How to Get the Right Job

SARAH GREEN: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green. Today, we are talking about finding your next job and how to zero in on realistic career possibilities before you start actually searching for jobs. Our guest is Jodi Glickman, founder of the communication training firm Great on the Job and a contributor to “The HBR Guide to Getting a Job.” Jody, thanks so much for joining us today.

JODI GLICKMAN: Thanks for having me, Sarah. I’m thrilled to be here.

SARAH GREEN: Jodi, what is the ground work you should do before you start even looking for a job? Should you start by mapping your strengths and weaknesses and financial goals?

JODI GLICKMAN: Yes, you should absolutely be doing that. I think it’s very important to know what you are good at and what you enjoy doing and think about what you’re not so good at or what you don’t like doing. And think about career opportunities that are going to lend themselves to the former. And of course, you need to weigh that against your financial goals.

I think what’s most important is, as you think about your strengths and weaknesses, there’s a couple of ways to come up with your matrix, if you will, of what you’re good at and what you like doing. And that is think about what you’ve enjoyed doing, what you have done well at in academics, in your career, in extracurricular activities.

Also think about what people come to you for regarding advice. Is it help with interviewing? Is it your ability to multitask? Is it your technical expertise or your ability to troubleshoot someone’s iPhone or computer? What do people think of you as sort of an expert in?

So that’s how you can think about your strengths. I think we’re all much better at pinpointing our own weaknesses. We know what we’re not good at doing or what we don’t like doing. And if something is really painful, if you think about doing it, don’t seek out a job that’s going to have you building financial models, or cold calling customers, or showing real estate, if the idea that sounds totally unappealing.

So yes. Think about your strengths and weaknesses and then absolutely think about your financial needs and goals and how they fit in with those strengths and weaknesses. I think the biggest challenge, obviously, is when your strengths and weaknesses don’t jive with your financial goals. So for instance, if you want to make millions of dollars and think Wall Street is the way to get there or becoming an entrepreneur is the way to get there, but you don’t have a great appetite for risk or you don’t know anything about finance, well those two things probably aren’t going to happen then.

So be realistic about how much money you want to earn to support you and your lifestyle and/or your family and then realistically about career options that can get you to that point.

SARAH GREEN: So I want to just press a little bit more on this idea of weaknesses, because I think some of us know maybe what our weaknesses are, but I think some of us might not. It may be that we’ve either allowed ourselves to get really good at something that we hate doing, or that we just have a blind spot. If you aren’t sure what your weaknesses are, how would you go about getting that feedback?

JODI GLICKMAN: That’s a great question, and absolutely, we all do have blind spots. A good way to figure out some of your weaknesses are to ask some people that you’ve worked with, colleagues, or bosses, or mentors, what they think your strengths and weaknesses are. And it’s hard to pose the question to someone, what do you think I’m not good at? People don’t really feel comfortable with that question. The way that you can get to the answer is asking them what they think you’re both good at and what you need to focus on more.

So if you approach a mentor or boss and say, I really want to think about my weaknesses, and I want to know what you think I don’t really do so well with. People worry about hurting feelings or you not being ready to take that feedback. So I think the way to get good feedback is to say, what do you think the areas I’ve excelled in, and what do you think the areas of development I should continue focusing on? Or what do you think some of the most value add that I’ve brought to the organization is, and what do you think some of my weaknesses are?

So if you give people the opportunity to both sing your praises and give you constructive feedback, they’ll often be more honest.

SARAH GREEN: Hm. So once you’ve identified some of these skills, how do you look at them in a way where you can see them transferring across different job descriptions? Because I’ve seen people, for instance, get really locked into looking for obvious or expected positions or doing the exact thing that they were doing before. Because they just don’t see how their skills might transfer to a new industry or a new job.

