Agenda item for 10/27/13

Topic: Seriously zeroing in on a target. (week 2)

Last week I issued a challenge. Those that came to the friday meeting were asked to find one person on linked in in the seattle area (or wherever they were looking for work) that has the job they want AND CAN DO. The person that they most resemble in terms of skills and ability to do the job.

The idea behind this challenge/exercise is to help people learn what their marketable skills look like and learn how to package them up and sell them in a crowded marketplace. The grocery store analogy of having a product and trying to get slotted on the shelf beside the existing product is what we’re playing with.

This isn’t as easy a challenge as it may sound.

It’s easy to find people that you can do PART of their job. That you have PART of their skill set. The challenge here is finding people that you can do ALL of what they do. This is your “career doppelgänger.” This is to be someone you have never met but is located in the market, industry, company, division, role, etc. you want to be in and YOU CAN DO THIER JOB. (The exciting part of this exercise is when we figure out how you can do what they do either better or differently. And in doing so create the argument as to why you should be added to the staff working beside your doppelgänger. And I shouldn’t have to say it but I will, those same arguments are useful for approaching that companies competitors.)

Todays topic is a discussion of why the person you picked is the person you picked. Who else you looked at and why they weren’t as good a pick. What makes that person your doppelgänger?

For those doppelgängers that survive the discussion we’ll move on to step 2: Research and contact. For those doppelgängers that don’t it's back to linkedin and more searching for you. (We can do some of that immediately after the meeting 12-12:30 if you’d like.)


WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THE MEETING:
Be awake. (But since we meet at a coffee shop you'll be fine.) A computer would be handy.


(Used doppelgänger 5 times in one post. Is that some kind of record?)