Getting to a Yes in Your Dream Job!

Everyone yearns for a dream job! Although definitions vary, most can do a pretty good job of defining what a dream job will look like to them. Yet, few know how to go about finding one and even fewer know how to land one! Most of those who complain about their jobs know what they do not want, but they struggle to articulate crisply and forcefully what they do want. The following prescription is a good guide to go after what you yearn and to get it:

1. Be very clear about what your innate gifts are (your genius) and how they translate into marketable skills. A dream job resides at the intersection of what you love to do and what the market wants and is willing to pay for.
2. Identify a job that you consider a dream. In searching for such a job (and yes, it may not even exist), look for what comes closest. You can always fashion a job after you start the interview process. A recent Harvard University study showed that almost 70 percent of higher-level jobs were filled to accommodate the best candidate and not the other way around. Ditto titles and salaries.
3. If the dream job does not exist, send a prospect letter to the company’s executive with an intriguing idea without your résumé. Follow-up relentlessly but do not stalk.
4. Once you have zeroed in on the right job, develop your résumé to showcase your genius (Unique Skills) and to show how it links to the job requirements. Fortify your genius claim with compelling leadership stories presented as succinct bullets in the Professional Experience
5. Research the target company by talking to its customers, suppliers, and with others. Translate that discovery into a highly focused cover letter that addresses the pain points and your change plan. This approach works at all levels, even for hands-on contributors.
6. During the interview go fully prepared and ask tough questions. Use your discovery. Tell them how you will make their pain go away. Get excited and show how you will make a difference. This is a maker. Do not tell each interviewer how they should be doing their job. This is a breaker. Send well thought-out thank- you notes. Be specific.
7. Do not work your campaign with one target company at a time. The best strategy is to have multiple targets in various stages of gestation. You can hasten an offer if you show that others are interested in your joining them. Do not lie.
8. When you get the offer, listen; do not jump on it and start negotiating. Evaluate your options and carefully navigate through the negotiating process. You have more power than you think that you have.
9. Once you accept the negotiated offer promptly start and show your excitement.
10. After about two weeks, prepare a 100-Day Plan and present it to your manager.Make  sure that it serves both you and the manager.
11. Set up a mid-year review and carefully evaluate how things are going.

section of your two-page résumé.

Good luck!