Let Your Inner Compass Guide Your Search

There is a confident and happy “flow” to life when you allow your inner compass to guide you. You live with integrity, stand by your beliefs, be honest with those around you, and avoid stress because you are simply doing what you feel is right. 

You are leading an authentic life.

Sadly, not all of us have the chance to follow our inner compass, especially at work.

When you have a job demanding different behaviours against your belief systems, you are forced to ignore your inner compass. We are conditioned to fit in with the collective. The straitjacket of many corporate cultures can stifle individuality and promote uniformity. You play a role and start to lose track of who you are.

If you are fortunate, you might have worked for a company that encouraged freedom of expression and plurality of thought. But even the best employers understand that they need to have specific core values at the heart of their business. A successful job search entails matching the values of an employer with those of a job seeker. That only works when a job seeker is being honest about who they are and what they believe in.

Authentic inner compass

Authenticity (from both employee and potential boss) is the key to finding the ideal match. 

So, how can you rediscover your authenticity to give yourself the best chance of making the right match? Your future employer will genuinely be keen to meet the “real” you.

Do you know yourself? What are your intrinsic motivators? Many of us spend so much of our lives playing a role that it is easy to forget who we are and what truly makes us happy. Authenticity means living your life according to your values and goals. It is important to pause now and again and reassess what truly matters. If you can find this clarity before a job search, you will have the best chance of finding a job for the authentic “you” rather than your manufactured work persona.

Think of work examples to share when you have been true to yourself. In an interview, the stories that you tell will shape an employer’s perception. Think of career examples when you acted with integrity, were honest with those around you, had the confidence to make your own decisions and did not feel stressed because you were doing what you knew was right. Don’t share the example of when you aggressively negotiated with a supplier (and felt terrible about it). Your stories frame who you are. Authenticity in an interview means avoiding the career stories where you weren’t yourself – profits for an employer do not always mean satisfaction for an employee.

It is YOUR compass

Say what you think rather than what you guess the interviewer might want to hear. Being truthful means standing by your values, with the integrity to align who you are to what you do and believe in. This attitude is crucial in an interview if you want to get a job that will allow you to be yourself. An interviewer may not share your beliefs, but if they are a great employer, they will respect them and understand who you are. Then they can make a fully informed decision – if they go with someone else, it means that the job was not meant for you. The job that you are meant to do is out there; you just need a more patience. 

An authentic job search may take a little longer to reach a conclusion, but if you let your inner compass guide you, you will come out the other side with a job you love.

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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists. 

Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).