Find your dream job, part four: learning

Now you know what sort of job is for you, how do you go about landing it? With a fact-finding mission, says York’s job finder general Simon Wallace

 

Part 4: Learning

If you have been following the series, you should now have a list of what you are good at and what your career anchors are. The next thing you need to do is begin to learn again.

Your focus should not be looking for a job at this stage, rather learning what is going on in the world around you. This is how you are going to get ahead of the crowd.

Have a look at your list and see where you would like to work. Next, compile a list of all the companies that are based in or around where you would like to work. This information can be found at your local library or by using the internet. Your anchors will determine the size of this list.

Start to build up a picture of what those companies do, find out how many people work there, discover what challenges they are facing etc. Since all companies are run by people, see if you already know someone that works in one of these companies or if you know someone that knows someone. Speak to them and ask about the company.

Find out first hand what it is like to work there; is that the sort of place you would like to work? Use social media to see what people are saying about those companies. The company may even have its own social media presence. What are they talking about? How can you find out more? Remember, you are not looking for a job, you are just learning about those companies and the people that work there.

In my experience as an interviewer, the biggest mistake potential candidates made was not thoroughly learning about the company or the role they were applying for. Would a company want to hire you if hadn’t taken time to learn about them?

The other learning you can do at this stage is read the papers (or use the internet). Have a look in the business sections, what is happening with the economy? What does the local economy look like? What companies might be moving into the area?

What companies might be looking to expand? What else is going on? In fact, with the local papers don’t just look in the business section, find out what is going on in general.

The more learning you do and the more you learn about a particular area, the easier the next stage will be. This learning is the knowledge you need to get ahead of the crowd. In the next part I will tell you what you can do with this knowledge.

 

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• See the rest of the Job Finder General series here
• Follow Simon on Twitter
• Click here for the B&A Careers website