Marketing You, Pt. 2: Identifying Your Dream Companies

Marketing You, Pt. 2 accelerates your progress toward securing your Dream Job through integrating Dream Companies into your Job Search System.

You will research:

Companies in which your Dream Job could materialize
Prime networking candidates affiliated with your Dream Companies

You will develop:

The next phase of your Job Search System by preparing to tap into the 'Shadow Market'
A list of Tier 1 Companies - To keep in your back pocket
A list of five Tier 2 Companies - And affiliated potential contacts for Natural Networking, which you'll learn about in Part 3

📋 At This Point, You Should Have:

☑ A chosen job title, thoroughly researched (plus two backups).

Remember: Avoid RANT (Random Acts of Non-Productive Tasks)

Beware the Black Hole! There are many reasons not to use job boards: heavy competition, poor quality jobs, the Spiral of Doom. But that spiral feels good, because it feels like you did SOMETHING, and research feels like you're doing nothing.

Break that mindset. Research is doing something 90% of people won't do, which can have huge results for you.

Have a Strategy, Control Your Career

Strategic Job Searching:

In Part 1, you:

Got proactive and tackled your own invisible scripts to keep them from holding you back.
You completed the first stage of building a job search system.
You began front-loading the work.
You started thinking about what others want.
And, you started using triggers to signal your mastery.

Now, it's time to identify & research your Dream Companies!

Your Job Search System, cont.

You should already have your Top 3 Job Titles from Pt. 1. We've already completed some parts of this process. In this step, we will complete the other parts as well:

① Select your potential Dream Job.... look it up.... still interested?

If yes → ② Do some deeper research into the title and the company... still interested?

If yes → ③ Do some natural networking (where you'll find out even more)... still interested?

If yes → ④ Test the market and see if you're getting results... still interested?

If yes → ⑤ Get your Dream Job! (If you answer No at any stage, restart from the top!!)

(If no at any stage, restart from the top!!)

Your Dream Company

Where do you want to work?

You might already have a few companies in mind — maybe Google, Pixar, or Goldman Sachs. But you can't stop at just one or two companies. That's what rookies do. You need to build a pipeline, so we can...

... avoid One-itis. This is where we're obsessed with one company to the point of ruining things, very easy to do. Top performers never put all their eggs in one basket, and always have other options — which makes employers want them that much more.

... have the room to practice! Most people don't consider job hunting a skill, which is weird, it obviously involves many skills. And skills can be practiced. So if you want a Dream Job at a Dream Company.... you should definitely practice, not just show up.

Tier 1 vs. Tier 2 Companies

There's bound to be some companies that you're really interested in (Tier 1), and some that you're just sort of interested in (Tier 2). The key is to start with your Tier 2 companies, and save your Tier 1 companies for later. That way, you get to practice without worrying about messing up. You expect failure — then you accept it, learn from it and get better. So you're going to need to find lots of companies to fill your pipeline with.

Bonus: That Tier 2 company might end up being your real Dream Company.

Step 4: Identify five 'Tier 2' Companies

HELPFUL HINT - For LinkedIn searches: to get around the annoying "Staci M. (upgrade to LinkedIn Pro to see Staci's full name!) just google the first name, title and company--their LinkedIn profile (with full name) will show up right at the top of the search results.

In Pt. 1 we started with a big list of job titles and dripped it down. Now we need to do the same thing with companies. You can use the LinkedIn People Search to look up the profiles of actual people in X industry with Y job title.

From there, it's all filtering and digging into profiles to ask:

🢡 What did this person do at this company?

🢡 Does that interest me?

🢡 If so, jot down the company and your potential contact there (if you have one).

Your Step 4 Goal: Identify at least five 'Tier 2' Companies

Again, is this method perfect? No. When you use any filtering process, you're bound to have a few good companies "slip through the cracks." But that's okay. It's more important that you move quickly, keep it simple, and pick something — and most critically, something that exists in real life!

Step 5: Do More Research

Spend 30 minutes on each company, for a total of about 2.5 hours of work.

Read their LinkedIn pages, browse their websites, and look for them in the news.

What exactly do they do?
What are their challenges?
And where do YOU (and your target job role) fit in?

Coming up in Part 3, you will:

🢡 Take action and begin developing your Natural Networking Strategy!

You will...

🢡 Find 5 experts to reach out to who are in the roles that you are interest in

🢡 Develop your 5 most important informational interview questions

🢡 Draft and send requests for informational interviews

Meet you there!

The Shadow Market

Searching internet ads is the most common method used by job hunters — often the only method. But there's a game being played around them they don't even realize. Most jobs — as many as 80% — are snatched up before they're ever advertised. If you rely only on job boards, you're essentially hunting for scraps.

The Job Board Market: 80% of competition / 20% of jobs

The Shadow Market: 20% of competition / 80% of jobs

Which would you rather compete in??

How to access the 'Shadow Market'

1. Have a strong network of people who want to help you (we'll talk about building a network soon).
2. Go Direct - get in touch with employers you want to work for and pitch them yourself, whether they are advertising or not.

Dream Company Strategy Summary

- The Shadow Market: The majority of jobs, and often the best ones, are taken before they're ever advertised.
- To tap into the Shadow Market, you need to generate companies on your own and apply to them directly.
- Avoid One-itis: Don't make the mistake of putting all your eggs in one basket. Create a pipeline of prospects and keep it filled.
- The process for discovering your Dream Company is simple: Start with a big list, narrow it down, and explore your options one by one.

By now, you've gotten specific about the 2 things that matter most: job roles and employers. Compare that to where most people are: Most people:"I want to do innovative work that adds value by leveraging my unique skills." You: "I'd like to work as an Inside Sales Associate at a social networking startup in San Francisco. For example..." Which do you think has a better chance of knowing their next steps? Of getting help from an expert? That's the power of getting specific.

Acknowledgements

This post quotes directly and sources liberally (with approval of course) from Ramit Sethi's original Find Your Dream Job online course which he has since updated (Modules 1-2 specifically). Ramit has graciously allowed us to source up to 1/3 of his paid materials for our students, in exchange for this mention and for helping you to succeed. His materials have been chosen for sourcing because he uses a process of testing, delivers his material using real talk, and bases his work on either testing or proven science (despite not having a PhD himself he is Stanford educated and he's mentored by many brilliant and University affiliated individuals whose work he translates into his courses).

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