How To Hack Your Way To Your Dream Job
From college to working with Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Tucker Max and Ramit Sethi <12 months
This post was written in collaboration with Charlie Hoehn about his new, updated, step-by-step guide called “The Recession-proof Graduate”.
It’s hard to find a great job that you’re passionate about during tough times, and even harder with a conventional approach of searching through job boards and shotgun blasting your CV to hundreds of boring job postings.
When Charlie Hoehn graduated in 2008, the recession made things even worse.
Deciding that eight years of post high school education had done absolutely nothing to prepare him for the real world, Charlie set about developing a framework that would enable anyone to create and land their dream job.
Did it work?
Within eight months Charlie was shocked, realizing how far he had come. In less than a year, he had worked with some of the biggest A-listers and bestselling authors including: Tim Ferriss and the 4-Hour Body, Seth Godin, Tucker Max and his cross country tour for the movie I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, as well as with Ramit Sethi on I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
He no longer had to send out resumes; employers now came to him.
How did he do it?
What first began, as a blog post is now a highly comprehensive and tactical step-by-step guide to creating your own opportunities and landing your dream job that has been downloaded over 120,000 times.
Charlie goes into more detail in his guide, but this is the process of exactly how to leverage free work to hack your way to your dream job:
1. Choose a few areas you’d like to work in (and who you’d like to work with in those areas)
This is the most time consuming and difficult part. Most people feel trapped and limited by that they study, but since you’re offering to work for free (maybe even virtually), the expectations drop down to almost zero.
Come up with five industries you’re most interested in. Then identify at least 2-3 main influencers you’d like to work with in each one.
Often, you can side step your way into something new just by knowing the right people.
Refine this list down to one person in the industry you’re most passionate about.
2. Get Some Skills Under Your Belt
Now it’s time to get some skills under your belt. You don’t need to be an expert in something in order to get your dream job, you just need to demonstrate that you can get the job done.
Think of what the most in-demand primary skill set of that one industry is. Then look at complementary skills that surround and enhance the value of that skill set.
These will also come in handy since you’ll be able to demonstrate that you can handle more than one aspect of the job and that your employer won’t need to hire more than one person to complete the job.
3. Build Your Online Presence
Your online presence is your new CV.
You WILL BE GOOGLED.
So go ahead. Type your name into Google and see what you come up with. If it isn’t pretty (and most of the time it isn’t), you’ll need to bury these results or you won’t get hired.
The most effective way is through blogging and creating profiles on multiple social networks where you can build a following and demonstrate your experience.
Having a blog is of immense value, but if done incorrectly, can also hurt you. There are no rules to what you can’t blog about on your own site, but you should make sure you only create high quality content.
If you don’t know how to setup a blog or build your own portfolio online, I go into it in the guide.
4. Find A Way To Cut Costs
Since you’re about to take the plunge into free work, you’d better be ready to be making no money. That means cutting back the costs right away.
There are a few budgeting templates within the guide to help you figure out how to do this and make sure you’ve got all your bases covered.
5. Research Your Target And Reach Out To Them
Now that you’re ready to land your dream gig, it’s time to research your number one target.
This step is critical. You have to know everything about them to come up with the right angle on exactly how you can bring them value.
Your potential employer(s) want you to rescue them from a sea of mediocrity. Approaching an A-list player with a concrete plan of how you’re going to deliver results is enough to anyone’s head your way.
Once you’re set, send out a simple email (templates included in the guide).
6. Set Up A Deal
People won’t take advantage of them unless you let them. Before you begin to work, make sure you have a solid understanding of the work term (x number of days, hours if it’s project based, or results needed to be “completed”).
Also let this person know that after the free work term is up, you hope to be considered for a full-time — read payed — position, or at least a recommendation.
If you play your cards right, you can leverage free work to jump-start a very successful career in a field you’re passionate about.
And that’s how you hack your way to your dream job and become recession proof!
Go ahead and grab a free copy of the guide to get access to the templates and other resources I mentioned, as well as bonus parts of the framework.
