Want to land your dream job in 2018? Do these 3 things now.

3 steps to take in the next 3 weeks

A recent study from The Ladders claims 71 percent of employees want to change jobs. Are you among them?

If you want to make 2018 the Year of the Dream Job, don’t wait. We’ve got 3 working weeks left in December, and January is one of the busiest hiring months of the year in most industries. That means now is the time to prepare.

These 3 steps will help you get ahead of the curve. Do one per week, and you’ll be read to hit the ground running in 2018.

Week 1: Identify the 3 most important skills and strengths required for the job you want.

Look at job descriptions. Talk to hiring managers, recruiters and people who are already working in the roles you plan to apply for. Ask questions like:

• What are the most important skills that successful candidates possess?
• Are there any specific credentials or certifications required?
• What are the biggest challenges of this role?
• What teams will this role collaborate with on a regular basis?
• What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started in this role?

To find the right people, start with your LinkedIn network. You probably already have a lot of 1st- and 2nd-degree connections who would be more than happy help. Beyond that, search for professionals in your area and ask them to connect. Customize your connection request along the lines of, I’m interested in your line of work and am trying to connect with local professionals to learn more. Would you be open to connecting? If they accept your request, send a simple note asking if they’re open to coffee or a phone call.

If the idea of cold outreach makes you queasy, think about it this way: How did you feel the last time someone asked you to share your expertise? Pretty good, right? Flattered, excited and eager to help. That’s probably how these people feel, too!

Ready for a change, but don’t know what job you want? A good career coach can help you match your experience, strengths and values with roles that might be a good fit.

Week 2: For each of those skills, find at least one relevant example from your own professional experience. More is better.

One of the biggest objections I hear from people who want to change jobs is, “But I don’t have the right experience!” Maybe not at first glance, but if you dig a little deeper, you probably have more transferable skills than you think you do.

The key here is to think not just about individual projects and responsibilities. Take it up one level and think about the skills and strengths from Week 1 that you needed in order to do well at those projects and responsibilities. Then, find a specific story that exemplifies those skills and strengths.

I know that sounds a little vague, so let’s walk through a concrete example. Let’s say you’re a sales professional who wants to move into a marketing role (a very common transition). One of your strengths is the ability to understand prospects’ challenges and tell a compelling, personalized story that about how your product will address those challenges. In other words, you’re great at storytelling.

This is a critical skill in marketing, too! Successful marketers must be able to build empathy and trust with their target audience (just like successful sales professionals), and they do this primarily by telling stories that speak to their audience’s pains, hopes and biggest challenges.

Boom! You’ve got yourself a transferable skill. Next, you’ll want to think of a specific time when you used that skill in action. Perhaps you thought up a new pitch and decided to test it at a tradeshow, found that it worked really well, and shared it with your marketing team. That pitch then became the basis of a new campaign that performed really well, bringing in a lot of leads that had previously ignored your company’s messaging.

See where I’m going with this?

Of course, there may still be times where you won’t have the experience required. If you’re missing a critical skill that will keep you from landing the job you want, seek out training or volunteer opportunities that can help you fill in the gap.

Week 3: Craft your “why” story.

It’s not enough to know your skills and strengths. You have to bring them together into a coherent, credible story. This story should clearly articulate where you’ve been, what you’ve learned and gained and where you intend to go next.

I like to call this your “why” story. A good “why” story should hit on all the following:

• A concise overview of your relevant personal and professional experience
• How you have used the skills and strengths from Week 1 in your career so far
• Why this job (the job you’re applying for) is the next logical step on your path

One of my favorite tricks for telling a good “why” story is the “common thread” technique. Basically, it means looking across your entire work history (and in some cases, your entire life) and identifying one common thread that has shaped the trajectory of your career so far. Ideally, this common thread will relate to one of the critical skills and strengths from Week 1.

Continuing with our example of a sales professional seeking to transition into marketing, let’s say that her common thread is storytelling. She enjoys sales but has always loved to write, which is why she now wants to find a marketing role. An example “why” story might look like this:

I’m currently in charge of new business for my company’s entire West Coast region and have spent the last 5 years in increasingly senior sales roles, mostly in consumer SaaS. Before I went into sales, I had a brief stint in Accounting, which it turned out I hated, and studied International Relations in college. The common thread across all my experience, and really my entire life, is that I love telling stories and am quite good at it.

I credit my success in sales with my ability to understand prospects’ needs and tell them a true and compelling story about how our product meets those needs. It’s also why I have so much respect for marketing. As for my next role, I’ve always loved to write and am looking for the opportunity to do more of it, which is why I’m interested in the Content Marketing Manager position.

From there, our fictional sales representative would tap into the work she did in Weeks 1 and 2, emphasizing the most important qualifications in the job description and stories from her previous experience describing how she meets them.

You might be tempted to skimp on your “why” story, thinking that your professional examples from Week 2 will be enough. Don’t. Your story is the cornerstone of your brand and credibility. It’s the difference between a candidate who meets requirements and a candidate who blows the hiring manager away with her passion and self-awareness.

Week 4 bonus: Put it all together

Ok, so you have a list of critical skills and strengths. You’ve found stories from your own career that map to each one. You’ve written and memorized your “why” story. Now what?

Take advantage of the slow holiday week to revamp your online presence and align it with the strengths, skills and experience you want to showcase. A few must-do’s:

• Update your LinkedIn summary to incorporate your new “why” story.
• Go through your professional history. For each role, list out the relevant projects and stories you came up with in Week 2. Don’t just share tasks. Share accomplishments with tangible business outcomes wherever possible. Do this on LinkedIn as well as your resume.
• Write a killer cover letter that showcases your “why” story and biggest achievements.
• Practice answering common interview questions, weaving in the Week 2 stories wherever possible.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. I never promised 3 easy steps, after all. But you don’t have to go it alone. Enlist the support of friends, discreet colleagues and networking groups to give you feedback and perspective. And as always, let me know if I can help.

I help people build their confidence, credibility and personal brands without selling their souls. Learn more at robincangie.me, or sign up below to get new articles as they’re published…