6 Awesome Techniques to Land Your Dream Job

As a Career Coach and Mentor, I love having conversations with people about the many aspects of their professional lives. A topic that often comes up is how they would love to land their dream job.

When I ask them what their plan or strategy for achieving it is, they usually tell me they haven’t got one yet but they hope to land it one day.

Whoahhh!!! Stop right there OK!

When it comes to creating a successful career – hope is NOT a strategy!

Your see, a dream without a plan, will always remain just a dream.

So, once you’ve established your goals, you then need to create a strategy with a roadmap or action plan.

Here are my top 6 strategies to help you land that dream role.

1. GATHERING CRITICAL INFORMATION

When it comes to working towards achieving your dream job, you want to know exactly what you are dealing with.

This means you got to get a solid understanding of what’s involved.

To be able to do this, you ideally need to gather as much information about that dream role as you can.

Start by getting hold of numerous job descriptions with the key selection criteria and if you can, the KPIs and metrics you will be measured against.

Whilst it could be the same role in different organisations, they may word it slightly differently, so it’s a good idea to look at about 3-5 position descriptions that all relate to that dream role.

The more information you have, the easier it will be to define the RIGHT actions you need to take.

2. CAPABILITIES AND EXPERIENCE ANALYSIS

Understanding exactly what capabilities and experience you need for this role is crucial as well as what do you already have.

Think of this as doing a ‘stocktake’ of your relevant skills and experience that relate to the Key Selection Criteria.

An easy way to do this is to create a Word document and divide it into two columns – “skills and experience I have” and then “Gaps I need to fill”

Study each of the job descriptions and then copy and paste the skills and experience that you have to the left-hand column of your page.

The ones you don’t have, get copied to the right-hand side – the gaps in other words.

By doing this stocktake, you may release that you already have enough skills to land your dream job.

You’ll be amazed at how many people don’t realise the full range of their capabilities and this often holds them back.

3. FILL THOSE GAPS

Identifying the gaps is crucial to your success plan because it makes it easier to set goals around closing those gaps.

If it was a skill gap, then you could research exactly what courses or certifications you need to do to upskill.

However, be careful when deciding to do a course.

I know a lot of people who have a tonne of certifications but it hasn’t helped them climb the ladder at all. That’s because their either didn’t really need it or they didn’t know how to properly leverage off what they already had.

The next strategy to help you fill those gaps in your skills and experience is to gain it in the job you already have. 

Talk to your manager or higher up and see if you can take on extra responsibility, even if it means going outside your role.

See if you can find projects or initiatives within your organisation that can help you gain those skills and experience.

4. CREATE YOUR ACTION PLAN

Remember, a goal without an action plan is just a dream and that’s often where it will stay!

So, the next step is to reverse engineer those goals to determine the key actions you need to take.

You could even use the SMART goal framework to help you.

Be specific about your goals and most importantly, set timeframes and milestones because if you don’t, you’ll drift, take longer to achieve your goal or at worst, not reach them at all.

It is said that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, so start off with something simple – what 3 actions can you take this week that will bring you closer to that next role?

It could simply be updating your CV or LinkedIn profile, having a chat with your manager about your career aspirations or seeking out an industry mentor or career coach to help you.

You want to make sure you are taking the right strategic actions and then stick to the plan because it’s easy to be distracted by the bright lights of what seems like a new opportunity, only to discover 6 months down the track that this path does not align with your goals.

Having goals and a strategy will also help you better evaluate each new career move or opportunity to determine if it’s the right move or one that will take you away from your prize.

5. EVALUATE YOUR CURRENT CAREER PATH

Is your current career path going to lead you to that dream role or do you need to change track?

If getting to a specific role means using a series of other roles as stepping stones, then you need to understand exactly what those other roles are.

For this to happen, you need to do a bit of reverse engineering – work backwards in other words.

Look at others who are in the ultimate role you want. Then look back at their career path and the roles they have taken to get there.

LinkedIn is a great tool to help you study other people’s career paths.

Understanding the path you need to take will give you a greater sense of direction and focus in your career.

6. MANAGE DISTRACTIONS

It’s easy to get distracted. So many things are being thrown at us that can knock us off course, especially when our goals are vague.

To help you land your dream job, you need to understand and list all the factors that could distract you from your goal.

Visualise the challenges that you may encounter and then determine how you are going to navigate and overcome those.

You can’t prepare for every one of them but if you engage in strategic visualisation ahead of time, you can be better prepared.

This is personal performance management.

Using these 6 strategies, you can take that dream of the ultimate job and turn into a reality.

With a clear understanding of what’s involved in that role, careful planning, defining a specific set of actions, sticking to them and managing distractions and challenges along the way, you can transform an ordinary career into one that is truly epic.