How to Land Your Dream job
Episode Stats
Summary
Whether you're currently employed or not, my guest today has concrete advice on how to turn your longing for a dream job into a reality. His name is Ramit Sethi, and he's a personal finance expert, the owner of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and the creator of the Find Your Dream Job Program. Today, Ramit explains why finding your dream job, even in our current economic environment, is entirely viable as long as you understand that this pursuit is a skill like any other skill.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Chances are you've got a job right now. Chances are even good, you have a pretty decent job.
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There's also a good chance that you often desire something more from your work life,
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not just a better job, but the kind of job you've always wanted, a dream job.
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Whether you're currently employed or not, my guest today has concrete advice on how to turn
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your longing for a dream job into a reality. His name is Ramit Sethi, and he's a personal
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finance expert, the owner of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and the creator of the Find Your
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Dream Job program. Today on the show, Ramit explains why finding your dream job, even in
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our current economic environment, is entirely viable as long as you understand that this
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pursuit is a skill like any other skill. He then walks listeners through what the average
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job seeker does wrong and what the skill of landing your dream job actually involves,
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beginning with knowing which of the three career seasons you're currently in. We get into why you
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shouldn't just look for an opening with the same job title that you have right now, but
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you figure out instead what your dream company and dream role look like. Ramit shares the
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10-second test you should do to determine if you got a winning resume and what you should
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put in and take out of your resume, as well as your cover letter. We also get into how to
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prepare for an ASA job interview, including how to answer the infamous, tell me about yourself
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question, as well as other sticky questions like why you've been out of work for so long
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and why were you fired from your last job. We end our conversation with considerations to think
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about if you're contemplating changing careers to a completely different field. After the show's
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over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash dream job.
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All right, Ramit Sethi, welcome back to the show.
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So we had you on the show back in April to discuss, because the pandemic was starting,
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what people should do with their finances to get ready for this unprecedented time that
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we went through and are still going through. Before we talk about what we're going to talk
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about today, we're going to talk about jobs. I'd love to get, like, what's your take? Like
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this was back in April. How are things, how are you seeing the financial landscape now that
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we're, you know, nine, eight months into this pandemic?
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For people who have good jobs, for people who have savings, and certainly for people who have
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investments, many of them are doing financially better than they used to, which is confusing and
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surprising for a lot of people. You know, in what world could you imagine that the stock market would
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have one of the best years in history during a global pandemic? Unfortunately, for people who don't
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have jobs, or have lower incomes, no savings, and certainly no investments, things have not turned
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out as well for them. And I think there's a lot of disproportionate trouble that's being placed on
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lower income employees across the country. So, you know, what we talked about last time was
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overreact, overreact, it's better to overreact than to underreact. And there are a lot of people
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who listened to what we talked about and reached out and said, Hey, I'm so glad that I started to put
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away more savings. They may still have a job, some of them may have lost it or may lose it next year.
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But at least they know that they have savings. And then for the people who did that, and past that
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first step of playing defense, they followed their plan in step two. And then step three,
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they went on offense. For those people who have invested, many of them have seen tremendous gains,
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Well, so let's talk about what you're thinking about lately. So in April, you're thinking a lot
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about the pandemic, what people can do to get financially ready for that. Lately, you've been
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thinking a lot about helping people land the job of their dreams, get good jobs. Why has that been
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your focus lately? You know, it's funny for both of our audiences, I'd be willing to bet that over 90%
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of them have a job. And if you ask people, what would your dream job be? It's actually really
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interesting to hear their answers. A surprising number of people will say,
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well, that doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a dream job. And I asked them this recently,
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and that's what they told me. And when I start to dig into why, many of them say, well, nobody around
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me has a dream job. This person hates it. This person has a terrible boss. This person is underpaid,
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which really reveals that if you have never seen something, you don't think it's possible.
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But I do. I've seen it. I've had a dream job. I have my dream job now, even though I run my own
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business. And the reason that I've been getting more and more interested in this is that we spend
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most of our lives at a job. Many of us have good jobs. I'm not talking about if you have a terrible
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job. That's very clear that you should probably make a switch if you can. But it's really that tricky
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middle where you have a job that's okay, but you don't like your boss, or you're not respected,
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or you're not paid what you should be. And the final reason I got really interested in this
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is that finding a dream job is a skill. And this is a classic misconception. A lot of people think
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there are no dream jobs, or it's not for people like me. I didn't go to the right college.
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Well, it turns out that finding a dream job is a skill, just like lifting or riding a bike.
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It's something that can be learned. And when I started teaching people how to do it,
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because I learned it myself, suddenly they started to land dream jobs. That's why I'm talking about it now.
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Well, there's some people I'll be listening to this like, okay, dream job. That'd be great. But
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this is a pandemic. Companies are laying people off, et cetera, et cetera. I should just settle
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for whatever job I can get if I'm out of a job. What would you say to those people?
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I think that that's a fair critique. You know what? There are times where it's an employer's
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market, and there are times when it's an employee's market. And that is an important
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consideration when you are looking for a job or when you're negotiating your salary.
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And in certain industries right now, for example, if you are a waiter, yeah, it's definitely an
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employer's market. That means that your power is lower. But I also think that when people say that,
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they say it flippantly without really understanding the dynamics at play. You know why I say that?
