WASHINGTON — There’s no doubt about it: Job searches are stressful.
There are cover letters to craft, resumes to send and networking events to attend — and that’s before you even land an interview.
Dev Aujla says the job hunting routine hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. But in that time, careers have changed.
“There’s been a real shift from stability-based career decisions to learning-based career decisions, meaning people are changing jobs when they feel like they’ve learned everything they can and they want to learn something new,” said Aujla, chief executive officer of the recruiting firm Catalog and author of “50 Ways to Get a Job.”
Because of this shift, Aujla recommends professionals take a new approach to job searching.
Don’t get too excited: An organized resume and an updated LinkedIn profile are still needed, but a few additional exercises can also help you discover your dream job.
Don’t make a list of where you want to work, make a list of what you want to learn
The first thing Aujla tells anyone who is looking for a new job? Make a list of everything you want to learn.
“Just add in everything. It can be inside work stuff, outside work stuff. It can be small, real-skill based points, or it can serve larger questions you want to pursue,” he said.
Then, identify the companies that can teach you the greatest number of items on your list.
“Because what happens is that sometimes the companies you end up choosing were never companies you would have thought of working for if you just come up with your ideal company, but they may be the perfect next step for your career,” he added.
Omit, don’t add, to your profile
The temptation to beef up your online resume is great when you’re in the middle of a job search. But Aujla said when it comes to selling yourself and your experience, less is more.
“It’s actually way more powerful if you just go through your story and start taking things out and adjusting the story so that there’s a really clear narrative for this other career you want to make,” he said.
“What it does is it puts the power of the story back into your own hands and makes it easy for the person that’s interviewing you and looking at your profile to understand ‘why you.’”
Write a piece of fiction
This creative exercise sounds a little odd, but Aujla said writing a piece of fiction during your job search can help to draw a bigger picture.
“We usually have such a fixed way of viewing our careers, our identity and what our next steps should be, that it helps to sort of break yourself free from that,” he said.
Start by jotting down six points that are all true — maybe a mentor you’ve had, an award you’ve won or a lesson you’ve experienced. Then, jot down six fictional points — things you have never done in your career.
“Now you take all these 12 bullet points and you use that as sort of the dough for what you want to create, and you write a fictional bio,” Aujla said.
“What happens once you start writing the fiction and explaining what that person’s life looks like and what their career looks like, is you start to find moments that are kind of exciting or interesting. And you start to identify different companies and you start seeing different ways of what your career path could lead to.”
Find your center of gravity
Aujla defines a person’s “center of gravity” as a characteristic tied to the way one experiences everything that happens to them. For him, that center of gravity is being well-liked by others.
“It’s something that bends the world around you. It’s when you react a little more than what reality is actually demanding,” Aujla said.
Identifying your center of gravity can help to pinpoint careers that fit your natural disposition — whether it’s a desire to be in control or the need to be understood.
“It opens up other possibilities that you never would have imagined before,” Aujla said.
Don’t abandon your career to ‘find a passion,’ find passion in your career
In his book, “50 Ways to Get a Job,” Aujla never recommends quitting your 9 to 5 to chase a passion. Instead, he said passion and interests develop along the way, especially if you pursue the bigger questions of what you want to learn in life.
“We kind of stumble our way into what we love to do, but sometimes you just need to start moving, and you need to start pursuing,” he said.
“And over time, passion ends up being the question that sticks around the longest. It’s the one that you’ve now been working on for five, six years and all of the sudden you find yourself in a career you never would have imagined — that’s where passion emerges from. It doesn’t just come down from an enlightening moment on high.”
