Finding a job is hard, especially when we have obstacles preventing us from achieving our career goals. How can we overcome these hurdles? Check out Marshall Goldsmith’s “Three Obstacles to a Career Move“ at BusinessWeek.com for advice on how to overcoming the limits of mind, brand, and focus.  Goldsmith interviews Shelly Canter, author of Make the Right Career Move: 28 Critical Insights and Strategies to Land Your Dream Job.

When making a career move, Canter describes three barriers that executives and professionals must overcome to achieve the next level of success. “It comes down to mind, brand, and focus,” says author Shelley Canter. The primary obstacles to finding a dream job as outlined by Canter:

1. Mind: “The first place people get stuck is in their heads—they believe their career possibilities are limited and never even try to identify, much less land, their dream job… We all have more career possibilities than we realize… The best way is to submit them to empirical scrutiny.”
2. Brand: “Your brand is a factual statement of your unique and valuable way of doing things. One way to define your brand is through the specific set of accomplishments in your résumé. Your goal is to present the strongest brand you can.”
3. Focus: “Despite the temptation of the Internet with its lure of a great new job only a click away, the fact is that 70% to 80% of jobs come through contacts, particularly for more senior people…While your network is likely to be the source of your dream job, it’s the hardest job-search strategy to pursue. Many people are so busy with their jobs that they’ve let their networks languish.”

While Canter’s target audience is primarily executives and more senior people, Make the Right Career Move: 28 Critical Insights and Strategies to Land Your Dream Job, is fitting for knowledge workers, who must learn how to develop and market their brand and how to establish a network. Networks matter. I landed my last three jobs, because I was referred in by my network. Former colleagues, who thought I’d be a fit, recommended me to the hiring managers. Who’s in your network? Who can refer you to a possible job lead?

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