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5 Reasons Why It’s Ok to Pursue Your Dream Job

A road sign that says 'Dream Job Exit Only'.

These days, it’s not uncommon for job searches to drag on for months, sometimes years. When you need a job right now, pursuing something you love seems impossible. Does it even make sense to keep looking for your dream job?

Over on LinkedIn, Dick Bolles, author of the popular career book What Color is Your Parachute?, outlines five reasons why you should always keep what you love to do at the center of your job search. Here’s one reason that stood out to us:

"You need another way to find organizations than just waiting for them to announce a vacancy. If you first identify what you’d love most to do, it’s relatively easy then to identify and research places that might have such jobs. And you can then approach them through your contacts, before they ever announce their next vacancy."

Of course, this can still be a challenge. In addition to financial concerns, we often don’t know what we want to do until we’ve tried a few things. And even then, what we love can transform over time.

That being said, his advice also illustrates how pursuing what you love can actually give you an edge in the job hunt: it’s easier for you to demonstrate genuine interest; you’re more likely to focus on match and fit (just because you will take any job, doesn’t mean that employers are taking any candidate; and by focusing on what you love, you can actively cultivate a networkthat will help you find your dream job by being more targeted in your networking efforts.

Here are a few other articles exploring what it means to find your dream job:


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by Allison Jones

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