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Because people have been saying that for the last 10 years in one of the best employment markets in
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history. I heard people saying, well, you know, I should just be lucky to have a job. Well, guess
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what? If you say that when things are good, and you say that when things are bad, maybe it's not
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about the economy. Maybe it's actually about your mental mindset. So a better way to approach it is
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to say, have I developed the skills to number one, identify what even is my dream job? That's number
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one. That's a skill. We can talk about that. Number two, do I know how to avoid the typical
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things that people do to find their job, like spending years updating a resume and then submitting
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it through some random website black hole of doom, and then just sitting back and waiting? That's not
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how winners get their dream job. That's how average applicants get it. So the reason you hear me
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getting passionate about this is that there's a much better way to identify what your dream job
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is and then to land it. Gotcha. And those skills can come in even more handy whenever it's an
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employer's market, because you can get the best deal you can get, even if the deck is stacked against
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you. Exactly. Your competition doesn't know this stuff. You know, again, let's just take, if you ask
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the average person, how did you find this job? How are you going to find your next job? I can tell you
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exactly what they would say. They would say, well, one day at work, you know, my boss finally said
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something that I just really didn't like. I went home, I decided I need to update my resume.
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That's the first thing everybody does. They update their resume. So when they update it,
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what are they doing? They're just randomly adding some chronological fact to the resume,
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which is totally meaningless. And then what do they do next? They go to some website,
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they search for the same job title they have today, the one that doesn't necessarily make them happy,
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but that's all they know. And then they post their resume and they sit there and wait.
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And they do that for two weeks. They check in, maybe they got a couple hits, maybe not.
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They wait another two weeks. And then after two, four, six, eight weeks, they get demoralized and
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they say, you know what? This economy sucks. But what have they done? They did what they were taught,
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which is do 1.25 inch margins on the resume. Again, who cares? They submit it through a website,
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basically delegating their job search to some computer algorithm. And then they sit back and
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wait passively. And that's why when people think about a job, they don't think about a dream job.
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But that's not how top candidates do it. And that's why I really want to emphasize the skills that I
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learned, the things that I taught so that other people can land jobs that pay them well,
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that give them flexibility, that let them have responsibility.
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One question I have for you is, I've watched your career since you were, I will, when you're a
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blogger, like in 2005, and you had your Ramit's kick-ass guide that I bought for five bucks.
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One thing I've noticed about you, like a lot of people in that space,
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when they're giving advice or offering programs that help people, it's usually about starting your
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own business. Like you got to be an entrepreneur. If you work for another company, you're a sucker,
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you're a sheeple. And you teach people how to start companies. Like you've done that,
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we've talked about that. But you also say, no, if you want a job, like you work for a company,
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not own a, be an entrepreneur, that's okay too. So, I mean, how do you figure it? Like when you're
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talking to someone, they're thinking, well, should I just keep going, like being a company man,
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working for another company, or should I strike out and be an entrepreneur? Like, how do you,
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what do you tell that person? Like, how do you help that person figure out what they should do?
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Well, first of all, I completely disagree with the idea that a lot of entrepreneurs throw around.
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And that is the idea that you can only be successful if you run your own business.
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And if you work at a company, you're a loser. I don't agree with that. I have worked at a company,
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I've had a W-2 salary. I employ many employees, my coworkers. And I think that there are lots of
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benefits to working at a company. You can have a bigger impact together than you can do it alone.
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You can have stability and benefits better than you can have alone. And on and on, you can learn
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skills more than you can learn alone. What I will say is that there can be a time and a place
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to have a job or to be an entrepreneur or to do both of them at the same time.
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But I really dislike this idea that is shared mostly by entrepreneurs selling an ebook that
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the only way to be successful is to have your own business. That's not true. What I would say is
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in order to build a rich life, you want to be challenged in what you do. You want to feel some
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ownership and you want to build an asset. Now that asset can be a business. That's great.
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It can be a stock portfolio, which I talk about in my book. So let's remember that most people
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who become millionaires do so through a W-2 job. I want to say that again, because this is very
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counterintuitive, although it shouldn't be. Most people who become millionaires do so through an
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ordinary W-2 job. They build a 401k, they build their savings, and that's how the majority of millionaires
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get there. Now you can define rich however you like, but let's stop stigmatizing people who have
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jobs. Let's instead say, okay, I'm not going to settle for a fine job. I want to get a dream job.
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So I'm going to learn the skills. I'm going to apply to the right companies. I'm going to spend
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extra time upfront. I'm going to get paid really well because I'm really good at my job and I'm
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building my skills. I'm going to become indispensable, but I'm not going to feel guilty about working there.
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And if I decide I want to start a business, I can do that on the side. And eventually,
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if I want to go full-time on that business, I can do that as well. That's exactly what I did with my
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own career. That makes sense. That's how I've done it too. I'm with you. I think it's so dumb when
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people just knock on people who work for companies. I know lots of successful people
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that they've been a career person their entire life. Yeah. And I also think it's a little short-sighted
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when entrepreneurs say that because what are you going to do when one day your business grows
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enough that you want to hire employees? Suddenly, you've basically labeled every one of your
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employees a loser. It's just disrespectful. And it's just not good strategy. I love my co-workers.
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I pay them well. I have excellent benefits for them. They all work remotely. They have since day one.
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And I respect them. I couldn't do what I do without them.
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Um, so I don't think we should stigmatize people who work at a company. I think that there are times
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and places where you may want to start a business, but a lot of people don't. It's perfectly okay.
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Let's work on finding a dream job for you. All right. So let's talk about the skill of finding
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a dream job. You say this is a skill like any other thing, like riding or lifting weights.
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And you say the first thing that people have to figure out and learn is how do they know what a
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dream job looks like for them? So how do you do that? What's the process like?
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Okay. So there's this concept I want to introduce to people called career
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seasons. Now this is a new concept that is exclusive here to, I will teach you to be rich.
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So there's three different seasons that we've identified in people's careers. The first one is
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growth for people in a growth season. That means you want to take on more work. You want to be paid
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more. You want to hire a salary. You're willing to put in extra time, but you want to know that there
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are rewards. This was very much me in my twenties. I didn't mind working on Saturdays and Sundays.
