How To Get A Job
Are you getting employed, or getting employable?
“If you wanna work here, close.”
At some stage in our lives, almost all of us are found asking the question: “How am I going to get a job?”
Whether we’re entering the workforce for the first time, preparing for a job interview or pursuing a career change, it’s a question that comes for us all. And yet, while an understandable one, it’s not the most powerful question that we can ask at that moment.
Instead, we have the opportunity to ask: “How do I do a good job?”
Our claim is that, by getting curious about doing a job well and taking some action to get answers, not only will your chances of getting a job go up, you’ll also be more likely to find yourself in a job that is a great fit for you.
So how do we answer this question?
One approach is to imagine that you’ve already been hired, in a role that’s interesting to you and you are well suited to it. One day, your employer calls you in for a performance review. They ask you, “how well do you think you are performing here, scoring from 0-10?”
What would you need to be doing to get a high score?
Getting curious about what the job you want entails, and what a high performer in the role looks like, allows you to see how well-suited you are and where there may be gaps you need to close in order to do that job well. And there are many ways of doing this - maybe you’ve studied the job as part of your education, or you know someone in the field you can ask. Pick out a high performer you recognise in that role and ask for some of their time - maybe a coffee or a Zoom call - and find out what they’re doing and how they add value.
If you’re applying for a role, you can even get information from the employer themselves. What’s in the job description? Can you email or call them ahead of time? If you’ve got the interview, ask them: “What does a high performer in this role look like? Who was the best person who did this job here, and what was so great about them?” As an employer, these are great questions to be asked, because it says that this person is interested in doing a good job for me and is open to feedback.
Answering these questions creates certainty for our brains. That’s a great way of reducing anxiety around getting the job, and empowering us to learn how to do it well. That way we can stand out amongst the field of candidates, represent ourselves accurately, and find a role that’s both a good fit and allows us to continue learning and developing towards the next step.
Interested in the topic of feedback? We recently shared a list of questions that you can use to start empowering conversations and get the highest quality feedback. Click here to read on LinkedIn - and while you’re there, connect with us!
