Career Planning: Everyday Playbook

Points clés

• Career planning is not one big decision but a set of small plays you run when a familiar moment arrives, at work or at the dinner table.
• When you feel stuck, run the three-column audit of what you do, what you enjoy and what people pay for before touching a job site.
• A job posting with a short deadline gets the mirror method: match your evidence to its top three requirements and skip the rest.
• When a child announces a career dream, ask what they would do on a Tuesday afternoon in that job before offering any opinion.
• The first ninety days of any new role follow one rule: learn in month one, contribute in month two, own something in month three.

À l'intérieur de ce bit

1. When you feel stuck and cannot say why

   The play for this moment is the three-column audit, and it takes one evening. Draw three columns on a sheet: what I actually do all week, what I enjoy enough to lose track of time, and what people would pay for.

2. When someone asks what you do

   This question arrives at weddings, school gates and in the first minute of every interview, and most people waste it with a job title. The play is a two-sentence positioning line: who you help, what changes because of you, and one proof.

3. When a posting appears with a Friday deadline

   A friend forwards a job on Wednesday night and the deadline is Friday. The panic play is to rewrite your whole CV; the better play is the mirror method.

4. When the interview is on Thursday

   The play for the days before an interview is a rehearsal at home, with a family member reading questions from a card. Prepare five stories in a simple shape: the situation, what you did, and what the result was, each under ninety seconds.

5. When your child announces a career dream

   Your twelve-year-old says they will be a game streamer, or your seventeen-year-old says they want to skip college for a start-up. The poor play is to argue on the spot.

6. When the first ninety days begin

   You got the job, or the promotion, or the transfer. The play now is a 30/60/90 plan written in the first week and shown to your manager.