How are you supposed to find your ideal job? The standard method is to fill out lots of questionnaires about your strengths and weaknesses, take some psychometric tests and spend hours researching various professions.
Well, here's an alternative – an exercise called the Personal Job Advertisement. The concept behind this is the opposite of the standard career search: imagine that newspapers didn't advertise jobs, but rather advertised people who were looking for jobs.
The task is split into two steps. First, write a half-page job advertisement that tells the world who you are and what you care about in life. Put down your talents (eg, you speak Mongolian, can play the bass guitar), your passions (eg, ikebana, scuba diving), and the core values and causes you believe in (eg, wildlife preservation, women's rights). Include your personal qualities (such as, you're quick-witted, impatient, lacking self-confidence).
Record anything else that is important to you – a minimum salary or the desire to work overseas, for instance. Make sure you don't include any particular job you are keen on, your educational qualifications or career background. Keep it at the level of underlying motivations and interests.
Now make a list of 10 people you know from different walks of life and who have a range of careers and email them your personal job advertisement. Ask them to recommend two or three careers that might fit with what you have written. Tell them to be specific, for example, "You should do charity work with street kids in Rio de Janeiro" rather than, "You should work with children."
Now take a look at the results. Are there any interesting surprises? You will probably end up with an eclectic list of careers, many of which you would never have thought of yourself. And that is exactly the point – to help stretch your imagination. It also enables you to see your many possible selves: we assume that there is only one ideal job out there for us – our vocation – but the reality is that there are probably several careers that could offer fulfilment by bringing out different sides of who you are.
Of course, faced with some of these unexpected options, you'll now need to narrow them down. How? For that, you may need a radical sabbatical.
• This blog originally ran on Powell's Books Blog.
Roman Krznaric is the author of How to Find Fulfilling Work and a founding faculty member of The School of Life, where he teaches courses on career change. You can follow him @romankrznaric
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more content and advice like this direct to your inbox, sign up for our weekly Careers update.
