5 Words To Guide Your Job Search

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else!” Yogi Berra

“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7a. The Hebrew verb translated “thinketh”…means “estimate” or “calculate.” The clause might more accurately be rendered “as one who calculates with himself, so is he,” or “he is like one who is inwardly calculating.”  (Gotquestions.org)

Here at Crossroads Career we try to emphasize the word “Explore” for people who are unemployed or unfilled. The theme behind this emphasis is to encourage people to seek out different opportunities, to not just settle for what they’ve been doing, as we think a crossroads in a career is a terrific time to hear God calling, find the right job, or maximize your potential.

Yet at the same time, we believe an exploration needs to have a direction, a focus, some guidance, and a plan for a person to arrive at the right outcome, humanly speaking. While God can and does show up supernaturally for us, He also expects us to use our brains and experiences to find where we best fit in His plan. So we’ve got to think, estimate, or calculate what actions to take in approaching our exploration.

Figuring Out What’s Next

A few years ago, after close to 16 years at UnitedHealth Group, I exited the company and went through a career transition. For years I had heard and met people who had been on sabbaticals, and not one of them regretted a moment of taking a pause from their career journey to step back, reflect, think, and figure out what could be next.

So I gave myself a four month sabbatical, and as I got started, my good friend Joe Colavito gave me some superb advice. He encouraged me to think about and pick a few words to describe the attributes I wanted in the next gig and my life before I got too far down the road with exploration. As a side bar, you can hear some of Joe’s wisdom he shared with us in this podcast. (Listen HERE).

You see, words matter. Without getting into the psychology of how we think and the neural pathways in our brain, I’m betting you can easily agree. Think about the last major purchase you made where you were planful in figuring out what you wanted and how much you would spend. If you’re like me, odds are quite high you started noticing things related to what you had been thinking and planning.   

For example, if you bought a Chevy Silverado pick up truck, and you were checking out which dealerships might have one, and you were also checking out cars.com, etc., suddenly you noticed how many Chevy Silverados were on the roads. Our brains are amazing organs, and they adapt quickly to what takes up our mind share. God has equipped us with the ability to think, focus, plan, and execute.

I can’t fully recall how many words I developed six years ago on my sabbatical, but I’ll never forget two words that highlighted, framed, and motivated my career transition: Flexibility and autonomy.  

You see, I had worked for two large organizations over the bulk of my professional career, Arthur Andersen and UnitedHealth Group. While I didn’t have “entrepreneur” as one of my words, I did realize I wanted to have a lot of flexibility in my work hours, and quite a bit of autonomy in deciding who I worked with and when. So before I got too far down the road in exploration, and especially before I got potentially emotionally caught up with any specific opportunity, I had a few words reflecting my contemplation about what those attributes of my job and life could be.  

A few more Scriptures reinforce this approach with the principle of thinking about the right things. The verses are pointing us toward being better Christ followers, but the principle applies:

• 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
• Philippians 4:8 “Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”
• Deuteronomy 11:18 “Fix these words of Mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.”

Words to Guide Your Job Search

So with that Biblical grounding, let’s go through a quick exercise to determine 5 words to guide your job search!

1. With an empty piece of paper or electronic document, allow yourself two minutes to think about what words you would use to describe the attributes of your next job, career position, and life. Write them down. Don’t try to prioritize them yet – – you’re just trying to brainstorm about the possibilities and give yourself a menu from which to later select.  
2. Over the next couple minutes, hours, or days, purposefully think about additional words you would add to your “word menu.”  Here are a few to prompt your development, in addition to the two meaningful words for me, in alphabetical order:

Accountability	Freedom	Part-time
Career	Fulfilling	Proximity
Challenging	Growth	Remote work
Collaborative	Income	Routine
Collegial	Independent	Skills
Development	Innovation	Stability
Easy	Meaningful	Stress
Entrepreneurial	Mission	Values driven

3.  Once you feel like you have a good menu of words, print out 5 copies of the menu. Then, on one of the copies, circle the 10 words you like the best. Give yourself 60 seconds to do this. Don’t overthink it, just let your instincts and gut reaction (and yep, maybe the Holy Spirit!) take over. Once you’ve completed this, put the piece of paper away and repeat this step again for the next 5 days without looking at any of the previous days. (Yup, you guessed it, you’ve used up the 5 copies of the paper I asked you to print out.) 🙂

4. Using the 5 pieces of paper with 10 words circled on each, combine the circled words onto one page. Then, in 30 seconds, circle the 5 words that appeal to you the most as the attributes of what your next gig will look like.  

5.  Let your mind work with this over the next couple days. If you’re like most people, by now your brain has settled onto what sounds right to you. And the best thing is, you can change any of the words any time you want.

NOW, you have a filter through which to put every opportunity that comes your way. You also have some attributes to include in your search / pursuit other than just doing what you’ve done before.  

As I’m sure you’ve come to grips with by now, you are the ONLY person accountable for your job or purpose search! BUT, you can get help and support from many places, and we’re hopeful Crossroads Career can provide insight, advice, and counsel to you.  

In fact, our Crossroads Guides are standing by (Schedule your FREE 45 minute consultation HERE), ready to listen and help you discern not only what could be next, but how to get there. Please be sure to share with them your five words and get their feedback!  

Use God’s Word, your 5 words, and their encouraging words to guide your job search!  🙂

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Dave Sparkman currently serves as the volunteer Crossroads Career board chair and local ministry leader. He is also the founder and managing director of Spark Your Culture, a corporate culture consulting firm. Prior to that he worked at UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune #5 public company, serving in the role of Chief Culture Officer. His unemployment experience came from the implosion of Arthur Andersen, where he served as the West Region Managing Partner, People.