Talent-Job Alignment

Parts of our job align so tightly with our talents that we can effortlessly excel and perform well

Other parts feel like the worst things in the world to work towards. Kind of like picking up dog poop.

What if you took the core competencies of your job (bonus points if you get your leader’s input) then considered how your talents (recommended Top 5 Report from CliftonStrenghts) can feed into those competencies.

This is great if considering a new job or if evaluating your current job. What is required of the job and how could you use strengths to meet (and hopefully exceed) those requirements.

You might notice a job has little alignment to your talents…consider steering clear of that one.

Maybe you see that your talents would have to be honed and refined (raw vs. mature) to meet the needs…do you want the challenge?

Maybe you realize areas you align almost perfectly in some areas…bask in the goodness and consider some gratitude.


I’m considering creating a worksheet to help with this process…pulled some ideas from a few Gallup blogs linked below:

Does a Specific Career Best Match My CliftonStrengths Results?

How to Improve My Career

Politics at Work: “Cognizant but Don’t Embark”

Understand the politics do not play in the politics because the worst thing that can happen is you’re labeled as political, which is a dead nail. So please do not embark and playing the politics. Just be cognizant of the politics.

Indra Nooyi on Adam Grant’s Podcast, Taken For Granted (approximately 37:35 timestamp)

This is from Part 2 of a two part series of interviews by Adam Grant with Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of Pepsi Co. Both interviews are worth a listen and specifically this concept of being cognizant of politics but not embarking on politics in the workplace.

Balance between being aware but not engaging. What a dance to do.