The feeling of not being good enough is common among many professionals, be it a senior developer or be it a director in the Big 4.

The first thing everybody thinks about when planning for next level growth is knowledge uplift – skill development, certification or perhaps an MBA. Why? Because they think they are not good enough.

I take a completely different approach when I’m coaching someone.

I believe you are already sitting on a mountain of value. First discover your true value and hidden powers and communicate to the right people in the marketplace. Everybody I coached so far has increased their income by at least 30% just by doing this. Of course, the devil is in the detail.

So, here are 3 steps you need to follow

Step1: Fill in the mountain of value cheatsheet

Take the mountain of value cheatsheet and fill all the 36 boxes. This becomes a datamart of all your career assets. You realise your career assets are not just your experience but the association with the companies you worked, the programs you worked on, people you worked with, the result you created, impact your project created, the recognition and reward you received and many more covered in the cheatsheet

Step2: Develop your career story

Pick of the best elements from your mountain of value and create a career story, speak it out loud, review, refine… until you feel it’s at least 9 out of 10.

You need two types of the story

A social pitch – couple of lines. You use it when someone asks you “hey what do you do”.

You may say ”I am in IT project manager” or a better way would be

I’m an IT project manager specialising in moving complex legacy banking systems to cloud without disrupting the business operation.

You might be thinking, but I have done so many things, how can I say that in 1 or 2 sentences. Well, it depends on where you want to go. Use your expertise related to what you want to do next!

A Scheduled pitch – which is the answer to “tell me about yourself”

Your story to answer two core asks – what value you bring to the table and what problems you can solve the best. You will cover in your story

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Step 3: Update your marketing material

Update your linkedin

Update your resume and cover letter

Also create a one slide executive profile if you are looking for a senior role.

Step 4: Create a list of top 10-15 companies

Pick companies that match your aspirations as well as your value offer as best as possible.

Don’t worry about the exact role yet. Focus on the value you offer

Step 5: Start doing Informational Inteviews

You do informational interviews with

Your role models

Recruiters who specialise in your area of expertise

Your colleagues

Key people (included their internal recruiters) in the shortlisted companies

More informational interview you do, better becomes your understanding of the market need and how valuable your expertise and experience are. You refine your story with every feedback you capture from the market.

At high level, that’s all you need to do find the best fit role and path – discover your mountain of value, build your career story, identify top matching companies, do a lot of informational interview.

One of my coaches was sent an offer the next day by the HR after an informational interview with a senior executive in a target company. He was shocked, so he called the executive to understand what happened! The executive told him that he liked his background and story and hence he create a new role and roadmap for this role.