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I didn't mind taking on extra responsibility, but I wanted my career trajectory to be vertical.
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I wanted to be learning a ton. And I did. That was growth for me in my twenties.
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The next career season is something we call lifestyle. Now, anyone who has had children may know that,
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Hey, at certain points, you decide you're not willing to work Saturdays and Sundays,
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you actually need and want to prioritize something outside of work. This could be children. It could
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be an elderly parent. It could just be a hobby travel. Fine. That's lifestyle season.
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And the third one is something we call reinvention. Think of the lawyer who's finally fed up and decides,
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I want to be a beekeeper. Awesome. You just, you want to switch jobs, job titles, or even entire
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industries. Okay. With each of those career seasons, you need to use different skills to find the right
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job for you. So suddenly everyone listening, I want to challenge you. What career season would you say
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you're in? Are you in growth? Are you in lifestyle? Are you in reinvention? You can only choose one.
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It's possible. You know, everybody wants to start saying, well, I mean, I want to make more,
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but I also want to prioritize my lifestyle. Pick one because it determines the most important jobs
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you're going to look for. And I'll tell you exactly how this works. When you go out and you start
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searching for the perfect job title and the perfect company for you, if you are seeking, if you're in
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growth season, you're going to be examining this company and you're going to look at people who
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work there. You can look them up on LinkedIn and you're going to see, have they been promoted
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frequently? If the answer is no, and they stay in the same position for nine years, that's probably not
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the right company for you. So you can eliminate that off your list. If on the other hand, you go and you
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find a company and you're in lifestyle season. And in reading interviews about their company, you realize,
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wow, they each work 60 hours a week and they're on call three times a week. Easy. Discard. But suddenly,
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instead of simply going and typing into a computer, marketing coordinator, you have a totally different
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lens to look at these companies and evaluate them through. So rather than ending up with 50 companies
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where you just blindly submit your resume, you really want to end up with about five to 10.
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And you want to be as specific as saying this. You want to say, I want to work for a B2C company
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based in Seattle that has between one to 15 employees. And I want my job title to be
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marketing coordinator or program coordinator. Okay, beautiful. Once you are that specific,
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suddenly there's only about 15, 20 companies and you can really start to make a plan to network into
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those companies and to create a beautiful resume and cover letter that will attract their attention
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versus saying, I want to help people. And then just rifling your resume out to everybody on the
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internet. All right. So that first step though, is figuring out what phase in your career you are.
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Yeah. And I can see that being tricky because there can be some people who are in their 20s
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and there might be the pressure to like, okay, I want growth. Like you're supposed to get growth,
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but they really, they're like, no, I just want a nice career where I get a steady paycheck. I don't
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need much. And it could be, you might go for the growth because all your friends are. And then you
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find out I'm just completely miserable in this job.
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Yeah. I mean, look, you and I both know this is true in life as you and I have taken different
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paths from many people around us. We both realized early on, we were probably influenced by people
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more than we cared to admit. But as you build the skill of really knowing yourself, you start to
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realize what's important to you. And I realized what's important to me. So it's normal that we
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would be conflicted. It's normal that most of us are influenced by the people around us. We're social
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animals, but it is really important to get crystal clear about your career season,
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because I'll give you another example. If you're in lifestyle, for example, and you decide, you know
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what? I've gotten a taste of working remotely and I don't ever want to have to go back to an office.
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Okay. Listen, first of all, I completely understand that because I've worked remotely for like 15 years
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and I love it. I'm never going to do a commute. So how do you apply that to your job search?
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Well, here's how. First, when you are seeking companies out to see if they might be your dream
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company, you're going to look and see, do they offer remote work? Okay. If they do, that's a
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definite yes. I'm going to apply there. If they say no, or maybe you can still apply there, but in your
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cover letter from day one, you want to emphasize, Hey, I understand that you're based in DC, but I've
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worked remotely for the last 18 months. I'm proficient in Salesforce, Jira, Confluence.
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And if this makes sense for both of us, I'd like to continue working remotely. So from day one,
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you're emphasizing what is important to you versus randomly applying to companies. And then at the
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very last minute, when they make you a job offer, you say, well, I'd actually like to work remotely.
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And they're like, no, that's not the way to do it. So as you can see, knowing who you are and what
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you value upfront, lets you be completely transparent with these companies that you're
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seeking and working with to find your dream job. And that's something to keep in mind.
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They're transparent with you. They're telling you exactly, here's what we're looking for in a
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quality candidate. And you can do the same to them. You're shopping for them just as much as
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they're shopping for you. Well, I'm glad you said that. That's one psychological difference between
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top candidates and everybody else. So average applicants, they walk into a job search or
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certainly an interview, and they believe that their job is just to answer questions. That's
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really what most people think their job is in an interview. That is wrong. Top performers know that
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they are doing something completely different. First of all, they're discerning. They are interviewing
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companies as much as companies are interviewing them. And when they walk into, for example, an
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interview, they're not just there to answer questions. That's table stakes. They're there to
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communicate their three key messages. Doesn't matter what you ask me, I'm going to get one of my key
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messages into that answer. Doesn't matter what you say, I have a story and I'm going to make sure that
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I tell that amazing story. So this is the difference. There's so many subtle differences between top
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performers and average applicants. And like you said, average applicants just walk in and, you know,
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they just, they take whatever companies are on a website. They search for random job titles. They don't
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think that they have a network because, you know, they didn't go to some special college, but top
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performers do it very, very differently. And that's how the job game is played at the highest levels.
