Jim Beqaj - True Fit: How to Find the Right Job by Being You

Also by Jim Beqaj

How to Hire the Perfect Employer:

Finding the Job and Career that Fit You

Through a Powerful Infomercial

Copyright Jim Beqaj, 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written consent of the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-988025-10-0 (print)

ISBN 978-1-988025-17-9 (ebook)

Printed in Canada

TO ORDER:

In Canada:

Georgetown Publications

34 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, ON L7G 4R9

In the U.S.A.:

Midpoint Book Sales & Distribution

27 West 20th Street, Suite 1102, New York, NY 10011

Publisher: Sarah Scott

Project manager: Zoja Popovic

Managing editor at large: Tracy Bordian

Cover design: Margie Miller

Interior design: Kyle Gell Design

Page layout: Kyle Gell Design

Copy editing: Strong Finish Editorial Design

Indexing: Wendy Thomas

Publicity: Debby de Groot

For more information, visit www.barlowbooks.com

For my amazing wife, Jennifer,

and our six wonderful children, Emma,

Eddie, Nora, Jack, Sam, and Sarah.

For my sister Shano and her husband,

Nusret, both of whom left us far too soon.

We miss them dearly.

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who has trusted me to help coach them to a better place in their lives. A special thanks to those of you who kindly allowed me to present your stories and life transformations in this book. As I have said to many people, helping others find their True Fit is my calling and not a job. The joy that I feel watching people transition from confused and unworthy to confident and fully appreciative of who they are and understanding why that matters so much is incredible.

As I reflect on the publication of my second book, I know that the strong support and love from my family are at the very core of what I do. Heartfelt thanks to my amazing wife, Jennifer, who I am fortunate enough to have been married to for over twenty years and love sharing every day with, and to my six wonderful children, Emma, Eddie, Nora, Jack, Sam, and Sarah, who not only bring me great joy and pride but keep me grounded in who I am and whats really important in lifebeing their father.

I also want to thank my partners and friends Jaz Chahil and Bob Baldock.

Many thanks to Dominic Barton for providing the wonderful foreword to this book.

Thank you as well to the countless friends and clients who have supported me every step of the way in my own journey, allowing me into their lives to help them both professionally and personally.

Lastly, I would like to thank the team of people who have assisted me through the journey of my second book: Beth Parker, my co-writer; Sarah Scott, my dear friend and publisher; Debby de Groot, my publicist; Heather Sangster, the editor who turned my scribblings into a story; Margie Miller, the designer of this wonderful book cover; Kyle Gell, the designer and formatter of this books interior; and last but not least, Tracy Bordian, the managing editor who kept me on the straight and narrow to get this book published on time.

People are at the heart of driving performance in all organizations. In fact, in todays rapidly evolving business environmentwhere the average lifespan of a company is dramatically shorter than it has ever beentalent is becoming even more important as a competitive differentiator. Organizations that can both attract the right people and create conditions under which they can thrive and create value consistently outperform the competition. At the same time, we know from research by Gallup and others that the vast majority of workers are not engaged at worka terrible waste when you consider the cost to not only individuals, but to businesses and society as a whole, from people not bringing their full energy and capabilities to their roles.

Jims book True Fit makes an important contribution to our understanding of how to address these challenges. It helps both organizations and individuals understand the importance of finding the right match, providing a playbook to unleash the tremendous potential that exists when you connect the right person with the right role.

True Fit captures the personal and business imperatives of finding the best match between people and roles, and clearly outlines what it takes as an individual to identify and attain the perfect role. Jim shares compelling stories from both his career and that of others, demonstrating what good fit means for people at all stages, from new entrants into the job market to senior executives. He reinforces this with insightful analysis of the cost to companies of a bad fit, including lower morale and productivity that prevents people and organizations from reaching their potential. Moreover, he shows how creativity and innovationessential factors for success for all companiesbecome impossible to deliver when people are disengaged because they are not a good fit for their roles.

As Jim suggests, finding your true fit can be a daunting prospect. Jim points out the pressures we face from various sources throughout our life to make it work and try to fit into whatever situation we find ourselves in. This book does a terrific job of articulating the need for self-reflectionunderstanding the real you instead of relying on others to ask the right questions or tell you about yourself. Jim also highlights the need to stop relying on traditional methods for approaching prospective employers and advocates that we focus on our strengths and arm ourselves with a CV that provides true insights into our personality, not just one that describes our experience.

Drawing on a wealth of experience hiring others as well as his own personal history finding the right fit for himself, Jim provides very practical tools for finding the right fit. His description of the core principles of networking are incisive, and applicable regardless of ones industry or stage of career. He also offers a personalized approach to how people can unlock their performance that is applicable to both those entering the workforce the first time and seasoned executives, such as putting together the right infomercial to share with prospective employers as you seek the right fit.

Ultimately, Jims approach to developing your own story and infomercial centres around asking the right questions of ourselves, ranging from personality-based questions on how you prefer to resolve conflict and what your perfect day would look like to practical ones such as exactly what an employer should be paying you for. In addition to thinking through your personality and utilization bandwidthand making sure to use these to drive research and decision making when seeking a roleJim articulates how to use your infomercial to find the right set of target employers, pointing out that one should think across industries and sectors.

But the messages and tools of True Fit go beyond simply finding a job; they apply equally to evaluating your current position and understanding how and when to get out of a wrong fit. Jim shares compelling stories of how a variety of professionals have been able to stay true to themselves and get out of the wrong fit using the methodologies he describes. His concluding remarks on common objections to finding the right fit is equally convincingand a terrific way to assuage the typical concerns we have when working through such a process.