JODI GLICKMAN: Right. Well, you hit the nail on the head. It’s all about transferable skills. As opposed to thinking about your skill set as, I’m great at marketing, or I’m really good with public relations, or I’m very good at operations within the automotive industry, take a step back, and think about what are the skills that make you great at marketing, or public relations, or operations.

Is it your ability to multitask? Is it your ability to communicate your vision? Is it your ability to come up with efficient processes? Is it your ability to sell people on your vision, or maybe are you a great sales person?

If you’re great at sales and marketing, well maybe you should be industry agnostic. You could probably just as easily go sell new technology or iPhones as you could sell medical devices. So take a step back from the assumptions, and think about, OK. What makes me good at that particular job or role, and what is transferable about that? Is it being technically proficient, a really good big picture thinker, or great with details?

And so maybe it’s not just, I’m great with numbers, it’s I’m great with details. And so I could take this financial analysis position that I’ve been doing for years and years and actually go do something very different as long as it is also detail oriented.

SARAH GREEN: So it’s like the skill behind the skill almost.

JODI GLICKMAN: Yes. I think that’s exactly right. I think it’s the skill behind the skill, and then that broadens its applicability.

SARAH GREEN: So I’m wondering as we’re talking about all of this, how much of this pre-job search work should be about dreaming, and inspiring, and sort of spreading your wings, and how much do you really need to be grounded, realistic. And maybe in some cases, how do you tell when you’re being, maybe, unrealistic? If that’s a risk?

JODI GLICKMAN: That’s an interesting point. I hate to tell people not to be idealistic and aspirational, and there is a time and a place for that. And my initial instinct upon hearing that question is maybe, you know, split it 50-50. And give yourself 50% of your time, energy, and resources. Invest in areas that are sort of idealistic and aspirational. And take the other 50% and invest in realistic opportunities that may come to fruition.

But I want to caveat that with depending on where you are in the job search and where you are in terms of your own financial cushion and your comfort with risk or ambiguity, that to the extent that you’ve been working for many years, and you’ve got a nest egg, and you’re willing to take a six-month sabbatical if that’s how long it takes to find a job. Maybe you can spend more time upfront being really aspirational and idealistic, and give yourself a timeframe.

Say, I’m going to spend two to three months focused on getting a job in the entertainment industry. And if within three months, I haven’t made any traction, well then I’m going to take the second three months and really split my job search between finding something in the entertainment industry and then falling back on a marketing position within health care, which is what I’ve been doing and what I know. But I want to give this dream a chance.

If you have some level of cushion, then you can be 100% aspirational as long as you give yourself a timeframe. And then I think once you have reached a limit, you really need to split it at least 50-50.

SARAH GREEN: We’ve gotten to this point, and we haven’t even started talking about job boards yet. Because I think that’s where a lot of people start their search. Is there a role in the job search process or the pre-search process for a job board? I mean, could you use them to get inspiration or get ideas? What’s the role for a job board?

JODI GLICKMAN: Well, I’m glad you asked that question, because I think the role of a job board interestingly, and some people may disagree and not like this answer. I don’t think job boards are for getting jobs. Most people do not get jobs from job boards. Jobs are filled through people you know and through networking. And it is all about meeting people and making sure that when a position is open, your name comes to top of mind. Or so and so from IBM recommended you to a friend who is at a new computer software company.

Job boards are really in my mind for information gathering. And so to your point about inspiration and ideas, I think that’s right. I think job boards are great to look at to understand what positions are out there, what different roles entail, what the requirements are, and what the qualifications are. And what that does is it allows you to help map your skill set to different jobs or roles that would be a good fit for you.

And I think job boards are sort of the pre-work or the homework to starting your job search, which is then figuring out what companies you’re interested in and the people you know at those companies. And then being able to approach those people or go have informational interviews or sending out resumes knowing full well what the requirements and the qualifications are for different jobs and being able to speak to them intelligently. So I think job boards are all about information gathering as opposed to job getting.

