Looking for Your Dream Job
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; … a time to break down, and a time to build up. … He hath made everything beautiful in its time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1ff)
It is the phrase “a time to break down and a time to build up” that catches our attention, here.
In the previous chapter, we saw how to break down a job into its component parts. Here, we are going to do just the opposite: build up component parts into a job. Breaking down is the key to understanding a job we once had. Building up is key to understanding a job we would like to have. At its best, a dream job.
This phrase “dream job” is widely misunderstood. It is commonly understood as a ‘cushy’ job: one with a large income, little responsibility, and loads of freedom to choose what you do, day by day. What a dream job!
In real life, a dream job is not that, at all. It is not like a suit off the rack, one dream job fits all; rather, it is like a suit custom-tailored to fit you, and only you. Your dream job is work that flows from, and has an essential connection to, who you are. It is a marriage of doing and being. It is work that fits you like a glove.
Is such-and-such a dream job? Well, everything depends on who you are, what stuff you’re made of, and what gifts and passions excite you. A dream job is work tailored to fit that.
So, to find your dream job requires an up-to-date inventory of your current shapeshifting human self. Incidentally, you may recall that “research on yourself” is the most effective method of job-hunting: it has an 86% success rate, which is twelve times the success rate of resumes. (Go back, and re-read this page–this page, now.)
Okay, so I should start (or restart) my job-hunt now, by doing research, or homework, on myself. How do I go about doing that?
There are four ways you can go. I will start with the least effective, and go to the most effective.
1. You can write a thorough resume of your life and experience so far. This is a resume for your eyes only, for now. It’s for self-examination, not for getting an employer’s invitation to come in and see them.
The problem with this approach: your resume is a history of your past, with all its constraints, and therefore puts a straitjacket on your visions of the future. It tends to be preoccupied with what makes you ‘marketable,’ not what makes you fulfilled. You can end up feeling like a square peg jammed into a round hole.
2. You can sit down and on one piece of paper (not more) write down everything you can think of, about yourself. The color of your eyes. That summer at camp when you were six. The dreams you had when you were twenty. Write small. Get it all on one sheet. Then put a graphic of some kind (a stick figure?) on that paper, and when you are done writing (it could take several days as your memory slowly kicks in with new recall every eight hours), go back, take a gander at the whole sheet, and after some thought, circle the ten most important things about you, on that paper. That done, consider what those ten most important things about you have to suggest about the kind of dream job you would most love to find. This is of course your opinion only. And it is for your eyes only.
The problem with this approach: you are a human being, which means that in one way or another you belong to a community. This approach makes no use of that community; you toil, and write, and analyze, all by yourself. Your brain may let you down, and turn into a mental ice-cube.
3. Go take an online “test.” Go take an online “test.” The most popular are those based on the “RIASEC” system. They can be found at CareerPlanner.com, CareerKey.org, self-directed-search.com, and O*Net. You can also try the Career Interests Game at http://tinyurl.com/7wdsh. All of them are a quick sounding of who you are, in terms of categories originally defined by the late John Holland. There is usually a charge, in the end, for each “test” except in the case of O*Net.
The problem with this approach: these “tests” try to make you fit into categories that have a three-letter Holland ‘code.’ You probably won’t like the jobs it ends up recommending for you. One thing you might try: take your ‘code’, let’s say it’s SIA, and rearrange it into its six alternative forms: SIA, SAI, ASI, AIS, ISA, IAS. Look up the jobs recommended with each.
4. Last, and most effective, by far: by yourself, or better yet, with the help of two other friends, do ‘the Flower exercise’ which we saw in the previous chapter. Except that here you are not trying to break down a previous job into its component parts. You are here trying to build up a vision of your dream job out of its component parts. You are here analyzing not “what was,” but “what you would like to be” in the times ahead. I’ll tell you how to fill it out, in a minute. But let us observe here the great virtue of this approach: it doesn’t start with the job-market in mind. It starts with You, in all your great detail.
The problem with this approach: only one thing—the time and dedication it requires. True, there are millions of job-hunters who are putting in a lot of time on their job-search. They live on their computer, they haunt all the familiar places, they go sleepless, their patience has long since worn thin. They’re obviously willing to put in the time on their job-search which this method requires. They’ve just got to change what they’re doing with their time.
On the other hand, sad to relate, many unemployed college grads now living at home have recently been found devoting just one hour a week to their job-search. To them this method surely looks like work. Correct that. This is work. It certainly takes more than one hour a week.
Okay, I get it. How do I go about this thorough self-inventory, using the Flower exercise?
Copy, again, on a large piece of paper, the Flower diagram that you will see below. Then start filling it in, according to the directions in the right-hand column of the chart you will find on the following page. Fill in every petal except the central petal. When you’re done with all the others, read the special instructions for “Transferable Skills,” on the pages following the chart, as you finally turn to filling in the central petal.
| Job You Used to Have | Your Dream Job | |
| Broken down, using exercises in the previous chapter (7) | Built from the ground up, using exercises later in this chapter (8) | |
| You’ve already done this (if not, go do it now, please, please). | This is what you’re going to do in this chapter. | |
| Components | This was for practice. | This is for real. |
| Job-Title | A single title, known when you begin | Probably multiple titles, unknown ’til the end |
| Breaking Down (Job into Components) or Building Up (Components into Job) |  |
 |
| Transferable Skills | Taken from what that job required, using the table on this page–this page. | Your favorite Transferable Skills that you would like to use in a future job (taken from the grid, this page–this page, and the seven little blogs from your past). |
| Field or Special Knowledges | Taken from what that job required, using the table on this page–this page. | Your favorite Fields or Knowledges you would like to use your skills with, in a future job (taken from the table on this page–this page, or elsewhere). |
| The People You Serve, or Serve With | Taken from what that job required, using the table on this page–this page. | Your favorite kinds of People you would like to serve, or serve with, in the future (taken from the table on this page–this page, or elsewhere). |
| Your Goal or What You Want to Achieve | Taken from what that job required, using the list on this page–this page. | What Goal you would most like to achieve, long-range or short, in the work you do in the future (using the list on this page–this page, or elsewhere). |
| Working Conditions | Taken from what that job required, with paragraph 5 on this page as guidance. | What are the Working Conditions under which you could do your most effective work, in the future (with paragraph 5 on this page as guidance). |
| Salary or Compensation | Taken from what that job paid. | The level at which you would like to work: boss? team member? consultant? Salary: minimum? max? |
| Geography | Taken from where that job was located. | Three factors that describe where you would like your dream job to be located, (e.g., “snow” country, near beach, in a large city? etc.) |
Commentary about filling out the Transferable Skills Petal in the Flower diagram: In the previous chapter, you used a list to identify the skills that you used in your last job, whether you wanted to use those particular skills, or not. The job demanded them. End of story.
Here, you are starting at the other end of the tunnel: what skills would you like to be able to use in a future job? (We’ll go looking for what kind of job that would be, later.) The best way to do this is to write a story (or short blog). A story of something you did where you really enjoyed yourself. This story, and all the other six you will eventually write, one by one, should exhibit the structure: goal, obstacle, how you overcame it step by step, result, how much you made, saved, or whatever. Write it out, in some detail. Call this one “Story #1.”
When you are done writing, turn to the Transferable Skills Inventory on the following pages, and use it to inventory your skills in that story. To help you do this, I’ll give you an example: the Halloween Experience. It goes like this: “When I was seven, I decided I wanted to go out on Halloween dressed as a horse. I wanted to be the front end of the horse, and I talked a friend of mine into being the back end. But, at the last moment, he had to back out, and I was faced with the prospect of not being able to go out on Halloween. At this point, I decided to figure out some way of getting dressed up as the whole horse all by myself. I took a fruit basket, and tied some string to both sides of the basket’s rim, so I could tie the basket around my rear end (bending over). This enabled me to fill out the whole horse costume by myself. I then fixed some strong thread to the horse’s tail, so I could wag it by moving my hands. When Halloween came, I not only went out and had a ball; I won a prize as well.”
Now, turn to the grid here, and see how it was filled out (in the Sample column) for this story of the Halloween Experience. The question, as you go down the skills list, is: “Did I use this skill in this story?” If so, color in the little box in the appropriate column on the same line as that skill.
