Personal & Life
Your Job Criteria Worksheet: Decide What Matters Before Applying
Beginner | 1 whiteboard page · Task board: 5 columns (5 parent tasks, 10 subtasks)
Beginner: No technical terms. Just answer the whiteboard's questions, following the examples, and it takes shape.
A job criteria worksheet for students attending info sessions and internships who still cannot say why one employer appeals over another, opened before narrowing down where to apply. The whiteboard holds a four-step flow that pulls criteria out of choices you already made, a must-have versus can-flex quadrant, a table giving each criterion a verdict and a question to ask, and rules for wavering. Five task columns run from taking stock through drafting and clarifying to confirmed criteria - Verified needs an answer from someone who works there, Confirmed means it can judge a real opening.
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Job Criteria Worksheet
How to use: (1) Pull criteria out of the choices you already made → (2) Sort them into must-have and can-flex → (3) Judge one real opening with the sheet
1. The Goal (a sheet that tells you whether to apply)
- What you leave with One sheet that lets you decide on the spot whether to apply. Your motivation letter gets built from the words on it.
- What you already know Every choice you have made had a reason behind it. It simply has not been put into words yet - go back and collect them.
- What you cannot know yet You have never worked there, so some of this is guesswork. Mark the guessed criteria and check them with a real person later.
- How to work on this Do not decide how many criteria you need. Get them all out, then sort. Date every edit so you can see how your thinking moved.
2. Four Steps from Past Choices to Criteria
- 1. List the choices Write five moments you chose for yourself - school, work, activities.
- 2. Name the reason One sentence each on what tipped it. Your reason, not other people's.
- 3. Look for repeats Mark words that appear in more than one reason and pull out the overlap.
- 4. Turn into criteria Reword each one as a trait of an employer you could actually ask about.
3. Sorting the Criteria (must-have or can-flex, work or environment)
Vertical axis: can flex ⇔ cannot give up / Horizontal axis: the work itself ⇔ the environment around it
- Must-haves about the work Criteria you would decline to apply over. Only words that came out of choices you actually made.
- Must-haves about the setting Time off, place, how people work together - what decides whether you can keep going at all.
- Can flex about the work Nice to have, but you would still apply without it. Write how far you would bend, as a number or a state.
- Can flex about the setting You would accept less here if the rest holds up. Name the one thing you want in exchange.
4. The Criteria Table (examples - replace with your own words)
| Must / nice / avoid | Question to ask | Where it came from | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact with people | Must - work as a team daily | How much of the day is talking? | The service job I stayed at longest |
| Pace of learning | Must - real work within 3 years | How are year-one training and placement decided? | I grew faster in a club than alone |
| Place and distance | Nice - close enough to family | How often do people relocate? | Living far away wore me down |
| Time and days off | Avoid - no say over days off | Can I take the days I need off? | I missed events that mattered |
5. Rules for when you waver
- Reread the sheet out loud first
- Do not add employers off-sheet
- Date and explain every edit
6. Handling other people's views
- Being well known is not a criterion
- Others' views go in the evidence column
- Answer pushback from the sheet
7. Monthly review notes
- Note one thing that surprised you
- Log a role you struggled to judge
- Delete criteria you never once used
Task board contents
To take stock 15 items
Review past choices
Gather the raw material before naming any criteria. List the moments you chose for yourself - a school, a job, an activity outside class.
List five choices
Name five moments you decided for yourself after real hesitation. It does not matter how they turned out - the choosing is the point.
Write each reason
Write in one sentence what tipped each decision. Use the reason that convinced you at the time, not the one that sounds impressive now.
Find shared themes
Read the five reasons side by side and pull out what keeps coming back. These repeats become the first draft of your criteria.
Mark repeated words
Mark every word that shows up in more than one reason. Keep the ones that appear twice or more and park the rest for later.
Reword as job traits
Turn each marked word into a phrase about an employer. Make it specific enough to check in a job posting or ask someone about.
Sort your criteria
Place each criterion by whether you can flex on it and whether it is about the work itself or the environment around it. Keep them all.
Pick the must-haves
Keep only the criteria you would decline to apply over. Anything you hesitate about belongs on the can-flex side.
Name your trade-offs
For every can-flex criterion, write how far you would actually bend, as a number or a plain state. Without a line you re-argue it each time.
Test each criterion
Check the criteria you wrote from imagination. Verify each one against both the posting and a person who works there.
Draft questions
Write one yes-or-no question per criterion. Phrase it so you can ask it as-is at an info session or in a one-to-one with someone who works there.
Ask and log answers
Ask your questions and add the answers to the matching row. Keep what you were told separate from how it felt.
Lock the criteria
Settle this before you start applying. Until it is locked, neither your shortlist nor your motivation letter can move forward.
Split must and nice
Sort every criterion into must-have, nice-to-have, or avoid. If the must list gets long, rank it and cut from the bottom.
Apply it to one role
Run one real opening through the sheet and decide whether to apply. If you cannot decide, the wording of the criteria needs work.