SARAH GREEN: And of course, there might be a bunch of jobs that aren’t even posted on job boards. What kind of jobs do you think aren’t ever posted on job boards?

JODI GLICKMAN: You know, jobs that are not posted on job boards are positions that are A, either filled internally in an organization. And some organizations are required to post those publicly, but many are not. And so oftentimes, they’re really interesting jobs that are either going to be filled internally through sort of the existing rank and file or again, through word of mouth of we’re looking for someone for a new chief of staff role, or for a director of strategy role, or for a new hybrid role we’re creating. And do you happen to know anyone? You know you ask your employees.

There is a woman I know who I worked with recently who came from the nonprofit world, and she was doing grant writing and fund raising for a non-profit. And she was away for the weekend on a family outing, and she wound up meeting someone who works for an organization that funds entrepreneurs in the developing world. And these two women hit it off. Her name is let’s just give her a new name. Her name is Debra let’s say.

And so Debra is the woman who is looking for a job. She just left a nonprofit. She meets this other woman who works for this organization that funds entrepreneurs. And the other woman, whose name escapes me, says to her, you know what? You would be perfect.

We’ve got this new role, and we’re looking for someone who can help us with development, marketing, positioning. And we need someone with great interpersonal skills who has a lot of the skills that you’ve developed in your previous role. I’d love to continue the conversation with you.

And so what’s so interesting to me that this woman Debra wound up finding out about a job that didn’t really exist. She just happened to meet someone and be able to communicate her transferable skills and her experiences. So the position that she’s ultimately interviewing for now, and that is in process as we speak, but the position she’s interviewing for wasn’t posted on the job board.

SARAH GREEN: So we’ve talked now about job boards and about networking. Where else could you look to get new ideas about the kind of work that you might be interested in if you only knew that it existed?

JODI GLICKMAN: That, I think, is really relying heavily on your network. So I think the example about Debra is a great example of she wound up meeting someone at a weekend event, away, out of town, and finding out about an organization that she had never heard of. And it opened her eyes to a new role that she wouldn’t have necessarily considered.

So I think the best thing you can do is talk to people in your network, and that doesn’t just need to be your professional network. It can be your network through other parents if you are a parent. It can be your network through a religious organization, your church or your synagogue. It can be through a running club if you’re an athlete.

Finding out what people do for a living and finding out what they love about their job or what they would do differently, I have several clients who are looking for jobs right now. And they’ve just started talking to people in their network to find out more about the companies that friends and colleagues of theirs work for. And they come back with a lot of insight about positions that they never knew existed.

So I think it really is doing your homework and being somewhat of a sleuth of talking to people and being strategic about who you talk to, not just targeting anyone. But if someone is doing something for an organization that speaks to you from a mission perspective, or works for a product or brand that intrigues you, or works for an organization that you happen to know about, ask to sit down with them, or take them for coffee and find out more about what they do so you can find out about new positions.

SARAH GREEN: So this discussion of networking raises an interesting question for me, which is, at what point should you start scheduling some of these informational interviews with people? Because I think if you’re too soon, you might not be clear on exactly what you’re asking people. But if you wait too long, you might miss out on some of those opportunities to uncover jobs and sectors that you knew nothing about or didn’t know you’d be interested in. So how do time that right?

JODI GLICKMAN: You know, it’s interesting. So another client, Heather, she worked in business development and strategy for a nonprofit. And she was looking to break into the for-profit world. And her dream job was at a company called IDEO. And IDEO is this really fabulous, creative firm based on the west coast. And they are very innovative and do a lot of strategy and design work for new brands.

At any rate, so this woman, Heather, was really interested in getting a job with IDEO, and she didn’t know anyone at IDEO. She knew someone from her daughter’s school who worked for a much smaller firm that did innovation and strategy. And she just asked, it was the parent of a child at your school. And she asked to have coffee with one of the principles of this firm just to pick his brain and learn more about what his firm did, learn about his relationship with IDEO, because she was interested in it, and learn if there were other firms in the Chicago area where she lived that did similar work.

