Let me count the ways.  Am I my resume?  Am I a brand?  Am I desperately seeking someone to show me the way?  If you are as confused by how you should define who and what you represent to the job world, get in line.  Most people today don’t know whether they are defined by the accomplishments listed on their 3-page resume or the idea that they should somehow convince themselves they are a brand like any common household product! Knowing who you are is important of course, but knowing what you stand for when faced with your inevitable job search is essential.

You may think you’ve done this enough times to know what you know and how best to interview for your dream job.  Sure, practice is everything.  But sometimes you get so comfortable in our habits of how you dress or show up for a meeting, or how you prepare by maybe even carrying a lucky talisman around, that you might appear a bit “auto-tron” in your delivery.  It’s not that you are getting set in your ways, but changing it up is never a bad thing especially when you are out to impress.

If you’ve ever heard the expression, “skin in the game,” don’t worry, it’s not a reference to a condition you get if you turn into a zombie in the AMC series “The Walking Dead.” It is a condition you get however, if you ask yourself what is your long term commitment when it comes to your career and if you have what it takes to stay the course.  Many of us think that by focusing on the meeting or the resume or the job offer, we’ve done our best to commit to the process of establishing our career goals and job search when little else seems to matter. When you have skin in the game when it comes to your career, it means are you committed to the long-term plan and asking yourself, Do you really know what you want and how to keep it?

If you’ve ever studied a course in spirituality you may have heard of a concept where before you decide to enter this earthly plane you actually had a choice on the selection of your parents.  Now whether you think that is an interesting concept, true or not, it certainly makes you think about the power we supposedly hold over our very existence. I thought about this in my own case and wondered what it was I would have gained by choosing the parents I did.  If this concept were true, then I believe I would have chosen my mother for her sense of humor, sensitivity, intelligence, creativity and my father for his loyalty, survival instincts and tremendous work ethic.  If you consider this for a moment and applied this concept to your career, would you be able to decide whether you chose your job or if your job chose you?

Making the most of a bad situation these days takes a lot more than prayer, a glass of champagne, and getting lost in your iPad.  If you’ve been lost looking for a ray of hope in the otherwise cloudy skies of the job market, just look up and if that doesn’t help and you are still in some serious doubt, then change it up.

As the song goes, “You can’t always get what you want,” but you will always get what you need.  When it comes to focusing on what it will take to make you happy in your career, you need to discover what truly drives your ambitions.  Is it money?  Is it title? Is it freedom?  Is it creativity?  Is it routine? Finding out what truly makes you wake up each morning and embrace the day with vigor, courage and yes, desire will help you towards reaching and succeeding in your career goals.  Knowing what truly drives you to move forward in life and mapping out the plan that will help you get there is as much as knowing what you want from what you truly need.

When it comes to finding the right job you are sometimes obliged to determine what box you fit into.  You are asked to define your talents, skills and gifts as if you were being asked to select off a fast food menu of options.  In today’s crazy and seemingly unstable job market, it’s not enough for you to guess which of your many skills will be the winning combination to pique someone’s interest.  There was a time when specializing in a certain area was of key interest to prospective employers.  The job landscape has changed and now more than ever you need to possess a diversified skill set to show how flexible and multi-talented you truly are.  So is it cool to be the specialist or the generalist?

Wondering what it would take to succeed in a time when so much is riding on your ability to survive? Nothing can stand in your way of getting what you want from your career than a little determination, a strong will and well, a mission to succeed at all costs. Finding your passion and sticking to it, no matter the odds, channels the way and allows a line of sight to appear out of a cloudy career path. Knowing that you will do what it takes to see it through to achieve your goal, whatever that may be, is the fighter instinct you need to develop in order to realize true success.  Do you have true grit to see it through and find the job you were meant to do?

Knowing when to put yourself on the line for what you believe in these days can be a precarious task.  Trusting yourself more than you trust your co-worker may be your first line of defense.  Finding your footing when you feel that every misstep may lead you closer to the front door all the while looking over your shoulder determining whom you should trust.  Speaking up for yourself when you feel slighted in the workplace is a gamble. There was a time when being vocal and expressing yourself was considered a true sign of your leadership and personal integrity.  Now you have to weigh the odds even when the top brass encourages you to “speak freely” under promises of providing an “open work environment.”  Not true.  When in doubt you have two choices: 1) Put up or, 2) Shut up.

Sometimes you walk in cocky and so sure of yourself that you may wonder why you even need to interview for the job in the first place?  Come on already you can’t be that good?  It’s great to possess self-confidence and to be self-assured when you are handling the interview process so well, but how do you really know you are acing the interview or living up to a higher standard?

Here are five ways to know you are hitting it out of the park whether you ultimately get a job offer or not: