When I was talking about career basics, I touched upon the work/life balance questions you need to ask yourself.

These questions help you decide how career-minded you are.

As a career coach, one of the most common problems I come across is people who feel they need to be career-driven in order to be considered successful. But that shouldn't be the case.

Sometimes, what work/life balance question reveal is that the life element is far more important than the work element - and the work element only exists in order to get by and enjoy the life element.

If you're this kind of person, then you need to realise it, because pushing yourself to be career-minded is just going to make you miserable.

For people who are life-minded, their career usually takes one of three paths:

• they do the job that earns them the most money in the shortest space of time so they can enjoy life
• they do a job they really enjoy, so their work life becomes part of their job life
• they plod through an undemanding job that uses up as little of their brain as possible, so it encroaches on their life as little as possible.

If any of these sound like you, then you're life-minded, not career-minded. You need to take this knowledge and use it to your advantage.

Every once in a while it's good to start at the beginning and think about the decisions you've made that form the foundations of your job search. And the big on is deciding on your career.

Whether you're looking for your first job or your nineth job, the way to make the decision is the same.

You need to ask yourself:

• what you want out of a career
• what kind of job would be best for you
• who you want to work for

If you want kudos from a desk job within the public sector or multinational company, the way you job-hunt will be very different from somebody who wants to feed fulfilled from an outdoor job working with animal charities.

The other question you need to ask yourself is what you enjoy doing.

Sometimes it's the things you enjoy and the skills you have - and not the job title - that help you find the job that's right for you.

Many people in this situation need to retrain or take a pay-cut. The 10 years experience you have in your old job might mean very little in your potential new job.

You might be expected to start at entry level or just one rung up the ladder - which is when you need to ask yourself work/life balance questions, but more about that later.

When you're writing your CV, don't dismiss the human element of who you are. Companies want to know the kind of person they're going to be work with if they employ you. You need to make sure the human element is on show at interview stage too.

So how do you define yourself?

The temptation is to say all the right things, whether or not they're true. But it makes much more sense to turn your general characteristics into positive ones, putting a positive slant on who you actually are.

Maybe your chattiness means you're good at putting people at ease in new situations. Or maybe you're an early riser, so you're ready to cover the phones in an emergency before anyone else gets to the office.

Now being chatty and being a morning person are good things about you.

Making a list of characteristics such as these can help in two ways. Firstly, they focus you on your strengths, so that you're ready to present yourself in a positive light. And, secondly, they are great for a self-esteem boost, which helps you mentally prepare for writing your CV and attending the interview.

It saddens me to have to write to warn job hunters about the unscrupulous fraudsters who are milking the weakened jobs market in order to launder money.

A report in The Guardian explains that anyone who falls victim to the scams could end up having their bank account suspending - and find themselves liable to repay the full amount of laundered funds.

I want to make sure that anyone struggling to find a job in the current economic market doesn't fall for the scam out of desperation.

Job titles being targeted include financial manager, money transfer agent, shipping manager - and even mystery shopper.

So people who are looking for work in the financial services need to be extra vigilant. And if a job advert looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Read the article in The Guardian

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