And what wound up happening from that conversation is he was really able to give her some very interesting feedback about what he did himself, his interactions from working with IDEO, and what he thought her skill set and strengths were based on what he knew about her and what she told him about her work. And so this was long before she was ever sort of officially on the market or looking for a job and long before she would have ever approached IDEO or sent her resume in for a job opening.

So I think the answer is that if you have a good reason to have an informational interview with someone, it’s never too early. If you don’t know what you’re trying to get out of the conversation, then there’s never the right time. So in my mind, it’s more about being thoughtful, about coming up with questions that are going to give you good information, and about you being able to carry on an intelligent conversation than the timing per se.

So whether or not it’s the beginning of your job search, or the middle, or the and, you don’t want to waste the other person’s time. And you don’t want to come across as not being really on top of it and on the ball. So have your smart questions, know why you want to meet with someone, and then the timing of it, for me, is less concerning.

SARAH GREEN: So I have another timing question now which is, how much time and effort should you be putting on some of this exploration before you’re officially hunting for a job or officially on the market? I could imagine that for some of us, it might be tough to reign it in. And we might end up just paralyzed with indecision or options. So how do you get that right?

JODI GLICKMAN: Well, I think you have to– I think that is an individual choice for many people. And I think what’s most important is setting limits and boundaries. So if you are the type of person that tends to not move to action quickly, then I think giving yourself a timeframe of two to three months for exploration and then making sure you start applying for positions, that might be what you need.

If you’re someone who is really, you jump right into things quickly, and you’re spontaneous, and you tend to take whatever job falls into your lap first, or you fall in love with every company you interview for, then you might be the type of person who needs to slow it down and say, I need to at least spend four months exploring my options before I think about taking a new job.

So I think it’s knowing yourself and what your personal style is and then coming up with a plan and sticking to the plan. And I also think going back to the beginning of our conversation, your financial goals come into play. If you have a gun to your head in terms of needing to get a new job quickly, or knowing that a layoff is coming, or knowing that your cash reserve is running out, or knowing that you’ve got to move out of your parents’ house in the next four months, well, that’s going to impact how idealistic you are and how long you spend on exploration versus how long you spend actually starting the job search.

SARAH GREEN: And that actually brings me to my final question for you, which also has to do with scarce resources. If you are interested in some of the guidance that you might get from a career coach, but you don’t have the money to spend on a career coach, how would you go about getting some of that kind of valuable guidance?

JODI GLICKMAN: Well, luckily today, and I say this with all due respect to all of my friends and colleagues who are career coaches, but there is so much information online, and social media is so powerful that you shouldn’t need to pay for a career coach today. And that said, many of them are fabulous and wonderful resources. But truthfully, there’s so much information online.

Now the problem is, information overload and not knowing where to go. And I would say that your best bet is to find one or two career website or coaching websites that you like, and stick to it. Use them as resources. Follow their Twitter feeds. Participate in Twitter chats. Read their blog posts. Download their free tools. And then don’t overwhelm yourself and feel like you’ve got to follow the top 25 bloggers in your career space.

I think focus on a couple. There are now, I like Brazen Careerist a lot. I like careerealism.com. I love reading The New York Times’ “Corner Office” every Sunday, which is more of leadership examples. There’s a great website, Career HMO, which is sort of a personalized career tool kit for young professionals and graduates.

So do a little bit of digging, and then find a couple of sites that you like and rely on those as opposed to– Because otherwise it gets very overwhelming.

SARAH GREEN: Jodi, thanks again so much for talking with us today.

JODI GLICKMAN: It is my pleasure. I hope it’s helpful, and thank you so much, Sarah.

SARAH GREEN: That was Jodi Glickman of Great on the Job. For more, you can read Jodi’s blogs on hbr.org and check out “The HBR Guide to Getting a Job.”