Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody and welcome back to English Topics. Today, I'm joined again by...
I'm Davey.
Hi, Davey. Welcome back.
Thank you.
Today, we're going to be talking about "Some Tips to Land Your Dream Job." "To land your dream job" means to get your dream job, but the idea here with "land your dream job" is that it's something you really, really want, something you're working hard to get. Today, we're going to talk about some ideas, perhaps, that might be helpful for you as you try to find and/or secure your dream job. Out of curiosity, do you currently have your dream job?
Yes, sort of. I would say.
That's good.
You put me on the spot here.
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to.
But yes, it's very close to my dream job, I would say.
Excellent. I would say I'm pretty close, I would think, to my dream job. There's not much else I would think. If I could just do this with my job, if I could just do that with my job. I feel like I'm at or am actively working towards my dream job.
Sure. What are you doing to get your dream job, Alisha?
Exactly. Let's begin first tip. To get my dream job, to get to the next point in my life, my first tip is something I do a lot, "seek out opportunities." "Seek out" means search, look for. Seek out opportunities. That means if there's something you would like to do, you need to look for chances to do that thing. If you just sit and wait for things to come to you, you probably won't find anything. I think it's your responsibility to actually actively go find things to be involved in. Sometimes that means doing an internship. Sometimes it means taking on an extra part-time job. Sometimes that means looking for a course that you can take that can help you in terms of getting the things you need to progress. Seek out opportunities to move forward somehow. You need to do this. I think this is one thing that once you're trained, once you have gotten used to just looking for things to do and keeping your eyes open for chances. This is a key. This tip right here, this is how I got this job.
There you go.
It was six years ago an ad on the Internet.
You found it.
Now, look where we are.
It didn't find you. The job did not find you, you found the job. I had to look for it.
That's a very good piece of advice. I think it's a common mistake that a lot of people new to the job market, people who have just finished college or training of some sort, they expect "Oh, now I'm qualified," and they wait. But a job does not wander by and present itself to you, you have to find the job.
Right. Is this something that you do even if you're, as you said, pretty close to your dream job?
Absolutely, yes. You need to find that job. There are thousands, millions of other people who would love to have that same job, and the job is not going around and identifying all of them and picking the best. It is picking between the people that raised their hand and say, "I would like that job."
Right, it's up to you.
Yes. That is very similar to my first tip which is "network." I think this goes hand-in-hand with your first tip of seeking out your dream job, seeking out opportunities is networking. One of the ways that you find opportunities is by meeting people who do what you want to do, people who work in the same field or do the same sort of work that you want to do. Meeting them, introducing yourself to them, and making those connections. When you make those connections, you don't have to have something in mind for the end of that relationship, but someone that you meet, a hand that you shake, and some person that you introduce yourself to, you might see them again in six months or a year, and they might remember you. So, building that network, building those relationships, can be very useful.
Absolutely.
Not just for finding your dream job but for building your career.
Absolutely. Even today, of course, networking, we think maybe of networking is something we do in person like at a conference for example, but now we can use social media to network, as well, to reach out to people that we think are doing interesting work, or to reach out to maybe future collaborators. Social media can be a great tool for networking.
Absolutely, but I also would caution against only using social media. You need to have face-to-face time. People need to know you're a real person, what are you like in person. You can only know so much about someone through their social media profile. It's a very useful tool but you can't rely on that alone. Being part of professional organizations, going to places where you can meet people I think is also important.
Absolutely. Totally. Connected with that then, I think, is the next thing that I chose for my tip, "distinguish yourself." "Distinguish yourself" means make it clear how you are different from other people. What are the skills that you have that other people might not have or maybe you can do X, Y and Z but your competitor can only do X, or can only do X and Y. Think about the things that make you different from other people. Then, when you're networking and you're going to meet people who are doing things you're interested in, you can say to them, "I know how to do this and this and this. This is what makes me special." When you introduce yourself to people or when you are, I don't know, sharing your work with people and there's something special about you, something distinguishing about you, I think people remember that. People think "Oh, wow, this person seemed one, a really nice person of course, but also this person seemed really skilled," or "This person had a great background in this topic," for example. Think about the things that make you different from other people, from your competition. If you're not distinguished, think about the ways to distinguish yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean wear all once type of clothing. I don't mean necessarily a visual distinguishing, but...
Skill set.
Skill set. Skill set. That's what I think, anyway.
I think that's a great tip. Maybe related to that, my next tip, is to "believe in yourself."
Indeed.
It sounds maybe a little corny, a little hokey, but I think this is a very good tip. Believe in yourself. I mean this in two ways and maybe two stages of finding your dream job. Finding your dream job and achieving a big long-term goal is hard. It takes a lot of work and it's exhausting. At times you can get really down on yourself and feel like you're not going to make it, you're not good enough, you'll never have that opportunity or that chance that you're trying to find. I think then it's an important time to remember that you can do it. That you are on a path. It might take you some time to get to the end of that path but if you keep taking those baby steps, working on your skill set and improving as a person that you can do it. I think it's important to believe in yourself when you are trying to get your dream job. The other way that I meant it, when I first wrote this down, I was specifically thinking about being in an interview too. If you are in an interview or you're with someone face-to-face trying to land that dream job, the final step of your journey to be confident and to not doubt yourself, because I think that that can show through to other people.
