Job Search: Starting from Ground Zero
By Suzanne Berry
The following article by CPABC Career Advisor Suzanne
Berry is the first in a three-part series aimed at helping
any CPA job seeker find their next employment
opportunity—whether they’re just beginning their career,
embarking on a mid-career transition, or starting a new
life in Canada.
W
hat’s so challenging about a job search? You just apply for a job, get an interview,
tell them everything great about yourself, wait for the job offer, and find out when
you start—right?
Unfortunately, the process of finding a job is rarely that simple. Before you even start looking
for a job, there are a number of things to consider. Assuming you haven’t got an “in” with a
company’s recruiter, how do you make your resumé stand out from those of hundreds of other
job applicants to land an interview? How do you know if your skills are developed enough to
merit mentioning? If you’ve always just done your job well enough to keep it, how do you make
an employer excited about hiring you? How do you convince them of your potential value to
the company? Where do you even begin?
What do you bring to the table?
In my role as CPABC’s career advisor, I speak to members at various career stages. It’s not just those
starting out who seek guidance. Some are established in their careers but looking to transition to
a different sector. Others are new to Canada and unsure of our job search methods and etiquette.
Some are looking to get back into the workforce. Others are looking for new opportunities after
being with one company for many years.
One piece of advice holds true for everyone: There is no better place to begin your job search than
within. Without having a clear idea of who you are and what you’re good (or great!) at, your job
search won’t have the stable foundation it needs to connect you to the right opportunities.
There’s an analogy that searching for a job is very much like opening your own business, and
that couldn’t be more true. Of course, in this instance, you are the product of the business, and you
must be your own sales team—consider yourself a “business of one.” 1 That means that your
ability to sell your product (your skill set and your character) is only as good as your ability to
market it. And you can only know what you are marketing if you know who you are. The key,
as they say, is product knowledge.
So how do you gain that knowledge? Well, there are different ways to find out who you really
are and what you have to offer. Some career experts will suggest doing personality inventories
and skills assessment tests. These can be very helpful tools since they require self-reflection,
but storytelling is also a powerful means of self-discovery.
What do your stories say about you?
Have you ever heard of “narrative identity”? 2 Simply put, it’s a theory based on the idea that the
stories we create about our experiences actually shape our identities on an ongoing, evolving basis.
Per Current Directions in Psychological Science, “Narrative identity is a person’s internalized and
evolving life story, integrating the reconstructed past and imagined future to provide life with
some degree of unity and purpose.” 3
1
“Business of one” is a term coined by J.T. O’Donnell, founder and CEO of WorkItDaily.com.
The author would like to credit Kristin Vandegriend, career coach and resumé expert, for
sharing these concepts in the webinar “What Career Professionals Should Know about
LinkedIn,” hosted by the BC Career Development Association, February 7, 2017.
2
The author would like to credit Hongxia Shan, PhD, associate professor in the department of
educational studies at the University of British Columbia, for the insights on narrative identity
she shared in her closing keynote speech, “Career development as border practices:
Constructing identities in the context of mobility and diversity” at the BC Career
Development Conference 2018.
34 CPABC in Focus • July/August 2018