How to find your dream job?

Let's put our heads together

The tagline of Val Thinks is “a weekly newsletter that makes you stop and think.” Writing essays that make people think about a topic they’ve maybe never considered before has always been my goal, and each passing Friday brings me one small step closer to it.

There is no greater joy for me than to receive thoughtful responses from my readers—old and new—who took the time to think about the question I’d posed that Friday, and more, to leave a comment or send a reply. Nothing makes me happier than to read your thoughts every week, and often I wish the rest of my subscribers could read them too.

So I’m going to try something new. Occasionally, like today, I’m going to ask an important question for you to chime in with your thoughts. Then, if I get enough responses, I’ll compile them into a sort of “Reader’s Wisdom” post.

As they say, two heads are better than one. So let’s put all our heads together and figure out this first question that I want to source your wisdom on:

How to find your dream job?

My dream job

Let me start with a confession: I never found my dream job. It found me.

Almost exactly two years ago, my dream job popped up in my inbox with the title “There is no such thing as ‘success’ (Happy Monday).” I opened the email expecting a routine newsletter, unaware that its final two paragraphs would forever change the course of my life:

When one of your favourite authors is hiring for an assistant and you’re unemployed, you apply. I submitted a written application with a (verbally) colourful CV specially tailored for the author of a book with “fuck” in its title. It was a high-risk, high-reward strategy that paid off. I passed through to the grueling second round where we were given a weekend to complete a series of tasks, which included writing a research summary on the Big Five personality traits, a topic I knew nothing about.

Several sleepless nights followed as I waited impatiently to hear if I’d made it through to the final interview round. When the email came, I rushed upstairs to show it to my mom, blubbering and barely able to say what it was I was trying to show her. The interview went well, and less than a month later I started my dream job, which I am still doing now.

The thing is, I never set out looking for this dream job. I didn’t even know what a dream job would look like for me. In my short career, I had been an analyst, a teacher, a coordinator, a trainer, a translator, and a few other things. I enjoyed most of these roles well enough—there were always aspects I loved and those I didn’t care for. And I thought that was it. I thought the goal in finding a job was to find something you liked “well enough,” not to land a dream job that you love and wake up for excited every morning.

It wasn’t until I was in it that I realised my dream job had found me: remote role, flexible hours, interesting work, colleagues that are a dream, a boss who in my book is equivalent to a Hollywood A-lister, a cause—helping people suck less—that I fully buy into. But most importantly, the job gave me the boost of confidence I didn't realise I needed to turn a lifelong passion into a viable career by plunging headfirst into this newsletter.¹

I never set out looking for a dream job. I simply woke up one day and realised: I’ve got it. This is my dream job.

What is a dream job, anyway?

So when it comes to how to find a dream job, I’m not going to be of much help (that’s why I’m asking you). But I thought I could get your thinking gears oiled up by posing a different but very relevant question: What is a dream job, anyway?

Is a dream job one that:

• Pays well

• Gets you doing something you’re passionate about

• Comes with an amazing boss and colleagues

• Is packed with perks

• Is flexible

• Gives just the right amount of challenge to keep things interesting

• Is perfectly aligned with your values

• You love

• You wake up for excited every morning

• You can’t imagine not ever doing

Is it one or a combination, or all, of the above?

I think it’s important to define what our dream job should look like before we go about searching for it. Though I’m fully aware that for many, it’s a chicken-and-egg situation: I can’t find my dream job because I don’t know what it looks like, and I don’t know what my dream job looks like because I haven’t found it.

For me, now that I’ve got my dream job, I would define it as: a job that inspires me to turn a lifelong dream into a career, to do the one thing that matters most—to write.

What do you think?

Now that I’ve hopefully got your thinking cogs turning, it’s time to raise the curtain for the main event:

How to find your dream job?

If you’ve got your dream job, how did you find it? If you haven’t found your dream job but are looking for it, what is your strategy? If you’re like me from three years ago and have no idea where to start and what to look for, I’d still like to hear your thoughts. Send a reply, leave a comment, share this with someone whose brain you’d like to pick on.

Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

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Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

1. Incidentally, without much planning or thought, which is ironic given the title of this newsletter. But I really didn’t think much about what this newsletter would look like when I started it last year. What was important to me was to take the first step and commit, the rest I could figure out as I went, which thankfully, I eventually did.