Landing your Ideal Dream Job

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dream job

Landing your ideal dream job can be a challenge and even a lifetime project. First you must know what your dream job looks and feels like. Yes, it does take some reflection.

 

An ideal dream job might be something that you don’t have right now and it could be a job you outgrow after a while.

 

In this article, I am not going to talk about how to figure out what your ideal dream job is or how to write the best resume. There are tons of searchable information about that online already.

 

Once you are quite clear on what you are looking for and the type of company you want to work for I suggest the following to get attention and stand out.

Cover letter for your Dream Job 

dream job cover letterWriting a great cover letter shows that you want the job and are willing to do what many people are not.

 

Research well about the company and the people who work there. What are there projects and plans? Who are there customers?

 

Make the letter very specific to the job. Explain how your skills, experience and interests coincide with the job and the company.

 

Express what you can contribute to the company and its goals and objectives. Use your research to make it specific.

 

Too many people write generic cover letters that every recruiter sees through and puts aside.

Personal contacts to land your Dream Job

Business is about who you know and trust. Hiring is a business decision. Every manager is responsible for results in their department and the new staff member is employed to contribute to those results.

 

dream jobDo everything you can to connect with the hiring manager or HR person that is part of the employment decision. Call them by phone, connect over Linkedin, email and whatever way you can. Make it personal.

 

The fact is that over 40% of hiring is done through word of mouth. Who do you know that knows someone that works where you want to. Use your contacts to help you make a connection.

Summary

Using a well-crafted cover letter will begin the process to differentiate yourself.

Often several well qualified people are applying for the same job. It’s important to speak to the hiring manager or team member to express your passion for what you do and make an impression.

 

Landing your ideal dream job takes work but so does everything worth attaining that is ideal for you.

Employers

Employers wishing to attract people seeking their dream job need to re-think how they market themselves as an employer of choice. It’s not just about marketing but more about becoming a sought-after employer. Think about what that would mean for your organization.

 

New Employee Orientation & On Boarding for Top Employee Performance

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new employee orientation
Everyone hires a new employee with the intention that they become productive within a reasonable period of time. In order for that to happen proper employee orientation and on boarding is extremely important.
There’s a wealth of information available to guide you in the process of orienting a new employee. Just do a search and you will come up with all kinds of articles and checklists, many of which contain great information. A lot of these approaches deal mainly with integrating the new employee in their job and introducing them to the culture of the company, as well as the policies and procedures.
welcome2

Performance and Productivity
In terms of performance and productivity here’s some additional information that I think will be helpful. One of the most important documents is the job description. This document should have already been introduced to the person during the hiring process, but it’s important to go back to it as part of the orientation.
A strategic meeting should be held with the new employee to review the role description and to discuss the goals of the department and company. This will help the employee understand how their job contributes to the bigger picture. During this meeting the manager should have a discussion with the new employee about setting specific learning and performance goals for the first 90 days of the job. The first 90 days is often considered a probationary period, it’s the time usually required for the person to get a good sense about the company and about performing the key tasks of the job.
set goals
90 Day Goals and Objectives
One approach is to ask the employee to come up with their performance commitments for the first 90 days based on your discussion in that initial meeting. This will help you to see how well they’ve understood the job requirements and what’s expected of them. It will also show you how well they are able to articulate goals in writing. A second meeting would be held the next day or so to review what they are proposing as performance goals and to discuss and finalize. This will establish a good understanding through a mutual dialogue.
One thing that should be included in the agreement is support commitments from their manager. The employee needs to identify where they feel they will need help to learn what is required in order to meet their commitments.
follow-up
Once this is established, you can then determine a training plan to provide the resources and support required to meet their performance objectives. Depending on the complexity of the job a daily check-in with the new employee might be required, but I suggest a weekly review to make sure everyone is on track to meet their commitments.
You can refer to my previous video and article on writing a job description, where you can also find a link to download a job description template and sample completed job description.
Once the 90 day period has approached you should do more in depth evaluation of their performance and then set new performance goals for the next 90 days to six months. The idea is to have regular discussions and take a coaching approach to managing your employees. This creates a win-win scenario for everyone.
As always, please leave your comments and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notified of new videos as they come out.
Thanks for watching and see you soon.

Stephen Goldberg

Using employee assessments for hiring and performance improvement

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There are a multitude of employee psychometric assessments on the market with the goal of improving performance through access to better information about people. The more we know about people from an objective standpoint, the better we are able to make decisions about hiring and improve training and coaching.

In this article I will refer to the tools that I am familiar with through my company Optimus Performance and my affiliation with my supplier, Profiles International. I have also included two video interviews I conducted with strategic business partners of Profiles International at the World Conference on January 10-13 2013 in Austin Texas.

The most common uses for assessments are hiring, training, coaching, performance management and team building. An important criteria when choosing an assessment tool is to make sure it has stayed current in terms of reliability and validity. This requires regular testing and updating by the assessment company and is essential to assure results are reliable.

Hiring for fit

The key when hiring people is to make sure they fit with the job. According to Susan Hanson of Vero Solutions Inc. (see video), the biggest indicator of job fit is thinking style. Hiring someone with the wrong fit could be extremely costly especially for managerial positions. According to Tim Brennan of Hiring Smart, (see video) it costs up to four times the annual salary to replace a bad hiring decision for a managerial position. This is because the manager affects the performance and productivity of his or her direct reports and also has a direct impact on the customers.

The Profile XT from Profiles International includes thinking style as well as behavioral traits and job interests as part of what is assessed. This is called a total person assessment and it also uses job matching to measure for fit against a pre-determined performance model. See my previous video and blog on this how to hire and select the right person for the job.

The Profile XT is a very versatile tool as it has multiple uses. Besides hiring it can be used for coaching and career or succession planning as it can generate various types of reports depending on the need. Download a sample hiring report.

The term employee engagement has garnered a lot of attention over the last several years as studies have shown the strong correlation between employee engagement and employee performance and productivity. According to the experts at Profiles and as indicated in many studies on engagement, two of the biggest indicators of employee engagement are fit with the job and the relationship between employee and boss. The Profile XT shows the fit not only with the job but also with the boss. The Profile Managerial Fit report shows where the employee is misaligned with their boss and might be the cause of possible conflict.

At the world conference in Austin Profiles International introduced a new tool, the Workplace Engagement Survey. This tool provides a snapshot of the current level of engagement of the workforce and includes a list of indicators that might be the cause of low employee engagement. When employees become disengaged they lack motivation to perform well and this causes low productivity. There are many things an organization can do to address these issues once they gain awareness through such a survey tool.

Another new assessment that was introduced at the conference was the Sales Checkpoint that pinpoints sales competencies that need development in order to achieve the expected sales results. Often both the salesperson and sales manager have not been able to target the cause of poor performance. With more precise knowledge both parties can discuss a plan of action to address these issues. The tool measures 19 skill sets in 7 competencies

Entrepreneurial Approach
Understand the Prospect
Develops Appropriate Solutions
Prospects Proactively
Manages the Selling Process
Closes the Sale
Manages Sales Relationship

The survey takes 15 minutes to complete and provides several reports.

As Tim Brennan said, assessments are now becoming mainstream in all size organizations as business executives and HR directors attempt to get a better handle on employee selection and managing performance.

Stephen Goldberg