Career fulfilment is at the core of many careers. Most of us spend a large portion of our lives at work, and therefore doing something fulfilling is important. Many of us will be working until we are 70, and what we find fulfilling at one stage of our lives may change as we develop.
CCS Finding Career Fulfilment Programme
There are three phases in this programme to help you find career fulfilment.
Phase 1: Know Yourself – prepares you to make work and life goals relevant to your enhanced self knowledge
Phase 2: Explore Ideas and Opportunities – develops the ideas and targets designed to motivate you to succeed.
Phase 3: Make a Career Decision – through a combination of CCS exercises and personal reflection and research you will create achievable goals and actions for the next stage of your development
When it comes to career fulfilment, many people risk the danger of making a rash decision about their future work, without doing the crucial preparatory work of Phases 1 and 2. Find out more about each step and what’s involved below, or you can just sign up for a FREE Discovery Meeting.
Phase 1: Know Yourself
This is the fundamental preparation which should be undertaken prior to making a decision about your career and personal development. It enables you to address the questions ‘who am I?’ and ‘what do I want?’ It may include the use of questionnaires and exercises to help you address your:
- Transferable skills (what am I good at?)
- Interests (what am I motivated to do?)
- Values (what is most important to me?)
- When I’m at my best (what will help me thrive?)
- Personality (what work roles and environments would suit me?)
- Career drivers (what are my key career needs?)
- ‘Past positives’ (what activities & environments enable me to thrive and be at my best?)
Further exercises will enable you to clarify these results, leading to the creation of a ‘Job Template’, a summary of those key elements you must have in your work life.
Phase 2: Explore Ideas and Opportunities
With the increased clarity and confidence which Phase 1 can provide, you will be in the best possible frame of mind to think about and brainstorm ideas for your future. These could be about:
- ways to improve your prospects
- how to develop your potential
- alternative roles
- different work environments
- new or complementary careers
During the meeting with your career coach, you will first ensure that your ‘Job Template’ (what you must have in a job – completed in stage 1) is as accurate and specific as possible – so that you can reply with confidence to the the classic employer question : “So what is it you want from a job?”
Phase 2 can also help you develop a clearer vision for your future.
Phase 3: Make a Career-related Decision
We will give you exercises to help you assess the suitability of different options, and decide on practical next steps. We will also help you to set realistic goals and devise small and relevant action steps to achieve them.
After your ‘ideas’ meeting, you will need to read materials and talk to employers and contacts who know about your areas of interest. We can give you details of relevant websites and other relevant sources of information. We have an extensive knowledge of relevant web based material and will give you concrete information to take away, where possible. This may include further information on diverse careers, training courses and grant-giving bodies.
During Phase 3 we will work with you to develop realistic action plans. You will also have gained a decision-making toolkit to use again and again.
How the programme works
The three phases of our career fulfilment programme described above are broken down into a series of meetings with preparatory work, career questionnaires and exercises completed between each meeting.
FREE Discovery Meeting
We always invite you to talk through your situation with one of our career coaches so we can agree on the most appropriate programme to suit your needs. This discovery meeting lasts about 30 minutes and is free of charge.
Written preparation
We usually ask you to complete our background questionnaire and another exercise we think could be useful. Allow 2-4 hours to complete this preparation.
Meeting 1
At our first meeting we will explore your work and life background in some detail. This meeting will take around 1.5 hours.
- Exploring your career, education and training to-date
- Reviewing other life areas relevant to your career
- Agreeing general objectives, for example:
- do I need a change of career, a different employer or a different approach?
- what are my strengths and weaknesses for those occupations which interest me?
- Agreeing any specific objectives for career counselling, for example:
- would I be happier in a larger or smaller organisation or unit?
- would I fit better into a commercial or not-for-profit organisation?
- would my strengths and qualities indicate a more generalist managerial, or specialist/technical, role?
- how suited am I for running my own business?
- am I more a ‘leader’, ‘team member’ or ‘self starter’?
- how can I better use my creativity?
- what kind of work activities would I enjoy more?
- How can I manage y career more effectively?
- Agreeing any exercises, questionnaires, assignments
Exercises, questionnaires and assignments undertaken between the meetings (allow up to 6 hours)
Meeting 2
Meeting 2 allows us to review the questionnaires and assignments in depth. This usually lasts approximately 1.5 hours.
- Discussion of exercises and questionnaires (recorded, if desired). Our experience shows that recording a session is most helpful in enabling you to reflect on the discussion, the results and possible implications of exercises and questionnaires. The recording is, of course, yours to use as you wish. You might, for example, want to share it with a partner or friend
- Exploration of your strengths, weaknesses and development needs
- Agreeing further assignments to aid your reflection
Meeting 3
Here we focus on ideas, options, planning and actions to help you identify opportunities and create an action plan for your future. This lasts around 2 hours.
The meeting could include the following:
- summarising your ‘Job Template’ – key elements for job satisfaction
- identifying career and personal development opportunities and ideas
- ‘reality testing’ – an initial consideration of resources and obstacles
- agreeing your action plan, including deadlines, if appropriate
- identifying areas to research further, and ways to achieve this
Meeting 4
Progress review (up to 1.5 hours)
This meeting can be taken up to 6 months after Meeting 3 without extra charge.
This could include:
- reviewing your action plan(s)
- staying resilient
- making a decision
- maintaining your progress
- identifying new action steps
- support and coaching on CVs, interview preparation and career management
Fees
The inclusive fee for our career fulfilment programme is £960 + VAT (includes four online meetings, between-meetings contact, all exercises, questionnaires, handouts, written summaries of meetings)