The point at which you decide to look for a new job is a great time to take stock. After all when you move to a new job you are going to be in a different company in a new role which will take up a considerable part of your life. It make sense to ensure that it matches what you need at a personal level as well as meeting your economic and career development goals.

Getting clear about what it is we really want, whats important to us, is not something most of us spend much time on. This can be particularly true if weve worked for the same company or in the same industry for a long period of time. We get to know what expected. We know how things are done round here. And we have found a way to operate in this environment, often adapting and compromising along the way.

You could move to your next job with the same mindset. Or you could take the braver step of examining what you really want. The aim being to find a job that is a natural fit. One that will give you more of what you really want.

How do you go about clarifying what is important? Asking yourself questions is a good start! Where you start will depend on what kind of person you are. Do you tend to start with the big picture, the broad concepts? Or are you more likely to want to start with some specifics that you can get your hands on?

For the big picture person you can start by asking yourself:

What do I want from my life as a whole/from my working life?
Whats important to me personally at a broad, global level?
What do I feel most passionate about?

You may, for example find that you want to be at the leading edge, working with a small team thats moving the industry forward. Alternatively you might find that your key driver is to be of service to others.

For the person with a more specific starting point:

What specifically is important to me?
What do I feel most passionate/strongly about in my current job?
What particular incidents or events in my life can I identify when I know I was most happy/at one with myself/effortlessly at my best?

You may find a number of examples when you know you have been working effectively and feeling good. When you look across these examples you might find a common theme. Maybe you were planning and organising in each of them. Managing details or getting satisfaction from the completion of projects.

Whatever your answer to these questions you can use the knowledge and insights you have gained to find out more.

To continue with the examples:

When Im at the leading edge how do I know Im at the leading edge?
What is it that being at the leading edge gives me?

Your answers might include: a sense of excitement, making a contribution because if I succeed my company and others in the industry will benefit, constantly learning something new. Again these are broad descriptors and it is useful to drill down a bit more:

When I make a contributionwhat kind of contribution?
Is there anything else about that contribution?
When Im learning something new what kind of learning is that?

By asking questions of this kind you are finding out more about yourself. You are self-modelling, noticing the unconscious patterns that we all have that are shown in what we do and the way that we do it. Another way to say this is that we are identifying our often unspoken values that draw us towards certain activities or jobs.

Are some values more important than others?

If you have come up with a number of values that are important to you it can be useful to check if some are more important than others. If you had to pick between 3 and 5 of the values youve identified which would they be? This will be invaluable in evaluating job opportunities. Are the values that are part of who you are aligned with the values of a new company you could move to? Will they be respected in a particular job? You want to end up in a job where you can swim with the tide rather than against it!

How can I make my values even more compelling?

We all know we have a left logical brain and a right more creative brain. Making sure we make the best use of both makes sense in any important activity we are involved with. Neuroscientists and psychologists are finding out more and more about how our brain works. It is increasingly clear that we humans have a huge capacity to use metaphors and symbols and indeed we could not operate at the level of complexity that we do without them. (Those of you who have read Malcolm Gladwells new book Blink will have plenty of examples of research showing the complexity and speed of our thinking).

You may want to take the opportunity to ask yourself an even more powerful question about your top values.

When Im [value 1], [value 2], [value 3].Im like what?

Continuing the example:

When Im learning, making a contribution and feeling excited Im like what?

Im like an astronaut embarking on a new mission to a distant planetlistening to the count down.

To make this even more impactful find out more by asking a few of the previous questions.

Is there anything else about that astronaut?
What kind of mission is that mission?

You are developing a metaphor that encapsulates what you are like when you are at your best. Why would you want to do this? And how will it help with your job search?

Having a powerful and compelling metaphor for how you are when you are at your best can be hugely helpful for your job search. The example of the astronaut provides a symbol that packs in huge amounts of information in one word or image. As you become familiar with your symbol you develop an automatic inbuilt sense of everything it represents. It becomes a benchmark. If you find yourself hesitating about whether to take a job or not it could well be that something does not fit with your values. Checking this out against your symbol (for you at your best) will be the fastest way to find out whether the job is right or not. It will also help identify whether you need to ask questions and find out more about the company or the job.

Getting what you want from your next job

So if getting what you want from your next job is important to you it is worth finding out whats really important to you. This way you will massively increase the chance of find a job that is a natural fit in an organisation with values aligned with yours. Who knows you could also end up with a metaphor giving you a symbol for success!

Dorothea Stuart MA, MSc works with professionals, particularly lawyers, providing targeted personal and practice development. She is a Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and supports managers and senior professionals to develop their own niche and stand out from the crowd.

Thank you to David Grove some of whose clean language questions have been used in this article.