Sunday, November 3, 2013

4 Steps to find your dream job

Finding the right job is not an easy task but is essential for you to lead a successful and a happy professional life. Here are the 4 steps that can help launch you in to a job that is likely to fit you.

1. Identify your interests

2. Identify your skills

3. Align your skills with interests

4. Get it right and Get in

A brief description of each step with action items to help you land in your dream job: 


1. Identify your interests:


It is very important to identify your interests before starting your job search as it plays a crucial role in your professional life. You don’t want to end up doing something you don’t like to!!!

  • What do you like to do? Some of us might just want to enjoy the life without working, but that’s not where we are getting at. If you like to do a job or if you have to do a job, what is it that you enjoy doing? 
  • Look around you, you might see some people whom you like to be. Don’t look at their Ferrari or some other life style materialistic things. Look for what they do and do you like doing what they do? If so, start making a list with a name “I’d like to do” and add this job to that list.
  • Remember the instances where you did few things very well and you enjoyed it too. One may like to become a programmer or a specialist in marketing. Point here is not just to identify a title, it is also to identify what you end up doing as a programmer or a marketing specialist. Get deeper and narrow down to the day to day tasks you would like to handle.
  • Just to give you an example, a programmer may end up programming in Java or Mainframe or some other language and a marketing specialist may end up selling/marketing medicine products or some software products. There are too many areas to be listed here. 
  • You have to identify what do you want to do exactly, figure it out and keep adding it to the list “I’d like to do”
  • If you have more than one item in the “I’d like to do” list, start rating them or writing them in most preferred order.



2. Identify your skills:


This is an important step in the process of finding a right job. 


  • List down all your skills. It could be that you are very good persuading people or it could be that you are very good at doing some complex coding. 
  • Write down all your soft skills and your technical skills and of course.
  • Rate yourself on those skills which can be looked at later for any improvements needed.


3. Align your skills with interests:


Okay, now you have already completed two most important aspects of your job hunting. This step is crucial as it helps you self evaluate and improve the skills needed for your dream job.


  • Look out in the market to see what does your dream job need? 
  • Go to the job searching web sites and enter the keywords of your dream job. 
  • I may use keywords like “Marketing Manager”, “FMCG” etc.,. You have to come up with keywords closer to your dream job.
  • Go through each of the job listing, write down the skills employer is looking for. This may give you a list of skills that are repeatedly asked for most number of times etc.,.
  • Once you have the list of skills that employers are looking for in current market scenario, bring up the list of skills that you have prepared earlier. Match both the lists and identify the gaps and fill-in the gaps by learning the skills that are most needed.


As much as you fill-in the gaps between both the skill lists, the chances are high for you to crack through the hiring process.

4. Get it right and Get in:


This is the final step which includes identifying organisations that offers your dream job and a few important aspects of interview process.
  • Identify the organisations having openings of your dream job.
  • Understand their hiring process.
  • Prepare yourself for the interview.
  • Seek clarifications or understanding about the job’s roles and responsibilities and make sure you understand the job profile.
  • Ask any questions about the work culture of the company.
  • Seek for opportunities of growth in the company.
  • Set the expectations on what you are looking for, this helps the employer understand your expectations.


After all these steps, you are most likely to end up with a job offer letter of your dream job in your hands. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen, it means that there are gaps to be filled-in and areas to be improved upon. This gives a great experience to learn from and to move on to next company in your job searching.

All the very best and Happy searching!!!!!


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