4. Look for patterns

18. Read over and analyze your
answers to the preceding questions.
See if you can uncover certain
patterns and common threads.

19. If you find that a common
thread among the activities that
brought you satisfaction is people,
it’s a safe bet that you’re an extrovert.

20. If one of the common threads
is helping other people, your
tendencies are service-oriented.

21. But don’t
stop there.

22. Narrow the “people” pattern down.
Do you like working with people as
part of a team, managing people,
training people?

23. Do the activities that you find
satisfying (or unsatisfying)
call for problem-solving skills or
creativity? Is there a competitive
aspect to those activities, or are
they cooperative?

24. The important thing about this
exercise is not to judge yourself.
Don’t think in terms of whether you
SHOULD OR SHOULDN’T FIND
an activity satisfying.

25. If you list enough activities — 25 is
not an excessive amount to work
with — you should be able to find
some patterns.

26. DON’T RUSH THIS EXERCISE.
The more insights you gain from
this stage of job targeting, the easier
it will be for you to complete the other
stages of the job searching process.

27. Jump-start your job hunt with
these For Dummies books:
Darts © Getty Images/iStockphoto
Online job finder button © iStockphoto
Application for employment © Getty Images/iStockphoto
Content from Job Hunting for Dummies by Max Messmer.
Learn more: http://bit.ly/JobHuntingFD