Strategize to Win summary

The secret to a fulfilling career starts with deciding on what activities you enjoy doing the most. These activities make up the core of what the author calls, “the content page of your career.” So forget job titles, choosing what you actually find interesting won’t only keep you engaged, it’ll set you up for your eventual dream job.

So start by coming up with a list of activities you find exciting. When you’ve done that, it’s time to go about researching the jobs that contain those activities and combinations. Consider Gregory, a 20-year-old sophomore who wasn’t sure about a career path to follow. He was a great basketball player in high school but was often injured. After sharing his background and his interest in technology with the author, Carla A. Harris, he found that he could use these to work either in sports medicine, orthopedics, or engineering.

It’s often easy to transfer strong interests into skills. If you’re already used to doing something, you already have some form of experience in it. Say, for example, you had a previous job in telemarketing. You maybe enjoyed the communication side of it but didn’t like the remote aspect. You’d stand a good chance of convincing your next employer that your skills can be extended to face-to-face sales instead.

Even if you’ve never tried an activity before but it interests you, that could translate as well. So put the specific job titles that contain your favorite tasks on your job list. Set aside 100 hours every month to talk to experienced professionals in that field about what they do and what skills they acquired to get there. Don’t be afraid to ask experienced connections out for coffee to pick their brains. Ask friends and mentors to introduce you to people in their networks who have the skills and knowledge you need.

The answers to your questions will go a long way in helping you make informed decisions about the roles that match your skills. If you can’t meet people, research their profiles on the internet.

Only after careful research should you start looking for jobs that match your activities list. Again, research and network to secure interviews. What matters most in an interview is your ability to sell your skills to your prospective employer. Selling your skills means highlighting those areas of your education and experience that the recruiter is most willing to buy, and how you would leverage them to improve their business.

We’ll talk about this in more detail in the next section.