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We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
00:20:51.200
And now back to the show. All right. So how do you find, like, where do you go to find jobs these
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days? Cause like when I, I don't know, I, I haven't looked for a job in almost, I don't know how long
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has it been? 12 years, 13 years. So I have no clue like where you would go to find a job. So like,
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what's the, what, where do people usually go and why is that not a great idea? And like, what's a
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better thing to do? Well, the typical way that most people look for jobs is they go to any one
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of a number of job search websites. And what's funny is they take the job title that they currently
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have, the one that is making them want to look for another job. And then they go and type in the
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exact same job title. So here I am, I'm a product manager and I'm unhappy at my job because I don't
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like my boss and I hate Excel. And I go over to some website and I type in what product manager.
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Why do we do this? Why would we perpetuate the same job title that's making us unhappy?
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Well, the answer is that's what we know. So a totally different approach is to first say,
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okay, number one, what career season am I in? And to get crystal clear about that,
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to understand the implications. Two is to start looking at dream companies. So there's a whole
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methodology we teach, but I'll give you the short version here. You can go on sites like LinkedIn
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and you can find other people who have a similar title or maybe an advanced title of what you have.
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And you start to look at the companies they worked for. I did a video on this in the program
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and I was, I think, a marketing manager. So I started sorting by companies with this many
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employees, B2C, et cetera. And I found some really interesting things. I found a woman
00:22:46.780
who was a marketing manager previously at Disney. And I was thinking, wow, Disney is a phenomenal
00:22:54.360
company. That wasn't even on my radar. I added it to my spreadsheet where I was tracking everything.
00:23:00.400
I started looking for more dream companies. That's the first thing you want to have a list
00:23:05.260
of approximately 15 to 20 dream companies. The second thing you want to do is you want to find
00:23:10.680
your dream role. So it's one thing to say, I want to work at Disney. Great. But now we want to identify
00:23:17.060
the dream role. So how do you do this? Most of us only know the job titles that we know,
00:23:23.660
you know, product manager, product manager. But when you start to actually look through people's
00:23:28.900
careers, you start to actually leverage your network, you can realize there are tons of other
00:23:33.760
jobs out there that you may have never considered. For example, the difference between program manager
00:23:39.900
and product manager. The pay can be, it can be a $15,000 or $20,000 difference. And the work can be
00:23:48.480
very, very different just with one word being different. At this point, you've now got 15 or so
00:23:54.620
companies that are very interesting to you. You've also got a couple of job titles that you are really
00:24:01.720
excited about. You look at the job descriptions, you're like, yes, that gets me excited. Now you've
00:24:06.900
got the raw ingredients to begin a really effective job search.
00:24:13.660
And what's the next step after that? I imagine most people will be like, well, okay, my next step is just
00:24:17.740
send out resumes and cover letters. Yes. That's what most people do. See, most people jump ahead
00:24:23.680
right to the end in everything they do. With personal finance, this is the first question
00:24:27.620
they come to me. They're like, what do you think of Bitcoin? I'm like, what? What are you talking
00:24:31.780
about? You've jumped way ahead. Same with lifting. They go to someone who, you know, who's been lifting
00:24:36.120
for 15 years ago. Hey, bro, how much you bench? That's not the right question to ask. Okay, we should
00:24:40.780
instead be asking, what strategies do you use to show up at the gym three times a week? That's a good
00:24:45.920
beginner question. Before you jump to updating your resume. We want to go slow to go fast. So at this
00:24:54.420
point, we have decided, you know what, I think I like the idea of being a program manager at Disney and
00:25:03.940
Guitar Center and one other company. So we start looking at these companies. We also start leveraging
00:25:12.100
our networks. Why do I say this? Because you have no idea if a program manager is a good job title for
00:25:19.360
you. You also don't really know what it's like to work at Guitar Center. You've just seen some stuff
00:25:24.000
online. This is a key difference in what average applicants do versus top performers. You want to
00:25:31.900
reach out to people through LinkedIn, through email, or through your own network. And we have the exact
00:25:37.120
word for word scripts in the dream job program. And you want to be able to speak to them for 15
00:25:42.340
minutes and say, look, this is where I currently work. This is one of the reasons that I'm looking
00:25:47.160
to change. I would love to get your input on your career. Why'd you make the decisions you make? And
00:25:53.400
what do you like about your job? And what has surprised you? Imagine you talk to five people who have the job
00:26:00.900
title that you are interested in. Just five for 15 minutes. How much more would you know?
00:26:07.160
You're going to hear people tell you stuff like this. Well, you know what? This is an awesome title.
00:26:11.540
Most people who do this job for three years then switch over to product manager. Oh, that's really
00:26:17.380
interesting. I didn't know that. Or someone's going to tell you, you know what? This company is really
00:26:21.220
good, but you should be aware that everybody works on Saturdays. Oh, wow. That's really interesting.
00:26:26.260
Okay. Cross it off because I'm in lifestyle. Not interested in that. You're going to get intelligence
00:26:30.480
that you can never find on LinkedIn or publicly. And actually, people are very happy to do this.
00:26:36.740
It's just called an informational interview. You just have to know how to ask in the right way.
00:26:41.100
So suddenly, you've narrowed it down from 15 or so companies to about five. You've got a really key
00:26:47.740
job title. Now, finally, you are ready to create a very targeted cover letter and a very targeted resume.
00:26:56.800
And I want you to notice one thing, Brett. I want you to notice that people who started their job
00:27:01.900
search, you know, at the same time as you did two months ago, they've already submitted their resume
00:27:06.200
to 50 or 60 companies. So you might feel like you're behind, but they've gotten very few responses.
00:27:12.940
You've done what we call front-loading the work. You've put that work in. You've gone slow to go fast.
