The most important things to look out for as a candidate before joining any organisation

Finding a job, especially your dream job, is hard. Even if you have a few ideas of what you’re interested in, how do you choose what to pursue? Do you have enough experience to even try at this point? Or, do you think it’s too late for a career change? Let me tell you, it’s never too early or too late to pursue your ambitions.?

If you’re new to the job market or looking for change, put yourself in research mode. Go beyond a quick Google search and dive deep into the fundamentals of a job role, the types of companies in the industry, and whether the jobs match what you want from a career.?

Let me walk you through the steps of how to find your dream job.?

1. Become very clear on what you want

Researching any job is a good way to start but very few actually dig deep into what they want from a career. This is where you need to get specific. It's highly likely that you have some rough ideas of what types of roles or industries you want to join. Start with your job role and look at the overarching view of what the role entails. This can be as simple as Googling "Introduction to [Job Role]. You need to have a basic understanding of what the job is all about. The way to do that is by listing out the specific questions that will give you the right answers. Some questions such as 'What is the average workload for this job role in a week compared to a hectic week?' or 'What types of companies have this type of role. The more specific your questions.

If you don't know what you want from a job, who should know?

Lazy candidates will send their resume to every job opportunity they find - but that just means they're okay to do any job. That's not what you want. You should be getting up early in the morning to do the thing that makes you come alive. The best jobs go to those who prepare themselves for it.

So ask yourself these questions

• What type of job do you want? Give it a name.
• How big is the company? Where is it located? Be very, very specific
• What type of skills and experience is required for you to land the job. Build a roadmap on how you want to get there.

Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.

Action Steps

1. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center.
2. On the left side, write down everything you know about what your dream job looks like.
3. On the right side, list out the key characteristics that you don't want. Make sure you keep this paper on some place where you can see it daily and continuously update it.

*You need to be crystal clear over what is important to you in a dream career*

It's crucial that you be as selfish as possible when you do this exercise. It's about you. Focus on your skills and experience, but also go beyond that. List what's important to you in a career - personally and professionally. Go deep.

I highly recommend you take a personality profiling test to better understand yourself in terms of your strengths, your wants, your needs, and the kind of environments you thrive in. What type of working environment do you thrive in? Do you hate office politics? Do you like more work-life balance? Do you prefer to be paid according to how hard you work? Are you more of an independent worker or a team player?

BONUS: Click this link to get a free personality profiling + coaching session to help you understand your personality better

TL:DR

1. Be very specific of the job role, company, location and all other details before you apply for a job
2. Ask specific questions to get specific answers from your network
3. Leverage LinkedIn to ask questions to the right people in the roles you are looking to join.

2. Will you be able to make an impact in your line of work?

One of the ways to identify a worthy career is to see if you get to make an impact through the work you do.

Luckily for me, I have had the privilege to make an impact in society through the work we do and we take concerted efforts to give back to society. We have done many collection drives to donate clothes and PC working appliances for orphans in Batam (see pics below)

As a team, Mandate Wealth Management also volunteers Willing Hearts to give back to the community (see pic below)

Stay tuned for part 3 coming up next week!