I think that's a good interview point in general, at least for English interviews like interviews in the U.S. Maybe in some countries, in some cultures, it's good to be humble or it's good to be quiet and not so confident or maybe not so outspoken about your achievements, but when you're doing an interview in English with an American company or maybe a company in the UK, it's typically considered a good thing to be confident and to be very sure about yourself. That's a great tip, I think in general, for interviews. Great. I will continue on to my next one relating to everything thus far which is "keep building skills." Keep building skills. My previous tip was to distinguish yourself. Davey had the tip of networking as well. If you keep building skills as well, "building skills" refers to learning new things, keep learning new things. If you continue doing this, like you don't just graduate from university or graduate from college and stop learning there, if you continue to try to learn new things, you will find new opportunities to network, you will find new opportunities that you are able to apply yourself to, new things you can do. There will be new projects that you can address. If you keep building skills and think about these skills in terms of what you want to do in the future. I would caution people. I would say to be careful to build the skills that you think are going to help you achieve your goals. I think of this a lot actually in video games. It helps me a lot. I imagine a skill web from Final Fantasy 10, specifically. When I see this character, "Okay, this character is really good at magic," for example. There're all these skills that that character can learn to get better at that one thing that they're made for. If you think about "Well, I really want to get better at this skill" or "I really want to become this sort of thing" and you build skills to actually move towards that goal, instead of just studying this random thing over here, I think your progress will be much smoother.
That's good. I agree. I think of it more as like the Materia System from FF7.
I debate between these two a lot, actually.
I think, we've had this discussion before.
Definitely.
I think that's very good, keep building skills and that will help you distinguish yourself as well as you said before. My final tip is directly related to that, and it is "stick with what you know." As much as we've been sitting up here saying believe in yourself, build skills, distinguish yourself, all of those things are important but stay within the realm of what you know. I say this more as an interview tip. Don't overreach. Don't present yourself to a prospective employer or clients as knowing something, knowing how to do something that you don't know how to do, because that will only end in disaster. Also, as an interview tip, odds are very, very high that a good interviewer will know if you don't know what you're talking about. That's my number one, maybe, interview tip. In my current job, my dream job, I'd interview people to hire in my same place. I do dozens of interviews every year. When I ask people certain questions, I can usually tell if they're trying to fake it. It shows. I would much rather those people say, "I don't know," because if you don't know that's fine, you can learn it. But if you don't know and you fake it, that's not a very good sign. Related to this one, related to sticking with what you know, in terms of using English in an interview or a resume, I also stick with what you know. If you're not a 100% very fluent, high-level English speaker or writer, that's okay, don't worry; but use the English that you know and are comfortable with because that way it will be easier for you to express yourself and be able to present your skillset.
That's a great tip. Also, related to the period before an interview, in preparation of your resume, in preparation of the materials for application, I've read some resume writing tips. I think that one of the big tips that could be especially helpful for non-native speakers of English is to "use data on your resume where possible." That means instead of saying, for example, "increased sales in your current position" or maybe giving some vague information like, "I improved this system at my company," instead of saying those vague things, give a number. Say, "I improved sales by 50%" or "I increased something else by 20%." Giving actual numbers to people can help make it a little clearer, I think. Your impact on your or rather the impact you had on your current organization. I think, it also seems just more confident if someone actually says a number than just says, "I improve sales," something like that. Giving actual data was one. Then, I've seen, also in terms of the presentation of a resume, a trend away from describing the type of position that you're seeking and more a career summary, calling in a career summary. You're supposed to describe, "Here's the stuff that I have done" and talk about your future career as well. You're summarizing your past and your future a little bit. It's not just I want this job right now, but summarizing everything in order to, again, distinguish yourself and to show how you can be a good fit potentially.
Actually, if I could add to that, I think that I was listening to you say that and I thought, "That would never work, that would not matter at all in what I do." So, I think it depends on what field you're in.
I see.
There's no really statistics to share in my field like that. No numbers, but when you mentioned this, what did you call it?
Career summary.
Career summary, that's something that, I think, you might be more likely to see in a cover letter to a CV in my field. It made me then think that you should know the language of your dream job, which is to say not the language as in the actual English language, but the way that different jobs or career areas or different fields talk about the field or talk about the career, because I can imagine a resume for a sales job will look very, very different from a CV for to be a college professor or an artist portfolio if you're a graphic designer, something like that. These will all be very different so you'll need to research and know what that looks like for your field.
Exactly. I think, another great tip if you're not sure when you're preparing your resume is to check the job. What's that thing called?
The job listing.
The job listing, yes. A really great way to do that, even just to get you started, is to look carefully at that job listing.
Absolutely.
What is the name of the position specifically? For example, you're looking at a job listing and it says, "English Instructor" on the job listing but you write and say "I'm applying for the English Teacher position." That's a small difference but depending on the kinds of jobs you're looking to apply to, those small differences can mean a lot. Use the vocabulary words that are in the job listing when you make your application. It'll show that you're paying attention and it'll get you familiar with the kinds of words they use at that organization.
Absolutely. Attention to detail can pay off.
For sure. For sure. Alright. There are probably some other tips too, but those are a few hopefully to get people started, I think. Alright. Great. Well, good luck, then, in finding your dream job and in working towards your dream job. I don't think it's ever an ending--I don't think there's an end to the process, actually.
No. When you ask me do I have my dream job, I thought I got the dream job that I had five, six, seven, eight years ago. It took me some time to work and get it and now I have it, and I'm thinking, "Well, what's next?" We keep changing and evolving and growing as professionals.
Right, I think so. If you keep building your skills as well and you keep building your network as well, you'll start to think of what are some other things I might be able to do?
Absolutely.
I think, overall just an ability to adapt and change is also quite valuable as well.
Yes.
Alright. I hope that you found a couple of those tips useful. We wish you the best of luck, of course, in trying to find and trying to work towards your dream job. Thank you very much for watching this episode of English Topics and we will see you again next time. Bye-bye!

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