Switch careers and land on your dream job

According to zippia job switchers see on average a salary increase of 47% when compared to well, non job switchers.

I am not saying you should all quit your job especially if you are (just) following the money.

However you had to be among the lucky ones to have both land on your dream job and meet your financial targets straight out of college, so keep reading.

Set your goal

The definition of success is important, more so when you decide to take on another job.

You should be well aware of why you want to change jobs, either salary, future opportunities, move to another country or well, just for the fun of it (and why not, after all life is meant to be fun).

If you do not know what you are chasing try to list the things you like about previous jobs you had so far, most likely you will end up with a list of the things you care about.

Read the list again, reevaluate what you have written down, remove what you do not care so much, and add things that you might have missed.

You have now identified the main characteristics you will be looking for in your future job and company.

Research

Do you already know what you want to do and the company you are chasing?

Are you sure? Then skip this step.

if not, don’t worry, and if you need inspiration on job boards, analysis about the current and future job market I am sure you will be able to identify positions that you can cluster as:

• Maybe
• Definitely not
• Definitely yes

So now you know what you care about and which job positions you will be chasing.

Put the requirements together, evaluate common points in all those positions and see how many boxes can you chek with your existings skill set

Prepare yourself part 2) training

If might need to fill the gap between your current and future self.

For affordable training you can check:

• Khan academy
• Coursera
• Udemy
• LinkedIn
• Or other resources

Remember: learning is about improving yourself and not so much about certifications, yes those are important but yourself first and the badge second.

Also: Care about scammers promising selling your future dream as if it is a low hanging fruit.

And if you are lost, look for mentors, LinkedIn is a good place to start, look for people already working in the positions you would like to work on.

Ask them about the job and why they like if, this might help you getting insights and helping you deciding for or a against some of the positions you thought you would appreciate.

Reevaluate if you changed your mind

Because training is not easy it might take some time or even be slightly demotivating depending on why you are learning some topics.

Take some time and be honest with yourself.

Remember the “why” you set in the beginning, is the why strong enough to keep on going?

Prepare your CV

Is it now clear to you what your future position will be.

You want to make sure you cater your CV to the position you are chasing (if you are not 100% sure you can keep 2 CVs one for each position — but be prepared for the double work that comes with it)

You have the position you want to apply for now you can do the same process to get the company you would like to apply to.

My favorite resource is Glassdoor as you can gen insights about how employees evaluated the company — be aware that former employees might only come back to place negative reviews so take it with a grain of salt. Check rankings and prioritize companies that are ranked as “best place to work" in their category (if you are changing change for the better right?)

You know the job opening and company you would like to apply for. Great we are almost there.

Now also look for a similar job opening but this time in the most renowned company of that same field of operation.

If it’s for an online business maybe check google and Facebook in addition to the company you are applying for (see some similarities?)

Evaluate your CV — manually

I know you have spent hours creating your CV but chances are your CV is not working (otherwise you would not be reading this post nor following my advices)

Judge yourself, try to put yourself in the shoes of a person reading your CV.

Question yourself:

• Can I quickly understand what this person wants?
• Can I read it diagonally and understand clearly what this person did in the past?

Tips

• Keep it simple
• Keep it short — Elon musk is known for a CV that is only one pager, are you that important to take more pages? I know not everyone founded PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX but still…
• Be aware that it might be either a human being or software on the other side evaluating you so prepare your format for both readers.

Evaluate your CV with software

I have previously I have posted on quora my favorite LinkedIn and CV scanner JobScan.

Why?

1. 2 for the price of 1 - The premium version allows you to scan your CV and also your LinkedIn (2 for 1 is great value for the money).
2. It gives you solid tips on how to improve - saving you time on reading through articles on how to improve your CV and Linkedin and gives you the tips already digested for your case with examples.
3. In addition to what I mentioned earlier it has my favorite feature of them all, it measures the performance of your CV against at least 3 job descriptions that you “might” be looking at.

Reduce the effort

My tips for non native English speakers to reduce the effort is to only keep an English version of your CV.

Don’t forget to keep several formats (.xlsx, .pdf)

Be kind

To everyone you will encounter in your life kindness will come back to you sooner or later the positive energy you bring with you are with some companies (sure unfortunately not all of them) are looking for.

When you score an interview

Use the interview to understand if your Glassdoor assumptions are correct. Take the time to really understand the challenges ahead of you.

Do you like the people you are talking to during the interview?

Use the opportunity to also learn about the company and to evaluate if it’s a company you will enjoy working for.

Repeat

Don’t expect to score everything at the first time. You will iterate towards achieving your goals, be patient.

I hope you find this post helpful. Be aware that it might contain affiliate links. If for any reason this post helps you landing where you want (maybe on Mars... Who knows) let me know and if you want to connect find me on LinkedIn.

I wish you all the best!!