Job Seeker Vision Statement

On my JibberJobber blog I got an excellent comment from Sophie Legace in response to my What is your Motivation to Seek New Employment post.  Sophie says (in the comment):

Ah, the job seeker’s Vision Statement. Mine was: “To find a job where I can continue to not only make an adequate wage for my efforts and qualifications, but also feel proud of and challenged by my work, and team up with a group of people I can respect.”

Being offered pay (and benefits) below market would tell me that a potential employer does not value or respect my work, but beyond that I was not looking to make lots of money. I wanted a place that offered a good variety of challenging work and a healthy cooperative atmosphere.

Sophie is one of the most savvy career managers I’ve come across since I’ve been doing JibberJobber.  I asked her how she came up with her Job Seekers Vision statement and she replied with this:

I have done a good deal of thinking on the matter.  I think every job seeker ought to — if only to be able to answer the question during interviews.  And reassess periodically if the job search stretches on; the more stretched your resources are or the more untenable your position in an existing job, the lower your threshold becomes for what constitutes an acceptable job.

So much wisdom packed into her comment and her follow-up! When my job search started I needed to make x amount.  Within two months I was at y amount.  After another month I would have taken ANYTHING.  I had lost perspective.

The job seekers vision statement helps with this.  On JibberJobber I wrote about a job seeker’s visualization back in 2007, and shared my own career visualization a little later.

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