JT6 | 4 Steps To Land Your Dream Job (Job Hunting)

I have very few career regrets, but if I had to pick, I’d say one regret is that I spent half of my career going with the flow. I do wonder sometimes whether I might have been better off if I had broadened my horizons and made more intentional choices earlier in life. So, if you’re like me just moving jobs and roles because they are the first ones to come along, or pay more, or are just at a convenient location, think again. Don’t you have a dream job or a dream role or even a dream location that you want to work at someday? Well if you do, why keep doing what you’re doing? Why not make that someday, today?

Discussion Topics: 4 Steps to Land Your Dream Job (Job Hunting)

• Make a list of your dream jobs and companies; also consider non-obvious ones.
• Filter out those companies not known for cutting-edge work in your space.
• Now adopt a three-pronged strategy to access your dream jobs: The first is to network.
• Second, prepare to ace your interviews through presentation, interest, expertise, and collegiality.
• Set up alerts so you’ll know when that perfect job is posted and get a referral through your new network.

Transcript: 4 Steps to Land Your Dream Job (Job Hunting)

Many of us feel like we are stuck in dead-end jobs and dream about working at that awesome company or in that interesting role one day. Well, what’s stopping you? Let’s make a plan!

Hi, my name is Amit and I spent almost two decades working with and leading hundreds of talented people in a variety of large and small organisations. In the process, I’ve developed a pretty good behind-the-scenes view of what it takes to succeed in the corporate world. In this show, I share with you everything I’ve learnt so you can accelerate your career, land exciting roles and shape the career of your dreams.

In fact, today’s JobTok is actually about fulfilling your dreams, and we’ve tried to help by taking away some of your nightmares. Head on over to CrazyTok Media Resources page linked in the show notes and you’ll get a short and sweet template for making LinkedIn connections along with a template for shortlisting your dream companies.

I have very few career regrets, but if I had to pick, I’d say one regret is that I spent half of my career going with the flow. I joined my first job largely because a couple of seniors whom I knew and liked were there. Shoutout to Anshu and Mani, if you are listening. And for the first ten years of my career, all my job choices were because of expediency – usually because they were the first to make me an offer.

It was relatively late in my career when I did finally make a more intentional move and that really jump-started a lot of good things and actually shaped me into a better and more valued professional. So, even though I feel I’ve done well at work I do wonder sometimes whether I might have been better off if I had broadened my horizons and made more intentional choices earlier in life.

So, if you’re like me just moving jobs and roles because they are the first one to come along, or pay more or are just at a convenient location, think again. Don’t you have a dream job or a dream role or even a dream location that you want to work at someday? Well if you do, why keep doing what you’re doing? Why not make that someday, today? Here’s how.

List Your Dream Jobs

Perhaps you’re the kind of person who already has a really good idea of where exactly you want to work. If so, that’s great because if you know where you want to go, you already have a head start getting there! But many others don’t really articulate what our dream job looks like. We just know it’s going to be a lot better than where we are. And that’s no good. Because how are you going to start your dream job hunt without a job in mind? I mean LinkedIn is good, but it ain’t gonna appear in your dreams to figure things out for you! So, if you don’t have a specific job in mind, a good place to start is by making a list of great options that you can start with.

Start your list with the names of companies you admire and where you believe you will be happy at work because of what they do. When I first started on this process back in 2015 I knew I wanted to work with truly transformative startups and listed companies like Uber and Airbnb in my list of ‘admired companies’. Try to list at least 15-20 companies this way. If you’re having trouble getting started, try the template we’ve linked in the CrazyTok Resources page. There are a few more pointers there for getting your list started.

Another way you could add to the list is to think of all the products you love using and write them down. Then figure out which companies make them and consider whether you might want to work for those companies instead. I find this to be very useful because there’s a bunch of things I absolutely love using but they are by companies I would not have thought of just top of mind like with the first list. This should add another 10-20 to your Dream Company list, bringing it to about 30-40 companies

It’s actually possible to manage a job hunt with a list of 30-40 companies but if you are keen to shortlist, here are two ways you could reduce the list to maybe 15-20 best of the best.

• First, filter out those companies which are not known for the kind of work you specialise in. For example, if you are an HR professional and one of your top companies isn’t really known for progressive people policies you might want to let it go because it’s unlikely they prioritise the function or attract the best HR talent. Similarly, if you’re an operations expert and the company is heavily digital you might not have the kind of career path or work satisfaction you want from a dream job.
• Second, and this is quite optional, but you could filter out those companies that aren’t in your location, in your professional network or anywhere you could easily relocate. Now these are not really reasons to drop a company you really, truly want to join, but lack of this kind of access will make it a lot harder to find a way in so if you’re not super-keen on something, just let it drop.

With that you should now have about 15-20 truly best of the best companies for you. That was the fun part. Now starts the hard work of making your dreams a reality

Network With Company Insiders

The job hunts that you might have done so far are likely to have been because you were fed up with your boss or the company or the lack of opportunity or pay. Or they might have been born out of desperation because you lost your job or had to relocate for family reasons. In such cases chances are you didn’t have time to process calmly and wait till you found the perfect opportunity so you took what was on offer.

The good news is that this time is different. You are proactively looking for your dream job, not reacting to an urgent or untenable situation. So you have plenty of time to do it right. Even better, you have narrowed your options to just a couple of dozen companies and don’t have to waste hours spraying your resume to hundreds of places. Instead you can plan properly and increase the chances of success at these few places.

