Latest / Career Coaching with Fexingo: Professional Coaches, Career Counselors, and Guidance for Workers / How to Use a Career Audit to Find Your Next Move
Transcript
- Lucas: So you've been in your current role for a few years. You're good at it. You're not miserable. But something feels off — like you're coasting, or your growth has flattened. That's the career plateau, and it's surprisingly hard to diagnose from the inside. Luna: Right, because it's not a crisis. You don't hate your job. You're just... meh. And 'meh' is hard to act on. Lucas: Exactly. So today I want to walk through a specific tool for that moment — a structured career audit. Not the vague 'follow your passion' kind. I mean a two-hour exercise with three buckets that forces you to separate what you're good at from what you want to do from what the market actually needs. Luna: I love this because most people skip the audit entirely. They either stay put out of inertia, or they make a leap based on a gut feeling that turns out to be wrong. Lucas: Right. And the gut feeling isn't useless — but it's better as a hypothesis to test. So let me lay out the three buckets, and we'll use a real example. I spoke with a marketing manager — let's call her Sarah — who used this framework last year to move into product management without starting over. Luna: Okay, walk me through the buckets. Lucas: Bucket one: skills and energy. This is the honest inventory of what you're actually good at and what gives you energy versus what drains you. Sarah realized she loved the strategy side of campaigns — positioning, customer research — but hated the execution logistics: scheduling emails, coordinating vendors. Luna: That's a key distinction. It's not just about competence. You can be great at something that leaves you empty by 3 p.m. Lucas: Exactly. Bucket two: values and interests. What matters to you now — not five years ago. Sarah thought she wanted a bigger title, but when she dug in, she realized she wanted more ownership over the product itself. She wanted to shape what was built, not just how it was marketed. Luna: That's a subtle but huge shift. And it's hard to surface without a structured prompt. Lucas: Right. Bucket three: market demand. This is the reality check. You can want something and be good at it, but if nobody's hiring for it at a level you can afford, you need to adjust. Sarah looked at job postings for associate product manager roles and found that her customer research and cross-functional collaboration experience were directly listed in about 60 percent of the descriptions. Luna: So she had a bridge. She wasn't starting from zero. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the whole point of the audit. You're not looking for a perfect fit. You're looking for the overlap — the intersection of what energizes you, what you value, and what the market will pay for. Sarah's overlap was product management with a focus on customer insights. That's a very specific target. Luna: And from there she could build a plan. Take a certification, volunteer for a cross-functional project, update her LinkedIn headline — small steps that compound. Lucas: Right. But the audit itself is the foundation. Let me give listeners a step-by-step they can do this weekend. Step one: block two hours. No phone, no email. Step two: open a document or notebook and create three columns — skills/energy, values/interests, market demand. Luna: And be brutally honest. If managing spreadsheets drains your soul, write it down. The audit only works if you're honest. Lucas: Yes. For column one, list every major task you do in a typical week. Rate each from 1 to 5 on both proficiency and enjoyment. Then circle the ones where both scores are 4 or higher. Those are your power zones. The low-proficiency, low-enjoyment tasks — those are the ones you should try to delegate or drop. Luna: I think a lot of people will find that their highest-paid skill is something they don't even enjoy. That's a hard pill to swallow. Lucas: It is. But it's also information. You can decide to accept that trade-off, or you can start building a different skill that you actually like. Column two: values and interests. Write down five things that matter to you in a role — autonomy, mentorship, creative input, stability, whatever. Then rank them. Take Sarah — she thought 'promotion' was her top value, but when she ranked, 'ownership' came out on top. Luna: Because ownership is often a deeper driver than title. And it's more actionable too. Lucas: Exactly. Column three: market demand. Spend thirty minutes on LinkedIn and Indeed. Search for roles that match your top skills and values. Note the common requirements. What's the salary range? What certifications keep appearing? Sarah noticed that about half the product roles asked for some data analysis experience. She didn't have that, but she could learn SQL in about three months. Luna: So the audit doesn't just tell you where you are — it tells you the gap you need to close. That's actionable. Lucas: Right. And once you have the overlap, you set one small experiment. Sarah volunteered to lead a customer research project for her current team's product launch. That gave her a concrete example to talk about in interviews. She didn't need to quit or go back to school. She just needed a proof of concept. Luna: I'd add that the audit is also useful if you're not looking to change roles at all. You might discover that you're actually in a pretty good spot, and the 'meh' feeling is just a lack of variety or a need for a new challenge within your current job. Lucas: Totally. And that's a valid outcome. The goal isn't to force a change. The goal is clarity. I've seen people do this audit and realize they just need to ask for a different project, not a different title. Luna: Before we go further — and I want to stay on this topic because I think it's so useful — can I just note something about how we're able to do these deep dives without any sponsor interruptions? Lucas: Sure. It's intentional. We keep Career Coaching ad-free because we think career advice should be driven by what's useful, not by what sells. If that's something you value and you'd like to support that choice, you can do so at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just an option if the show has helped you. Luna: Exactly. And it's a small way to keep this resource available for everyone. Okay, back to the audit — I think one thing people struggle with is actually making time for it. Two hours can feel like a luxury. Lucas: It does. But consider the cost of not doing it. If you spend two years in a role that's slowly draining you, that's a much bigger loss. I tell people to treat it like a doctor's appointment for your career. You schedule it and you show up. Luna: And you can break it up. Do column one on Saturday morning, column two on Sunday, and column three the following weekend. The important thing is to complete all three before you make any decisions. Lucas: Great point. The framework is only as good as the full picture. One more tip: after you finish the audit, write a one-paragraph summary of your overlap area. Sarah's was: 'I want to move into product management focused on customer insights, leveraging my research and strategy skills, and I need to learn SQL and get one cross-functional project.' That's a thesis statement for her next six months. Luna: That's so concrete. I think listeners can do this right now. So what's the biggest mistake you see people make when they try to do a career audit? Lucas: They skip the market demand column. They figure out what they want and what they're good at, but they don't check if anyone's hiring for that combination. You end up with a plan that has no route to execution. The market column is the reality anchor. Luna: Or they do the audit once and never revisit it. But career satisfaction isn't static. What energizes you at 30 might drain you at 40. Lucas: Right. I recommend doing a mini audit every six months — just thirty minutes to re-rate your skills and values. The market column you can update yearly. It keeps you from drifting into a role that no longer fits. Luna: Let me ask you this: what if the audit reveals that your overlap is something that requires a significant pay cut or a relocation? How do you handle that? Lucas: That's the hardest situation. First, be honest about your constraints. If you can't relocate, then that path is off the table — adjust. Second, see if there's a way to get a taste of the new field without leaving your current job. Maybe a side project or a volunteer role. That way you test the waters before making the leap. And sometimes the audit reveals that your current path, with some tweaks, is actually better than the alternatives. Luna: Yeah, the audit isn't a prescription to change everything. It's a tool for making informed decisions. I think that's the most important takeaway. Lucas: Exactly. So to sum up: two hours, three columns, one summary sentence. If you do that this weekend, you'll know more about your career direction than most people learn in a year of passive job searching. And if you want to share your summary or ask a follow-up, we'll be covering how to execute on that in future episodes. Luna: I'm already thinking about my own audit. I think I know my overlap, but I haven't written it down. There's something about putting it on paper that makes it real. Lucas: It does. And once it's real, you can act on it. That's the whole point.