00:27:18.780
And now you have five exact companies and job titles. You know exactly what's going on at those
00:27:26.240
companies because you actually have relationships with internal employees. Now you are ready to begin
00:27:31.460
applying and your hit rate is going to be way higher than everybody else.
00:27:35.720
Well, speaking of resumes, I think a lot of people, you said the first thing people usually do is like,
00:27:39.140
oh, I'm going to update my resume because I hate that. I hate my job. And they just-
00:27:42.960
They add one more thing and then they make sure the margins are tidy or whatever. So you laugh at
00:27:48.660
this. It's obviously like, that's not important. Like, so what should people be doing with a
00:27:51.660
resume to make it stand out? And with keeping them- So I'd love to get your input on this with all
00:27:56.640
these companies using like artificial intelligence to like scan keywords and resume to suss out
00:28:04.900
I want everyone who's thinking of looking for a dream job to pull out your resume, close your eyes,
00:28:10.560
and then look at it for 10 seconds. That's it. Put a clock there, 10 seconds, and tell me
00:28:22.860
If you can't answer that, you don't have a winning resume.
00:28:27.840
This is what we call the narrative behind your resume. And it's that 10 second resume test that
00:28:33.500
we just did. When you look at most people's resumes, this is the average applicant.
00:28:37.440
They put their college, they have a whole bunch of chronology. Average people love putting
00:28:45.800
chronology. First I did this, then I did this. Two years ago I worked at this company, blah, blah.
00:28:50.460
Nobody cares. What you need to do and what is most important is what is the narrative of your resume?
00:28:58.760
Let me give you an example of what my resume was early on. You looked at it for 10 seconds,
00:29:03.960
that's it because that's how long a hiring manager will give you, 10 seconds. And instantly you would
00:29:10.460
say, oh wow, this is the technology and psychology guy who really knows marketing.
00:29:17.200
Now, what could your narrative be? It could be the performance marketer who can drive 10,000 leads a
00:29:24.000
month profitably. It could be the organizational leader who has managed turnarounds over and over
00:29:33.940
over again. It doesn't matter. Your resume is yours, but it should be crystal clear within 10
00:29:39.980
seconds. Your margins don't matter. The font you use is largely irrelevant. Chronology is not that
00:29:46.440
important. Much more important is removing the jargon and communicating the key outcomes that you
00:29:55.640
So you don't need to put your proficient in MS Word or...
00:29:58.260
Yeah, just delete that. I'm so glad you said that. It's funny, I do like to keep people to
00:30:04.140
one page or maybe two if they have a very long career. But it's funny, when I go through people's
00:30:09.100
resumes with them, and I did this in the course, I actually redid resumes so you can see the before
00:30:13.800
and after. It's funny, as I go through it line by line, it's often the case that you can delete
00:30:20.860
30% to 50% of what's in a resume right off the bat. And that can seem intimidating because the first
00:30:27.640
thing people do is they worry, well, what am I going to put on there? But actually what that does
00:30:31.460
is it allows you to have the room to speak even more about the important things. For example,
00:30:38.640
do I care that you're proficient in Word? No. Instant delete. Every word needs to earn its way onto the
00:30:44.540
page. However, if you can tell me how you coordinated and collaborated with three other members of your
00:30:51.400
team to improve conversion by 18% in 12 months, hey, take five lines in your resume to write about
00:30:58.900
that. I want to know every detail. All right. So yeah, think of your resume as a story then.
00:31:03.660
And when you're applying for your job, look at what you did at your current job or your past job and
00:31:08.300
think, what were the high points in the story, that little mini story of my career? And I'm going to
00:31:13.380
highlight that. Yeah. And take out anything that doesn't support that story. It doesn't add to it.
00:31:19.580
And your job, again, this is a really subtle reframe. Average applicants think their job is to
00:31:24.140
communicate the chronology of what they did. Again, nobody cares about your chronology. I don't need
00:31:28.720
to know that you were born under a palm tree. I don't know. I don't care. What I do want to know,
00:31:33.960
who are you? What's your narrative? And then everything on that page should support that narrative.
00:31:40.960
All right. What about cover letters? What's the state of cover letters in 2021?
00:31:44.700
Cover letters are good. They are a great opportunity for you to tell a little bit more
00:31:52.840
about the key highlights on your resume and expand. Don't just repeat. That's a common mistake people
00:31:58.960
make. They just repeat what's on their resume. Look, I already saw your resume. Okay. This is how
00:32:03.820
hiring managers work. They look at your resume for 10 seconds. If they think you're worth it, they go over
00:32:08.780
to look at your cover letter. If they don't think you're worth it, you're instant delete. That's it.
00:32:12.600
That's how it works. And I think a lot of people would be surprised. You know, they expect, oh,
00:32:17.160
I spent all this time on this resume. I deserve at least five minutes of consideration. Hiring
00:32:22.600
managers are literally getting hundreds or over a thousand applications per job. You have 10 seconds.
00:32:29.420
So you better make sure that every word earns its way on the page. Now, as for cover letters,
00:32:34.320
this is an awesome opportunity to tell a story. Tell them why you are excited to apply for this role.
00:32:42.600
Tell them who you have spoken to, who works there or worked there and tell them why they got you
00:32:49.980
excited, right? Your name dropping here because you've done your natural networking. Tell them
00:32:55.440
why you are looking to make a change now and what you can contribute. And of course, as I mentioned,
00:33:02.080
if you're in lifestyle, this is a good place to mention that you'd like to work remotely,
00:33:06.140
but you can deal with that when the time is right. If you are looking to, you want XYZ,
00:33:13.480
you may want to mention it early on, right? For example, you know, I'm very interested in
00:33:18.440
contributing to the role and to developing my skills. Mention that. Tell them that you are eager
00:33:24.440
for growth. That's what you do in a cover letter.
