Today, we’ll examine the 5 keys to get a great job in 2
months The 5 Keys include:
1. Define
your dream job with an employer description.
2. Adopt
the how can I help attitude.
3.
Ask
questions to discover organizational wants and needs.
4. Prove
that you are the solution they are looking for
5. Make
your tens: 10 contacts a day and 10 meetings a week
We're going to briefly describe each of them and go into
much more detail in the later posts.
Define your purpose and passion in a written Employer Description.
The majority of people, especially high performers, are
unhappy with their jobs. Many times, dissatisfaction occurs because people have
not taken the time to identify what they really want to do, or they don’t
describe it in enough detail to make it real. Identifying and pursuing your
purpose, passion, and calling provides criteria to evaluate your options. This is done in three parts. First, discover
your calling. Second, explore your favorite skills. Third, writing your ideal
employer description.
First,
let's talk about identifying your passion and purpose. The six essential
elements of a job. You need to decide are you going for a job, a career, or
your calling? To do so. Every job has six essential parts:
- The skills and responsibilities you love to do.
- The industries that interest you. Industries change the nature of the job changes. For example, a manager in a manufacturing company, a bank, a fast food service. You have the same job title, the same kind of responsibilities of boy is the job different.
- The size of the organization. Do you want to work for a startup, a smaller organization, medium, large or global?
- Who owns the organization. Stockholders, private yourself, we the people or no ownership. That's nonprofits.
- Location, both the geographic locale (country, state, city). Locale means metro, urban, suburban, rural or virtual.
- The most important and the most overlooked element of the job is the environment you want to work in, the physical, cultural, leadership style, and more. It's the environment that usually impacts our happiness on the job and it's the one we do the least to prepare for, identify and verify.
Adopt the How can I help? attitude
Next,
you need to adopt the "How can I help?" attitude. This involves stop saying stupid
stuff, maintain your professional identity, and then look for people you can help.One woman
described a job search as the most demeaning experience in her life. She said, I felt like I
was standing on the corner holding a sign saying "Will work for food". But it was
worse than that. I had to chase the cars down the street shouting. "Pick me,
pick me".
Now,
contrast that with Vick who is an aviation flight test engineer. When he
adopted the "How can I help?" attitude, he said (two weeks into his job
search) "I am
having so much fun on this job search!"; two phrases that usually don't
go together. But because he was working to help people achieve their
goals, he
not only had fun, he had a great job paying 15 percent more in four and a
half
weeks of being laid off.
Ask questions to gather information about wants and needs
The
third step is to gather information about wants and needs. Remember, you
ask questions to identify the organization's goals or challenges that
you can help them achieve or resolve. You do that in
three ways:
- Review the literature on their web site, annual reports, press releases, LinkedIn or professional association articles.
- Ask people general questions. These are the people who aren't doing the job you want to do, but they work in organizations that may have do the work you do. Ask how the organization they work for does what you do, what they do well, and what the could do better. Also ask who else you could talk to gather more information.
- Ask people technical questions. Those are the people who are doing the job you want to do or related to it. These questions can be more detailed about projects, goals, and objectives they are trying to achieve; problems or challenges they are encountering; industry trends and news, software platforms and upgrades.
Prove you are the solution they need
Once you've gathered the information and found those people who need and want help, your next task is to prove you are the solution they need. You prove this in phone calls, interviews, meetings, reconnecting after interviews/meetings, and in your written materials. Prove you are the solution they need because you can 1) do the job they want done, 2) you will fit into their team, and 3) you are going to be a great return on investment.Provide specific examples (including #, $, %s) to prove you are the solution. We suggest
- Present your dessert tray of hobbies, civic service, education, work experience, words that describe you, and home run statements
- Prepare 36 statements based on a ball diamond: 1st base=where you worked, 2nd base=what you did, 3rd=the results your work generated, and home plate=a question that applies the example to their organization ("Are those the results you want?")
- Reframe their thinking about your weaknesses or negatives
- Ask questions to gather information to be able to answer the questions.
Make your 10s: 10 Contacts a day and 10 Meetings a week
Make your tens
and that means 10 contacts a day, 10 face to face meetings a week. Remember, we're not talking
about only contacting job opportunities. We mean contacting people by phone:
- 4-5 of the 10 conversations you will ask the questions you've prepared to gather information
- 2-3 of the 10 contacts will be to schedule face to face meetings
- 2-3 will be to reconnect on prior context or meetings that you have already had.
The 10
face to face meetings a week will involve
- 5-7 to gather information
- 3-5 to impress decision makers you can help them achieve their goals or solve their problems
- 10 people from your phone or email contacts
- 20 from your LinkedIn, Facebook, professional associations and directories
- 10 following up on previous contacts for meetings
- 7 from advertised job opportunities
- 3 from other sources.
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