How to confidently find meaningful and secure jobs you enjoy doing and take the guesswork out of finding your dream job
So, if you really want to know …
What job is right for you or that suits you?
What is the best (or good) job for you?
What job will you enjoy doing?
How to find meaning and purpose at work?
How to find that dream job?
Then you’ll love the actionable steps in this document.
My mission is to help you find a job you like doing and increase your job security at the same time. I do this by taking the guesswork out of finding your dream job.
Let’s dive right in.
Trying to find a job you enjoy doing can be difficult when you don’t know-how.
Trying to increase your job security can even be more challenging when there’s information overload, thanks to the Internet.
Too many people are only telling you what to do rather than actually showing you how to confidently find meaningful and secure jobs you will enjoy doing.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that we just give up because it’s just too hard. There’s no one to show you the how-to step-by-step method to take the guesswork out of finding your dream job.
With hands raised as a sign of defeat, we take the reactive or short-cut approach to finding any job that’s on offer or that comes along. We end up taking the easy way out by adopting the usual hope and pray strategy (aka gambling) rather than intentionally creating our own future by taking the time to perform in-depth due diligence and strategically going after that dream job.
This is where the Job Certainty Technique has been created to help you overcome fears and avoid the usual hit and miss approach. No more guesswork.
The technique is uniquely designed to provide you with step-by-step guidance to build your confidence and overcome fears to find that job you really like doing. In doing so, you are also future-proofing yourself and increasing your job security and income.
If you want an effortless short-cut approach without the need to commit any time and energy in creating your future success and secure your future income, then this technique is NOT for you.
I hate to disappoint you. There are no short-cuts to follow.
Like anything else in life, you need to commit time, energy and money to set yourself up for success, rather than failure.
Here’s the thing.
Stop gambling with your life and future. Be committed to performing the required due diligence to increase the likelihood of finding that job you enjoy doing.
Your ultimate goal is to choose an in-demand hard-to-automate occupation in a high growth industry that is aligned to your personality, interest, skills, and purpose.
By doing so, it will set yourself up for future success. There will be a higher likelihood that you are increasing and securing your income streams, and future-proofing your career and income.
Job certainty vs. job security
Job certainty is the state of having confidence that the job found is the best job that you will enjoy doing. It is based on several personal factors including your personality, interest, knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal purpose. This job could even evolve into your dream job.
But there’s no guarantee that you can do this job forever. This is where job certainty differs from job security.
Job security is the state of having a job that is secure. You can work in your job for as long as you please, unlikely to be dismissed or become unemployed.
While some people may say that job security is dead. In some sense, it is true because there are no guarantees in life.
We don’t plan to fail. Instead, we just fail to plan.
Securing our jobs and the future will take some planning based on some well-considered strategy. There are so many things that we can do to secure our jobs, income streams, and most importantly, future incomes.
Unfortunately, as people are constantly fixated on instant gratification, job security is just a dream for many people as they adopt the hope and pray strategy.
Therefore, both job certainty and job security should go together.
You really need the certainty that the job found during your job search will be the job that you can enjoy working in for as long as you like. This is done by doing a bit of planning and taking time to conduct the required due diligence.
After targeting a particular occupation and company, you need to develop a strategy and plan to intentionally ‘go after’ that job. In competitive job markets, you really need to have a pro-active strategy that creates job opportunities.
Once you are in a job, it is then about taking action to increase your job security by continuously up-skilling yourself and constantly delivering tangible value to your employer. Being flexible and relevant are important ingredients for success.
The Job Certainty Technique consists of asking four fundamental questions (Steps 1 to 4) and finding jobs at their intersection (Step 5).
Step 1 – What do I like? (Interests)
When considering job choices, nothing is more important than your happiness and enjoyment.
However, doing a job just for the money almost never turns out well.
In fact, it stands to reason that if you’re not passionate about what you do, you probably won’t put in the extra mile that’s needed to go after that promotion, to be an industry leader, or to make a long-term impact.
The bottom line is that our interests and personalities will determine which jobs we enjoy doing.
In Step 1, start compiling a long list of jobs that you potentially like doing as you need to narrow it down based on your skill level and market demand in Steps 2 and 3.
Step 2 – What am I good at? (Skills)
You need the right knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the job that you like doing (from Step 1). If you don’t have them, you have to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities.