00:33:27.680
And should people, like I mentioned earlier, I've been seeing these companies use more and more of
00:33:31.460
these artificial intelligence to like scan through resumes and like discard. Should people write the
00:33:35.840
resumes for robots or they just keep doing what they usually do? The ultimate goal is that if you
00:33:42.740
go through the dream job program, your job is not even being handled by these AI type bots. When my
00:33:49.780
students get jobs, the best way that they get them is their resume gets forwarded by someone internal
00:33:57.200
to the company. Now that's ideal. That doesn't happen every time, but we show you how to find
00:34:02.540
people at the company, how to do informational interviews. And if they like you, remember a lot
00:34:08.280
of people want talent. They want to work with great people. So if they like you, they're going to say,
00:34:13.200
Hey, send me a resume. I'll make sure it gets sent to the hiring manager. This happens over and over
00:34:17.280
and over again. So that's ideal. If that can't happen, right? If you simply cannot find an into the
00:34:24.120
company, yeah, you can submit it through the front door. As for, should you write for AI in general?
00:34:30.000
No, you should write to make sure that you are communicating your key narrative that if you are
00:34:36.180
searching for a product manager role, well, you definitely need to use the words product and
00:34:40.840
management and you need to use ROI and prioritization. Those are obvious, but aside from that,
00:34:47.540
you should not be depending on AI to save you. Do not delegate your career to an algorithm. That is
00:34:55.360
a classic mistake people make. All right. Let's say you've done all the stuff, you've thrown in
00:35:00.200
the resumes, the cover letter, send them out. Now you're getting called in for job interviews. I
00:35:04.560
guess a lot of them now are remote. They're doing them via Skype or whatever. You mentioned earlier
00:35:08.560
that a lot of people just go into a job interview thinking their job in this job interview is to please
00:35:13.380
the employer, right? Like I got to say all the right things, the correct, there's a correct answer
00:35:17.960
and I got to know what the correct answer is. People don't, you don't want to do that. So what's
00:35:21.900
a better way to prepare for a job interview? I want you to know your three key answers, your three key
00:35:29.620
messages. So for example, let's take my earlier resume narrative. I was the technology and psychology guy
00:35:37.480
who was very good at marketing. Okay. So guess what? One of my key messages needs to be
00:35:45.400
that I love understanding human psychology when designing marketing systems. And so if they ask
00:35:54.880
me, for example, why do you want to work here? Okay. Or let me ask a better question. Tell me about
00:36:01.160
yourself. This is the first question you're going to get in an interview. I would say 75% of candidates
00:36:06.800
go off right here. They get it wrong from the first question. When I ask you, tell me about
00:36:13.600
yourself. I do not want to know that you were born in this hospital. And I do not want to know that you
00:36:19.280
love kicks, cereal. Nobody cares, right? This I'm not your mom. I'm not your dad. I don't want to know
00:36:24.940
about your childhood. You need to have three key messages. So I might say something like this.
00:36:30.840
Well, as you can see from my resume, I'm very interested in technology and psychology,
00:36:35.640
and I've used those interests to be able to drive measurable results in marketing.
00:36:41.940
For example, at the last company that I worked at, we took a Facebook ad system that was performing
00:36:47.500
okay. And I looked at the data and I said, something is missing here. I went out, I interviewed
00:36:52.620
over 300 people. I built a system to incorporate their feedback. And eventually I learned that we were
00:36:59.440
missing one qualitative factor. It never showed up on the spreadsheets. It only happened because you have
00:37:05.540
to get in there and talk to them and understand their psychology. And when I fixed that, along with
00:37:11.220
my team, we were able to drive a 28% improvement in conversion. That is why I'm very excited to work
00:37:18.440
here because I know I can learn more from Acme Corp, but I can also contribute what I've developed
00:37:26.380
Exactly. So everything should fit together. And remember, I did not tell you anything about,
00:37:32.600
you know, what type of food I like and all that stuff irrelevant, but I walked in there prepared.
00:37:37.340
I knew my narrative. Everything flows from that. And that hiring manager, notice what happened in
00:37:44.560
that answer. First of all, it was a story. It was not jargon. Like I like to collaborate. I like
00:37:50.500
teamwork. Nobody cares. Tell them a story, make it compelling, which means you need to practice ahead
00:37:56.420
of time and make sure that it is concise. Typically, I would say 30 to 45 seconds. And you're,
00:38:05.100
you're watching the body language of the interviewer. And you can even do these little
00:38:08.560
verbal drops. Like you can say, you know, if you'd like, I can go into that in more detail. But the key
00:38:14.120
thing that we took away was we need to interview our users, right? That's a beautiful little verbal
00:38:20.020
drop where the hiring manager might say, yeah, can you tell me how you did that? And then you have
00:38:24.400
permission to go deeper into that story. At what point do you start discussing compensation? Do you
00:38:30.080
start, do you discuss that during the job interview or after you're offered a job?
00:38:34.580
Typically after you're offered a job, but you can drop in little hints about it early on. So for
00:38:41.060
example, at the end of the first interview, the interviewer will say to you, do you have any
00:38:45.580
questions for me? You better have some questions. Okay. If you're making a decision on your career,
00:38:52.080
you better be intellectually curious about this company. You might say things like if you're in
00:38:57.220
growth career season, you might say things like, you know, one of the things that interested me
00:39:02.400
about Acme Corp is the potential for growth. And at my last company, people tended to stay in the
00:39:10.240
same position for over five years. I'm really looking for a more dynamic environment. One where
00:39:15.220
there's opportunity for promotion, for learning new skills, ongoing training. Can you talk to me
00:39:21.240
about how Acme trains and grows and develops its employees? Okay. That's a real question.
