What is your purpose statement?
There is a lot of advice out there for job seekers. A lot of it is obvious, superficial, or just downright patronizing. Yes, I promise I will wear pants to my video interviews.
I used to include “personal mission statement” with that advice. What does that even mean? How does it help you do your work? But now that I have some time to really think about what I want to do next and have read what feels like hundreds of job descriptions, I can see where a guiding sentence or two would help me wade through all the noise to find what it is that would truly excite me.
As part of a virtual conference, I watched a presentation from Charlene Li about succeeding during disruption and challenging the status quo. Her discussion of a purpose statement came at just the right time for me to connect the dots. Here are a few questions she suggests you ask as you put together your mission statement (you can download her slides here).
How do you serve the world? Charlene started with an anecdote about a career coach introducing herself at a networking event. Instead of asking Charlene what she did, the coach asked, “How are you serving the world?”
Cue opening and closing mouth with no words coming out. I’m not under any illusion that content marketing is going to save the world, which prompts me to think bigger. How do I serve? By helping people find the answers they are looking for. By being grateful. By listening to and recognizing when people do awesome things.
How can you help (instead of This is what I do): Especially in the job-seeking arena, people want to know how you can make their lives easier. As Charlene mentioned in her talk, explaining to a hiring manager how you can solve a problem the company is facing is likely to be more successful than a monologue about all the things you can do, hoping that those overlap with the needs of the company.
Framing your purpose statement outward by identifying the problems you help people solve allows you get more specific on the opportunities (paying or otherwise) that are most worth your time and where you can be the most successful.
What’s your first step? And then what? This question came after the purpose statement section, but it still stuck with me. With my Type A personality, I already had a list of things to do in my head by the time the “we have to downsize” call ended. I knew what the first steps were: build my presence, reach out to my network, and apply to a few companies I’d been keeping an eye on. I fully expected to use my severance as a signing bonus for my next job.
I underestimated the pandemic.
The first step isn’t the hard part. It’s the fifth. And the eighth. It’s finding the energy to keep writing those blog posts, identifying new people to network with, taking more courses and learning opportunities to add more skills.
Definitely have your first step mapped out. And take it. But also have a plan for when things move slowly or don’t go the way you envisioned. Lean on that purpose statement to guide you to what you should be doing with your time, including which job opportunities to apply for and who you need to connect with.
I’m still working on my purpose statement. It will be something about putting the pieces together, because that has been where I have felt the most energy in previous roles. It will also include educating people because good content should solve problems. Even if that problem is simply boredom.
Do you have a purpose statement or a personal mission statement? I want to know what it is. Please share it with me on Twitter.