You’ll see that in the case of the Halloween Experience, the first skill listed in the grid is “assembling.” You decide it wasn’t used in that story; so, it remains uncolored. But the next skill, “constructing,” you decide was used in that story; so the appropriate little square opposite it, in the Sample column, does get colored in.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, start filling in the grid using your story, Story #1, that you just wrote. The question always to ask yourself, as you go: “Did I use this skill in this story?” If you see a skill you know you have, and enjoy, but you didn’t use it in this story, let that guide you in choosing your next story. Find one that shows you used that skill. You will eventually want seven stories, all told, but choose and analyze them one by one. Continue the process: write a second story, then enroll it on the grid (Story #2 using column #2) etc., until you’ve finished seven.
If for any reason you don’t like the grid, there’s an alternative list of skills on the Internet, at http://online.onetcenter.org/skills.
Once you’re done with writing seven stories and enrolling them on the grid, then take a look at the completed grid. What skills stand out, appearing again and again, regardless of which story you told about yourself? You are looking for patterns, here.
Pick what you guess are your top ten favorite transferable skills, and rank them in exact order. You do this by using my Prioritizing Grid, which is easy to use in its electronic form at http://tinyurl.com/cwv3wj on Beverly Ryle’s site, Groundofyourownchoosing.com.
Enroll your top five favorite skills in the central petal of the Flower diagram.
Okay, once I’m all done with the Flower, and know my favorite transferable skills and favorite fields, how do I turn that into a title for my dream job?
Take a piece of paper, draw a horizontal line across the middle. Above that line, write three to five of your most favorite skills. Write them large. Below that line, write three of your most favorite fields or knowledges. Again, write them large.
Then show this paper to everyone you know and respect, and ask them: “What kinds of work or jobs come to mind, that would use all these skills, and most of these fields?” Get at least ten friends to make suggestions. Jot down all their suggestions; sift through them later to find the ones that strike home with you.
I suppose you’re going to tell me, next, that I have to go out and do your famous “informational interviewing”!
Yep. That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you to do. You want to explore any place that looks interesting to you, whether or not they are known to have a vacancy.
And when eventually I get invited in for an interview?
1. Get there early. Sit outside until your time has arrived. Then knock on their door.
2. In the interview, you have only one goal: to be invited back for another interview. Decisions are rarely made with only one.
3. It is important that you talk half the time, the employer talks the other half.
4. If asked a question, you should answer it in not less than 20 seconds, nor more than 2 minutes. If you still have more to say, end your two minutes with “I could say more when you want me to.”
5. All questions the employer might ask fit basically into five general categories: Why are you here? What can you do for me? Will you help us with the problems or challenges we face here? Will you fit in with the other people here? How much are you going to cost me?
6. Keep in mind that employers like “behavioral interviewing” in many if not most cases, these days. That means, when you claim a skill, give an illustration proving you have it. If you wrote out seven stories (see this page) this should be easy.
7. Postpone salary discussion until the very end of the interview, after they have definitely said they want you.
8. And at the very end ask the key question that makes all the difference as to whether you get offered the job, or not: “Given all that we’ve discussed, can you offer me this job?”
If you should happen to get interviews, but never get invited back, nor offered a job, check to see if you’re doing something wrong. Try a site like Checkster.com, where individuals (like you) can invite six of your friends to anonymously evaluate you in terms of your work, as they’ve seen it. Maybe there’s something you’re unaware of, that you can fix. And, by the way, it’s free.
If you keep at this, you will find a job, maybe even something pretty close to your dream job. Remember, the brighter your vision, the more likely you are to hit the target. The more you are dying to find a thing, the harder you will hunt for it.
There are jobs out there, you just have to work hard at finding them. But don’t let anyone tell you that it’s a waste of time to figure out what your Dream Job would be. You may come across most parts of it sooner than you think. And you will see it, because your eyes are open. You have the detailed Vision.
March, march, march toward that Vision and that goal, even if no one else appreciates what you see. Or hear. As Henry Thoreau said in Walden:
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