00:39:29.680
That's a question that shows you are serious about this role. And guess what? If their answer is,
00:39:34.820
oh, we don't do that. We don't train anyone. You're on your own. Then you should say,
00:39:37.800
thank you very much. And once the call ends, you should cross them off the list because they do
00:39:41.460
not fit your growth season. But if they do, you've let them know from the first interview,
00:39:47.940
hey, I'm interested in this. I'm here to grow. And so when it comes time for the negotiation,
00:39:54.700
which will be after they make you the offer, you can say, you know, as we discussed in our first
00:39:59.460
interview, I'm interested in growing my career. I'm interested in growing my results,
00:40:05.120
my compensation and my responsibilities. So I appreciate the offer you've made. I think we're
00:40:10.280
close, but I'd like to discuss negotiating this offer now. That's how you do it.
00:40:15.880
All right. So you negotiate after you get the job offering. Well, let's talk about
00:40:19.120
people who are looking for a job because they've been unemployed for an extended period. And I'm sure
00:40:24.260
you know this, like that's one of the most debilitating things that can happen to someone
00:40:27.260
because it sort of creates this vicious cycle. People see you've been out of the job market for a long
00:40:32.240
time. So you become sort of a pariah a little bit. And then you just get depressed and like
00:40:36.840
unmotivated to keep, you know, applying for jobs because you're, you know, it's like, what's the
00:40:41.160
point? I'm going to get rejected. So any advice for people who've been unemployed for extended period
00:40:46.920
and they're trying to get a, you know, get a dream job? Yeah. Well, first of all, I have a lot of
00:40:52.000
compassion for people who have been laid off. I have to tell you, I've been laid off.
00:40:57.920
So that does not feel good. And if it's been for an extended period of time, like you said,
00:41:04.180
it can be really mentally debilitating. So with that said, I think the best thing that people can
00:41:12.140
do if they are in that situation is number one, learn the skills of job hunting. Again, if you got
00:41:20.420
laid off and you go right back to doing what everyone else does in hiring or looking for a job,
00:41:26.120
you're just competing with tens of millions of other people. And with just a little bit of work,
00:41:30.980
you can learn how to do things differently. That's number one. Number two, if you get to the
00:41:36.280
interview, which I'm confident you will, when you use the right skills, have an answer for the question
00:41:41.920
that's the elephant in the room. The hiring manager undoubtedly is going to say, I don't see anything
00:41:47.240
on your resume for the last 18 months. How do you explain that? You need to have an answer for the
00:41:54.100
most common questions in your interview. If you look at your resume and you really are honest
00:42:00.020
about it, what are the common questions somebody might ask you? If you've job hopped, they're going
00:42:05.420
to say, why are you a job hopper? If you have jumped from one industry to another, they're going to say,
00:42:11.340
what do you actually want to do with your career? You just look like you're doing whatever jobs in
00:42:14.860
front of you. And if you've been out of work for 18 months, they're going to say, what were you
00:42:19.700
doing for the last 18 months? So I want you to prepare for this because the best place to prepare
00:42:25.580
is before you go in for an interview. One answer you can say is, I took some time for personal
00:42:31.920
reasons and now I'm excited to get back to work. And one of the reasons that Acme Corp is so
00:42:38.860
interesting to me is that dot, dot, dot, pivot right back to your key message. That's it. You address
00:42:47.040
their question. You took some time for personal reasons and now, boom, pivot right back to your
00:42:52.240
key message and why you are excited to contribute to Acme Corp. That's it. Hiring managers want to
00:42:58.060
know when they ask that question. They're not looking to do a gotcha. They're not looking to trick you.
00:43:03.820
What they want to know is what happened and what are you doing about it? And the longer your career
00:43:11.900
goes on, the higher your chances are of being laid off or being fired or making a mistake,
00:43:18.460
it happens to everybody. What's important is you admit it or acknowledge it. And then you have a plan
00:43:25.480
for what you are doing going forward. So one last thing on this, if you were fired and they ask you,
00:43:31.100
why'd you leave your last job? Don't lie. Never lie. Tell them, you know what? When I joined that
00:43:37.340
company, I was excited about X. As I started to get deeper into the role, I realized it wasn't the
00:43:43.840
right fit for me. Unfortunately, my performance slipped. My manager tried to correct it, but I
00:43:50.500
wasn't able to deliver the results that I had committed to. And I was let go. And I want to be
00:43:55.520
really transparent about that. And over the last six months, here's what I've done. Number one, I joined a
00:44:00.940
new training program. Number two, I looked back at what I did and I painfully examined the three key
00:44:07.580
areas I could have improved. And number three, XYZ. Hiring manager hears that and says, wow,
00:44:15.100
that's someone with a lot of self-awareness and they've made a plan to correct what happened in
00:44:19.840
the past. So whether you're laid off or fired, it happens, right? I understand it. Have an answer
00:44:25.820
and then pivot to what you are doing about it and your key messages.
00:44:30.680
One thing I like you just said there, though, it's kind of subtle is like, if you are unemployed,
00:44:35.100
like don't do nothing. Like you can, there's something you can do. Like if that means doing
00:44:39.160
online training or getting extra continuing education, do that. Cause that would look like,
00:44:43.940
Hey, you're, you're, you're actually maybe got better while you were unemployed.
