Read industry publications, paying particular attention to industry
trends that may signal a shift in the P.E.A.K.S. needed for positions
like yours.
Attend professional conferences to learn about current issues in your
field.
Engage in shoptalk with your counterparts in other organizations to
learn about the challenges they face and the P.E.A.K.S. they have
demonstrated.
Note the things you are told during a performance review that you
are doing well and those things that you need to improve, as this
could provide a succinct list of the key P.E.A.K.S. needed for your job.
Seek feedback on your performance from work associates and cus-
tomers, again to understand the P.E.A.K.S. needed for your job.Learn as much as you can about the P.E.A.K.S. you need for your
dream job. Once you know the kind of job you might want to have in
the future, you will want to know what you should do to give yourself
your best chance of being able to eventually get this job. Informational
interviews can help you address both of these concerns, if you find the
right people to interview and ask the right questions.
In Chapter 4, we explored the basic techniques for finding the best
people to interview. These techniques still apply here, except that you
now want to be on the lookout for people who, in addition to being
knowledgeable insiders, also have a little bit of the visionary in them.
Finding forward-thinking people to interview becomes particularly im-
portant if your ideal job or career is something you would like to do in
the far-off future, since the desirable P.E.A.K.S. will likely have
changed by then.
There’s no perfect formula for finding visionary people to inter-
view. But one way is to get the word out that you are particularly in-
terested in talking to people who could offer insights into how the job
and field that you are interested in learning more about may be chang-
ing in the future.
As for asking the right questions, we would suggest that, in addi-
tion to covering the topics recommended in Chapter 4, you also do the
following:Try to get a “futuristic job preview.”You should definitely still ask for
a realistic job preview that describes the job as it is right now, since
this is the known reality that, in fact, may not change very much in
the future. But you should also ask for the interviewee’s thoughts on
what this job might be like in the future. Then ask yourself, Do these
descriptions make you feel tingly with excitement? Or do they turn
you off?
Get your interviewee’s thoughts on the P.E.A.K.S. that candidates for
these jobs will need to have in the future. Can you develop these
P.E.A.K.S.? More importantly, do you want to develop these
P.E.A.K.S.?Chapter 8: Developing Your Portfolio to Protect and Advance Your Career 119