I love helping people land their dream job. But even smart people make dumb career moves. The two reasons why smart people make dumb career moves are 1) they don’t have a career strategy and 2) they don’t put enough time into their job search.

What’s a career strategy? It’s a written document that says:

• What your career wishes are (e.g. role, content, culture, leadership challenges, type of company, size, location, work-life flexibility, long-term career goals).
•3 paths you are considering, rank ordered from best to worst (e.g. 1) join a marketing consulting firm, or 2) go into a marketing department inside a corporation, or 3) hang out my shingle and freelance).
•Actions you are going to take by when (e.g. contact the following 20 people who are in a position of influence to help me land my dream job by 12/31…).

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It seems like not too long ago, ghSMART was privately writing headlines like this as something to aspire to one day—to appear at the top of lists with world class professional services firms. If you can dream it, you can do it, right? Now it has actually happened. ghSMART just unseated McKinsey in the #1 spot in this year’s Vault survey of “Best Consulting Firms to Work For” in the important area of client interaction. As Founder & Chairman, I’m proud of my colleagues for making this happen.

Most of you who subscribe to my blog are not considering coming to work at ghSMART. You are CEOs, board members, investors, and corporate executives. This blog will probably not be very useful to you, so please skip it.

But for those of you who are considering joining the ghSMART team one day, I thought you might like an “insider’s peek” to see how we hit this milestone, and how it will affect your career if you work here one day.

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