00:44:47.780
Exactly. Remember you set the frame, you set the frame. This is so important. When you walk into an
00:44:53.520
interview, it's not like they can see into your soul. They're not going to be able to tell that,
00:44:57.860
you know, Hey, you've been pretty down for a couple of months. All they can see is what you
00:45:03.400
tell them. And while I want to emphasize, you should always tell the truth. You don't have to
00:45:09.460
tell them about all of your emotional roller coasters that you've been on. Instead, focus on
00:45:14.920
what you've done in the time being. Let's say you get offered a new job. Is there anything
00:45:20.860
considerations people take into account when they had to quit their current job,
00:45:25.080
like without burning bridges? Do you guys talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. This is a, this is a great
00:45:29.040
question. It's amazing to me that people think so much about finding a job and they're so deliberate
00:45:35.860
when they learn these skills, but they don't think as much about closing out a job that they've worked
00:45:42.720
at. And I think that's a big mistake because I will tell you that I've had former coworkers of mine
00:45:47.760
who left and they just did such a beautiful job of transitioning out. They told me ahead of time,
00:45:54.620
you know what, Ramit, I wanted to let you know that I've decided to take another job.
00:45:58.720
I'm absolutely willing to work with you and transition. I do have some flexibility on when
00:46:04.560
I can leave. And my intent is to leave with a new person hired and a full playbook so that they
00:46:10.460
are trained and ready to go. You're not going to have to worry about anything. That is music to my ears
00:46:15.500
as a hiring manager and as a boss. It also ensures that we leave with a really positive
00:46:22.660
feeling towards each other. So I've sent clients and I've sent business to people who have worked
00:46:28.020
with me before. I want to keep doing that. It's important, but make sure that if you can,
00:46:34.920
you communicate proactively to your boss. Once you have an offer, I would not recommend you try to
00:46:42.700
engage in a bidding war. I don't think that's a good idea. I think that's a classic mistake people
00:46:47.020
make. They get an offer and then they go back to their boss and say, Hey, I got this offer. What
00:46:50.460
can you do? You know, your boss might match it for the time being, but you're first on the chopping
00:46:55.220
block. And honestly, if you've gone through the process to find another job and you are excited about
00:47:00.900
it, take it. Okay. Take it, but leave by transitioning everything out. And remember that
00:47:08.180
your boss wants to know that things are taken care of. You know, your boss, she doesn't want to have to
00:47:13.840
worry about, Oh, is this thing going to fall through the cracks? And what about that vendor?
00:47:17.900
Do a great job. And as my track coach used to say, finish strong.
00:47:23.320
All right. So don't burn bridges. Let's not do that. The one thing we haven't really talked too much
00:47:26.560
about is the reinvention season. Any special considerations? There's someone who was like,
00:47:31.380
they want to go from lawyer to beekeeper. Any special considerations they should take an account
00:47:34.960
that they might overlook in that process? Yeah. The reinvention season is the least
00:47:40.420
common of all. And that is because the older you get, the more difficult it is to make a complete
00:47:46.400
career shift. It's difficult for monetary reasons. It's also difficult for identity reasons. Take that
00:47:53.760
lawyer, for example, who used to dress up in a beautiful suit and have the corner office and
00:47:58.140
their friends would say, Oh, wow, great. You got that great case. And suddenly they are a beekeeper
00:48:04.700
or they're working at a nonprofit. That's a big identity shift. Now you will know if it's time
00:48:12.400
to do reinvention because you've probably been thinking about it for years and you are ready to
00:48:19.380
make a move. Money doesn't excite you as much as it used to, or the reasons you got into that
00:48:23.640
career are not motivating you. A couple of things to consider. First off, talk to people who made a
00:48:30.740
similar switch. Find lawyers who switched industries completely. It doesn't have to be to beekeeping,
00:48:38.260
but it can be to anything else. And ask them, how'd you know it was time? What made you even start
00:48:43.680
thinking about this? And what were some of the surprising things you encountered when you first
00:48:48.220
made the shift? I remember I spoke to a former NFL player who got injured and had to leave and
00:48:55.040
he was looking for what to do next. And he decided to get into theater. Very interesting transition from
00:49:01.380
the NFL to theater. And he said that overnight he went from, you know, a celebrated athlete where
00:49:08.860
there would be people, thousands of people cheering him when he went out to play to being a complete
00:49:15.120
nobody. And that is very, very devastating, very devastating. So understand that what's it going
00:49:21.860
to take? What should you expect? Also think about money. If you are going to have to take a pay cut,
00:49:28.880
this happens sometimes though, not always. You probably want to start saving in advance. So you
00:49:34.720
at least have some breathing room and you also want to find out what is the average pay in the career
00:49:40.920
that you are considering. If you're going from $200,000 to $20,000, that's a very, very radical
00:49:46.400
shift. You need to be honest with yourself about whether you can take it. If it's, you know, $100,000
00:49:50.960
to $75,000, okay. Sometimes it's $75,000 to $110,000. Great. A lot of industries pay more,
00:50:00.800
but be aware of that. And if you do those things, your transition is going to be much, much more smooth.
00:50:07.360
Gotcha. Well, Rami, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn
00:50:10.880
more about your work? Okay. You can learn all about some of the techniques and tactics that I
00:50:15.980
taught you. You can go to iwt.com slash podcast DJ. I'll give it to you one more time. It's iwt.com
00:50:26.560
slash podcast DJ. And we'll give you a bunch of training and scripts and examples, resumes of how to
00:50:34.740
land your dream job. Fantastic. We'll include that link in our show notes as well. Well,
00:50:38.980
Ramit Sethi, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. As always. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
00:50:43.420
My guest today was Ramit Sethi. He's the owner of the website, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. They've
00:50:47.940
got the Dream Job program going on right now. You can find out more information by going to his website,
00:50:52.260
iwilteachyoutoberich.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash dream job,
00:50:57.100
where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:51:04.740
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at
00:51:10.740
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00:51:14.500
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00:51:41.080
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