The reality is that when you do not have the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the job or performing the job well, you will not be hired in the first place. A skills acquisition plan that closes any skill gaps that you currently have will be vital for your long-term success. Acquiring the right skills will also be equally important.
If you want long-term career success and ultimately job security, you really need to develop a career plan that systematically transitions you up the career ladder enabled by a well-designed spending plan.
A spending plan differs from a financial budget because it strategically prioritises and intentionally allocates (invest) your money to acquire the required skills, experience and knowledge rather than avoid or minimise your spending.
Step 3 – What does the market need? (Demand)
When there is no market need or demand for your skills, you will not find the job that you enjoy doing (from Step 1). There is no one willing to pay you for your specific skills (from Step 2).
In Step 3, your ultimate goal is to choose in-demand hard-to-automate occupations in high growth industries that are aligned to your personality, interest, skills, and purpose.
This step is about verifying whether the jobs listed from Steps 1 and 2 are in-demand hard-to-automate jobs in high growth industries.
The key is to have (or acquire) in-demand employable skills. This is where Steps 1 to 3 are aligned.
By doing so, there is a higher likelihood that you are pro-actively securing your income streams and future-proofing your career.
Step 4 – What can I create? (Purpose)
Proactively create your own identity and destination by proactively taking or deriving meaning from your chosen occupation (from Step 3) rather than reactively finding your passion and purpose.
Meaning and purpose are things that you can intentionally create, not things that you find. Take control over your life.
Rather than focusing on finding your passion, focus on making your work meaningful by making meaning from it. The purpose is then derived from focusing on what’s meaningful.
Almost any occupation can possess remarkable meaning and purposes. For example, school bus drivers bear an enormous responsibility. They care for and keep children safe. They are an essential part of assuring that our children receive the education they need and deserve.
In Step 4, you must pick out jobs listed from Steps 1 to 3 that have meaning and purpose which resonates with you. These are jobs have causes that you truly believe in.
When your personal meaning and purpose are aligned with your employer’s purpose and vision, it will turbo-charge your performance and increases your motivation to succeed. Such alignment can create an environment for dream jobs to materialise.
Step 5 – Verify and find that job
When you do find jobs at the intersection to all four foundational questions of demand, interest, skills, and purpose, these will be the selected jobs that you should seriously consider pursuing a bit more as part of your due diligence in Step 5.
Jobs at this intersection (from Steps 1 to 4) will potentially be meaningful jobs that you like doing, jobs that you’re good at, and skills that employers need. Work your way down this short-list and find the job that you will go after.
As part of your due diligence, Step 5 requires you to verify your job selection using online tools and with humans. This intentional verification process will increase your confidence and certainty that the occupation you are targeting is the right one for you.
This important sanity check step may cause you to abandon a targeted job and find another job short-listed from Step 4.
Do keep an open mind. Do not be fixated on one job only.
Finding out that this job is not the one for you at this early stage of your due diligence can save you the heartache and sadness in the future.
Once you have verified the targeted occupation with a human, it is time to develop and implement a strategy to secure that chosen job.
You have to proactively create job opportunities through networking and personal branding. This means that you are intentionally creating your own future by performing in-depth due diligence and going after that dream job.
You are discarding the hope and pray strategy that many people are using.
You may need a skills acquisition plan enabled by a spending plan to bring your skills level to an acceptable level excepted by employers. You have no choice but to invest in your future by investing in yourself first.
A well-structured skills acquisition plan closes any personal skills gap you currently have that is preventing you from effectively performing your dream job.
In order to resource the implementation of this skills acquisition plan, you need to invest money into your personal skills training. Courses do cost money. A well-considered spending plan will prioritise and effectively allocated your financial resources. It will help you pay for the required courses without sacrificing other areas of your life.
Do remember that there are a number of free online courses offered by some prestigious universities.
Spend time in your own research
The 2016 Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Report showed that only 16% of candidates spend over five hours researching a job.
This is really a scary figure.
Contrasting job seekers with a car buyer researching which car to buy, it has been reported that “car Internet clients” are shopping on the Internet for about 14 hours before purchasing a car. The individuals who burn through at least 12 hours on the Internet wind up going to 3.3 merchants before purchasing.
What we are really saying is that we value our cars more than we value our jobs!
By devoting the proper time and effort in performing the proper due diligence when choosing jobs will go a long way in ensuring that we have secure jobs that we can enjoy doing.