This needs a three-pronged strategy. Why three prongs you ask? Well because you need to get it right – and as you know, two prongs don’t make a right. So we have three prongs: Networking, Interview Preparation, and job selection. You should do all three in parallel. Let’s first talk about networking.

There are three ways you can network with company insiders.

1. The first is the easiest one, through friends. Ask friends who work at those companies to help you with tips and advice. If your friends know people who work there then ask for an introduction.
2. The second is to use LinkedIn. Maximize your LinkedIn profile with a complete profile with a good photo, a well-written headline and summary, and a complete record of your work experience till date. This is the bare minimum you need to be able to look credible to others on LinkedIn. Then look for friends or friends of friends who might work at the companies on your list. Ask for an introduction so you can connect with them. if you’re reaching out directly don’t just send a blank connection request. Write a paragraph explaining that company X is your dream company and you’d like to connect to get ideas on how to apply. If you aren’t sure how to frame it properly, check out the sample LinkedIn intro message we’ve added to our free resource page.
3. The third is to attend meetups. Some companies host talks or mixers where you can register and get an opportunity to meet with company insiders. Try to get a few connections that way and invite them out for a coffee later to get a bit more insight into the company. Most important, and this is something most people neglect, maintain the network. It’s no good to connect, chat and then ghost the person till you need them for a referral. That is too transactional and people usually don’t respond well to that. Much better would be to keep an eye on the news and once in a while send them interesting things they might want to read. By that I mean once every couple of months, not once every couple of days! You want to be known as a good talker, not a great stalker!

This is a nice and non-intrusive way to stay top of mind and also perhaps add some value to their day. And it won’t be any extra effort because you’re going to be doing this kind of research anyway as part of the second bit of your dream company strategy, which is interview preparation.

Prepare for interviews

The average interview tends to be pretty similar when it comes to questions about you and your experience. Where interviews diverge is on questions of expertise that are role-specific. So, even without a role to shoot for, you may start getting ready by using job interview tips that will help you land your dream job.

How does one ace an interview? Well, we could talk for hours on this topic (and maybe we will in a future episode) but it boils down to presentation, interest, expertise, and collegiality. You need to present yourself and your experience in the best light, you need to be interesting and interested, you should be sufficiently expert for the level at which you’re applying and have well-reasoned points of view and come across as an overall great person to work with. Here are some points to work on while you await your dream job

Flesh out the memories of your own work experience. You need to have some material to back up things you’ve written on your resume and it is easy to forget stuff on the fly. So go through your work to make your resume perfect and dig up numbers, examples, and anecdotes about the work so you can quote them when asked. Also, it often happens that your experience does not immediately translate to the needs of the company or it is hard for the interviewer to figure out how it is relevant in their context. So while you dig up details about your past projects, also work on explaining your experience without jargon and in a manner that the company will most easily appreciate

Go through Glassdoor, Blind, or other such services to get a sense of what people are saying about the company. Take note of the negative comments and add them to a list of questions you will ask your interviewers when you get the opportunity. Also try to get a perspective on salaries, so that you have a foundation for discussion when it comes to negotiating a salary.

Learn more about the company and the industry, especially recent highlights and challenges. This kind of background info will help you better demonstrate your interest in the company. If you have a specific kind of job role in mind and not just the company, then you can also add role-specific preparation. If you are feeling especially enthusiastic, you could even prepare a mockup or sample deliverable that you can use when you get the interview opportunity.

For example, a couple of my best hires came into the interview with presentations that showed how they thought about the role of my team and the future of the company. What they said actually wasn’t important, but it showed commitment, interest, and a glimpse into the quality of their thinking and work output.

Keep an eye out for the perfect job

Along with building a network in the perfect company, and preparing to be the perfect candidate, you also need to keep an eye out for that perfect job. For this again, LinkedIn is your friend. You can set up job alerts for your chosen companies on LinkedIn and also any popular job sites where they are likely to advertise. You may also want to bookmark the career pages of those companies and check back periodically or get onto mailing lists if they have any. This way you’ll always know when there is something relevant for you at your dream company, which is half the battle

Now it’s pretty common knowledge that job applications through company websites rarely get a response. It’s usually better to apply through a referral. And that’s where all that hard work building a network kicks in. Send the link to the job post to your connections and ask whether they can help refer you. If you’ve left even half-decent impression, chances are they will. Thank them for their referral if you get a call back. And after the process is over, do remember to send a follow-up note with a summary of the outcome whatever it might be.

And that’s it. Your three-pronged strategy to landing your Dream Job. And of course, while you might be applying to your dream job, this concept could apply to any job. See what I did there? The thing though is that with a dream job, you have a short list of great companies and so you can put in the effort to do it right whereas it is hard to make the time to do this much work for a long list of maybes.

Summary: 4 Steps to Land Your Dream Job

To land your dream job you need to first make a shortlist of great places you want to work at. Then Network, Prepare for job interviews, and job hunt so you can land and ace your interviews. Best of all through this process you make a few new acquaintances and also end up preparing yourself for other interviews that might come up. It’s a win all round. So the best time to start working on your dream job is now. Start making a list or, if you don’t know how to start, head over to our Resources page and download a template that should get you off to a great start.