If you are going to launch your new career, you have to lower it slowly into the water. I am afraid that you will have to keep your Day job while you are working on your Dream job! 

I have seen so many people launch themselves too quickly and end up in hot water, making waves and little else. They drown in all the detail and end up washed up!

You can't go straight from A to B, you have to go via T, Time. To get the Dream Job, you need a Dream Resume. You have to take time to build it up, and you have to start now. Don't go scrambling around for your curriculum vitae just before you go out looking for a new job. Work out what would look most impressive on paper, and then start to build it line by line over the next 3 years while you still have a regular income. 

What you are trying to do is to create an illusion that you are the person who is best suited for this "Dream Job". That is why you have to keep your Day Job while you actually attain the lines on your Dream Resume. Think illusion - become a Resume Wizard.

Resume Wizard Gets Me Into Dream Job

It is easiest to show you what I mean if you let me go back and see how used the Tricks of a Wizard to fabricated my college resume to land me (what I thought was going to be) a Dream Job in Arthur Anderson. 

In my first year of University I looked ahead and tried to imagine what my future employer might want to see what I had done with 3 years of college. What would impress him enough to offer me a job?

I knew accountants did tax and audit, and so I knew it would look impressive if I had audited student society books and I found a group of do-gooders who offered free tax advice around the campus. I also knew it would be impressive if I had been a treasurer of some university club. Within a year I was auditing societies books, giving students tax advice, and was the treasurer of The University Folk  Song Society. 

I then set myself the goal of getting job offers from all eight accountancy companies (while only in my second year!) Not only did I get all eight offers, I was asked to teach a course on 'How to Build a Dream Resume'. I was the only person in my class to get a job with the highly sought after American firm - Arthur Andersen. It was the best firm, I was just not the best Accountant. As soon as I started I knew I had to find a way of getting out! 

If The Wizard Got Me into Accountancy, then The Wizard Could Get Me Out Again?

As soon as I was in accountancy, I wanted to get out of it! I knew I would have to do the same with my accountancy resume to get a job as a public Speaker - I simply had to create the illusion that I was an expert in the field. I set myself a three year goal to publish an article for most prestigious of beverage journals - The Decanter Wine Magazine. It would need another wave of the wand by the Resume Wizard! 

To get a commission for an article from an unknown author, I knew Decanter would want to see an that I was already a published writer, and so I would have to have something published in a good paper like the Scotsman. But to get into the Scotsman I would need something first, and so my bottom line was a local real estate newspaper. Just like dominoes, the article on house prices landed me a restaurant article in the Scotsman Sunday supplement that got me my prize! All this to allow that pompous line in my bio - 'journalist for Decanter Wine Magazine!'

I never made any money out of these articles but that was OK because I still had my day job! I was convinced that one day they would come in. I was inspired by John Getty - 'You have to spend money to make money' and Confucius - 'It is a brave man he who studies for three years without thinking of an income.'

If you want to create the illusion that you are an expert on your subject - get into print! Its the whole professor lie of 'I am published, therefore I am an expert!' You never know, in the study and writing, you might actually become that expert you want to be! Find a target publication and then work on getting in there! Find a magazine on the subject you love? Water-skiing weekly? Rock climbing monthly, Victorian Bottle Collecting Annual Review?  Identify the best of the publications and write a free article for the lesser ones and `leverage' yourself into the better ones. If you are published you look like a pro! Make copies and attach them to every resume you send!

Now for Another Good Line

Having the first trick up your sleeve, now you have to  work on the next line. For me, it was creating an illusion that I was a good public speaker and had the confidence to get up and present on a variety of topics. Here is the line I built. 

'Jeremy Bell was the South of Scotland Public Speaking Champion, and taught a series on Presentation Skills to The Junior Chamber of Commerce'. Sound impressive? 

Well, they weren't lies, for I really did do that, but they were details that that created an illusion that I was something more than I actually was. That's the 'Wizard's Gift of Illusion' for you! I did not do these things and then afterwards realize that they would look good on a resume, I dreamed up some great lines and then found a way to accomplish them!

Working my way through the Junior Chamber took a long time, and leveraging myself to the next level took years! But I kept on plodding away day by day. I knew that if I was going to do any talk with a scottish theme it would be great to be able begin it with the bagpipes, and practising them was actually a great way to let off steam while studying for the exams!  

I had a passion for traditional Celtic music and picked up several instruments and started many bands. I was beginning to make a little income from these ventures. I thought I could get a few gigs telling scottish stories and so learned a few tunes on the harp to accompany them. I was just adding to my skill-set, increasing my human capital to use a term from Economics!   

I had worked on all these interests while keeping my day job, but now soon I felt it was time to let go. I started by warning you not to launch your boat too quickly. The job security is great when you are building but eventually you have to get up from your warm seat and walk out into the un-chartered waters! You need to take the plunge into the icy water of self-employment!

Time to Take the Plunge! 

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