Interviews on Career Success
Questions to ask people who are defined as successful and struggling with their career.
Interviewing people on career success can be a very interesting exercise. Try asking people the following questions to determine why they are successful or not.
As an assignment for my career coaching clients, I often ask them to interview people they feel are successful and others who never seem to make the right career choices to help determine what the secrets to career success are. It is a very interesting exercise and can be very enlightening. It reveals why some people sabotage their careers and others take opportunities and run with them.
- What does career success look like to you? Define and describe career success in your eyes. For you, is your level of career success dependent on (circle those that apply and describe what they mean to you):
- Level of income
- Fame or recognition
- Social status
- Material possessions
- Feelings of satisfaction, happiness, love and/or respect
- Tangible accomplishments
- Being a role model to someone
- Overcome an obstacle (growth)
- Achievement of a goal(s)
- Living to an aspired ideal
- Solid sense of self esteem/self worth (spiritual fulfillment)
- Other factors, please specify
- What do you feel you are succeeding at now in your career/work life (list them)?
- How are these career successes impacting your life?
- What actions do you take when you have a career success?
- What emotions do you feel when you have a career success?
- How do you define career failure? Is it simply not achieving those things that you identified as factors of career success or is it something else?
- What do you feel you are failing at now in your career (list them)?
- How are these career failures impacting your life?
- What actions to you take when faced with a career failure?
- What emotions do you feel when faced with a career failure?
When we examine the results some common threads appear. The common threads from these interviews are presented in the article Career Success: Defining what makes a person professionally successful.
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