If you find yourself unhappy and unfulfilled at work, you have two choices - to try and improve the situation with your current employer or to start looking for a new job.
find your new dream job.
Moved to a new city? Quit your job? Or looking to leave your company?
The situation may be different, but one thing is certain. You need a new job. More important, you need a job you will love. A job you can be passionate about in a dream company and with the right
benefits.
Finding a job that matches these criteria is not easy — but certainly possible. Here are five strategies
that can lead you to the job you dream of.
#1 – firm up your intentions.
Before you start hitting the search buttons, pause a bit to set your expectations. Ask yourself a few relevant questions. Such as, what are my career objectives? What are the roles I want today, and want to grow into in the future? What type of organizations do I want to work for?
What are my salary and location preferences and constraints? What are the values I look for in an organization?
Make your ‘must-have’ and ‘nice-to-have’ checklists with the answers to these questions. This way, it will be easy for you to navigate the road from the search to the selection stages, and align your decisions to your aspirations.
#2 – align and sharpen your resume to shine your light.
Your resume is your visa to enter your right professional world. It has to be strong, truthful, and effectively bring out your skills (hard and soft), competencies, experience, potential and value.
Remember, you constantly grow and evolve as a professional, and so you need to update your profile to reflect the ‘now’ you.
Another fact to remember is that in many organizations, an application tracking system (ATS) initially scans, reviews and ranks applications through resume bots. Your resume must therefore
talk as effectively to a person as to a bot. Here are a few tips to do so:
- Do not resort to images, symbols, graphs and charts. They confuse the ATS
- Use specific job-related keywords to optimize your resume
#3 – make your search strategic – don’t spray all over.
Use the inputs from Point#1 to apply for the right jobs. This way you will have a happy situation of choosing the best from a range of jobs that match your expectations.
Next, zero in on sources that match your needs. Select two or three job boards that you trust, and create the right job alerts. Again, don’t rely on job boards alone, tap into — and expand —your professional networks. Get active on LinkedIn. Cultivate and reach out to people who are in roles you want to work on. And of course, leverage the old-fashioned networking way — perhaps your classmates, professors, previous colleagues, and mentors.
#4 – prepare for and practice interviewing.
Interviews today happen in multiple formats – on the phone, video interviews, and in person. All of them require different behavioral skills besides your actual job skills. How do you effectively
communicate and articulate your points in each medium? This includes your facial expressions, pace of speaking, body language, appearance, etc.
Research the different styles of interviews adopted by companies. If required, take the help of people who can be an effective interview coach and go through mock interviews. The more you
practice, the more prepared you become. And don’t feel apprehensive. Be authentic even as you do the right thing.
#5 – say YES only if you feel it strongly.
With all your hard work, you will land a few offers. Any offer will excite you — after all, it is recognition of your skills and capabilities. But pause to remember this. The very reason you are now finding a new job is because you wanted the best for you. You have done all to give your
best, so don’t settle for the second best.
Research the company and go back to the checklist you drew up in Point#1. How does the offer measure up to the criteria you had drawn up? Make your choice based on this alone.
Job searches are tough for sure — and tougher when you want the best for yourself. But nothing good is easy, and everything good is possible. And when you hold the possible dream
job in your hands, the feeling of satisfaction is truly fantastic. So, go for it!
