HOW TO LAND YOUR IDEAL CAREER OPPORTUNITY IN 9 EASY STEPS

Dr Terry Galvin

It is always flattering when friends, acquaintances, colleagues and family members ask me for advice and guidance regarding how they might progress their careers. The regularity with which they do so is a constant reminder of the importance most of us place upon seeking out a satisfying, fulfilling and rewarding role within a desirable organisation. These enquiries also nurture an ongoing realisation that many people are quite a long way away from achieving this ideal scenario.

Why is that so, and what can be done to assist those who aspire to their dream job, either with a new employer or within their existing organisation?

These informal dealings, as well as my professional collaboration with countless individuals in search of employment opportunities, suggest that one of the most common barriers to success is insufficient momentum which manifests as:-

An approach hampered by procrastination. Although wanting to embark upon that all-important career advancement journey, taking those first steps proves so difficult for many.
A job search characterised by reactivity, typified by an exclusive focus upon current job postings and a belief that relevant vacancies or chances of internal promotion will appear miraculously so long as they are awaited patiently.
A passive conviction that experience and qualifications speak for themselves, thus rendering as unnecessary the active development of that expertise, beyond the realms of job-related skills, which resides at the heart of career advancement success.

A more proactive approach, combined with the development and whole-hearted deployment of self-marketing skills, is essential to enhance success within the employment market. This positive and energised strategy progresses through nine distinct but interrelated steps which may be summarised using the PROACTIVE acronym:-

Personal Evaluation.
Researching the Market.
Objectives and Goal Setting.
Allocation of Resources.
Creating Opportunities.
Tailoring Your Career Advancement Tools.
Implementing Your Career Advancement Strategy.
Varying Your Tactics.
End Game Management.

Let us consider each of these steps in turn, focusing upon the necessary activities in which to engage, and also the skills required, to achieve maximum effectiveness at each stage of the journey towards that ideal career opportunity.

Personal Evaluation

Most relevant experts agree that the starting point for any marketing process is a thorough understanding of the product or service to be promoted within the marketplace. Only with such comprehensive knowledge is it possible to identify the most likely customers with relevant needs to be satisfied. In order to build a solid foundation for your career advancement efforts, it is essential to develop an intimate “product knowledge” through a process of self-assessment directed towards the following questions: –

What do I have to offer to a future employer (or within a promoted role)?
What are my best and/or unique features and how might an employer benefit from utilising them?
Are there any shortcomings I need to address to enhance my marketability?
To which type of role am I best suited?

Researching the Market

Having gone through this process of evaluation, you will have already gained an appreciation of where within the employment market your personal attributes are most likely to be desired. While also taking into consideration your current and future aspirations, now is the time to research your chosen industries, market sectors or desired geographical regions with the objective of identifying prospective employers. In today’s online age, accessing organisation-specific information has never been easier. In turn, your focus should shift towards identifying actual or potential vacancies within your target organisations.

If you are intent on career progression with your present employer, you will need to carefully evaluate the internal job market and make conclusions regarding the most attainable and desirable routes upwards.

Objectives and Goal Setting

Creating your career advancement goals is an activity central to remaining proactive and in control of the future as opposed to being reactive and just aimlessly drifting along in the hope of stumbling upon that ideal career opportunity. For best results, translate your overall goals into a series of smaller sub-goals. When broken down into lesser objectives, goal setting becomes far better manageable as well as more consistent with producing and pursuing precise action plans in a proactive manner.

Allocation of Resources

Success also requires correct allocation of resources to your career advancement initiative as well as their proper management. In terms of these resources, you need to consider: –

Allocation and management of time.
Designation of a workspace, complete with essential office equipment.
Establishment of administrative systems and procedures to keep your efforts fully organised.
Equipping your wardrobe with at least two outfits suitable for interview attendance.
Investing in the support of an experienced and qualified career coach if your financial resources permit.

Creating Opportunities

Proactive career advancers recognise their potential to act in a manner consistent with creating desired employment outcomes. In reality, there are always opportunities for those who are intent on discovering and pursuing them. The essence of proactive career advancement is the identification of needs which your personal evaluation efforts have shown you have the capability to satisfy. While conducting your earlier market research activities, you may have already discovered such needs. The launch of an enthusiastic networking campaign could well produce similar results. If your career advancement objective is directed towards securing promotion within your current organisation, a concerted effort to ensure greater internal visibility and recognition amongst peers and superiors will surely encourage more in-house career opportunities to come your way. Depending upon the nature of the unsatisfied needs you have identified, an opportunity creation alternative may be self-employment.

Tailoring Your Career Advancement Tools

Your chances of success will multiply in circumstances where you devote the necessary effort to ensuring that each opportunity is pursued with an approach customised in response to the identified employer needs. The usual tools you will need to tailor towards each and every career opportunity are your curriculum vitae, application forms, and cover letters. Each needs to be carefully crafted to demonstrate your uniqueness with due regard to what the chosen organisation and specific role are seeking.

Implementing Your Career Advancement Strategy

The sales cycle consists of both marketing and selling. Marketing encompasses identifying buyers, establishing their requirements and presenting goods or services in a manner appropriate to satisfaction of their needs. The selling process embraces all that is then done to close the sale.

The steps discussed so far have been focused upon marketing. As soon as an employer becomes actively interested in you as a candidate, the focus switches to selling. Typical recruitment processes encompass the following “points of sale”:-

Interviews.
Psychometric Testing.
Assessment Centres.

With respect to each, you will need to engage in a great deal of study and preparation to ensure detailed awareness of what to expect and how to best perform. You must also remain conscious that creating a good first impression, when attending the above events as well as when engaged in informal discussions and activities with employer representatives, is critical in terms of positively influencing the outcomes.

Varying Your Tactics

Implicit within the concept of proactivity is an element of change initiation. In other words, you will need to develop a change orientation directed not only to taking the initiative to create and exploit career opportunities but also to constantly fine tuning and adapting tactics to align with the market demands encountered.

The need to vary your career advancement approach will arise from: –

Application of the bespoke approach to each opportunity which has already been emphasised.
Results of the personal performance evaluations you are recommended to undertake after each employer interaction.
The nature of employer feedback if and when it is provided.
Feedback given by others such as colleagues, friends, family members and career coaches.
Circumstances where you have decided to pursue types of career opportunities not originally considered.

End Game Management

Receipt of a job offer prompts you to make a decision which will affect the rest of your working life as well as one which will have inevitable consequences for your private life and general well-being both right now and within the foreseeable future. Therefore, you must evaluate job offers very carefully before deciding whether or not to accept them.

If you decide to proceed with job offer acceptance, consider the proper protocol for leaving your current role as well as what preparation you should do before tendering your resignation.

Your efforts must continue as and when you take up your new appointment. The importance of this phase cannot be overemphasised in terms of its potential impact upon your continuing career progression. Indeed, some career experts have likened the first three months within an appointment to a continuing interview process.

In becoming acquainted with the nine steps of the recommended PROACTIVE approach, you will probably have begun to realise that your level of success will be, to a large extent, a function of your attitudes and perspectives which most definitely require constant monitoring and development. Above all, establishing and maintaining a positive mental attitude and remaining proactive throughout is absolutely essential to land your ideal career opportunity.

So what are you waiting for?