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Retrieve back in the olden days before smartphones? Anyone?

If you lot wanted to drive somewhere, you had to employ this super retro device called a map to figure out where to go.

And you couldn't really only have the map with you and await to find your manner, either. You really had to programme out your route ahead of fourth dimension to ensure that you got where you were really trying to become.

Now in this modernistic age, though, we no longer demand maps. With smartphones, you only start driving and your phone figures out where yous need to get. It's and then simple.

Notwithstanding, as a consequence, somewhere forth the fashion, we lost the art of planning ahead. These days, I so frequently see people leap into things without whatsoever planning at all.

Lack of planning isn't necessarily an issue. In a lot of cases, yous can still get where you need to go easily plenty. Without a GPS, y'all'd still eventually effigy out how to become where y'all're going, information technology just might accept longer.

There would be lots of trial and fault. You might have one road that leads to a dead terminate and accept to turn around. You might spend an hour driving due south when you should have been going due north. Yet, if you bulldoze for long enough, you'll reach your destination.

The same is the case with interviewing for jobs. Most people start preparing without any sort of plan. They simply pick something that they think they need to do and start doing it. And sometimes this arroyo works. If you happen to pick the right things to focus on, you may only go the job.

Only often it doesn't work, and when it doesn't, you can waste a ton of fourth dimension working on irrelevant tasks. When you lot're looking for a job, wasting time is probably not something you're particularly keen on doing.

And so what if we could plan ahead? What if we had a map to prove united states of america the way forwards. It turns out that with a little guidance, it's not that hard for you to develop your own map. In doing so, you will brand it possible to become the most out of your limited report time. And in this post, I'grand going to show you merely how to practise that.

Decide on your destination

The first step to planning your interview prep may seem obvious, yet it's something that so many people overlook. You lot demand to know exactly what sorts of jobs you lot are looking for. In other words, you need to know your destination.

Why is this so of import? Because information technology gives the states direction. Equally Stephen Covey says in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , "brainstorm with the stop in mind".

Knowing what job we want will inform everything almost our prep process. Information technology volition tell usa how we should written report, how much time we should spend, and can even help the states identify specific skills to cultivate for the prospective job.

For example, let's say yous wanted a job at Amazon. If that'southward the case, there are resources similar Glassdoor that will tell you exactly what questions other interviewees were asked. Now yous have an idea of exactly what to prepare.

The problem with deciding what jobs to get for, though, is that most people don't know what they really desire . Simply they think they practise.

The trouble with deciding what jobs to go for, though, is that almost people don't know what they really want. Only they call up they practice. Click To Tweet

When I talk to applicants, especially those still in higher, I hear the same few company names over and over again. Google. Facebook. Microsoft. Amazon. Apple.

Occasionally I go a mix of Uber, AirBnb, etc.

Hither'due south the thing, though. What practice these companies have in common? Not a whole lot. The one thing that they do have? Prestige .

Is that the most important thing in a chore? Maybe or perchance not. But getting a chore at these companies is going to be a lot of work if the but reason is for the prestige. Google has an acceptance rate of 1%. That means that out of 100 applicants, you demand to be amend than ALL of them.

Consider the story of John Washam . Equally he chronicled on the Gratis Lawmaking Campsite blog, he spent 8 months practicing Full TIME for his interview at Google.

And and so he didn't go in!

John did stop up at Amazon, then clearly it worked out okay for him, but what if he was only interested in Google? Then he spent 8 months of his life studying his ass off for nothing.

So you accept to inquire yourself: "Am I prepared to practice a ton of studying to get the job I want when that won't even guarantee me the job?"

Maybe y'all are, and that'southward fine, but for the rest of us mere mortals, we need to think a little more than deeply about what jobs we are looking for. If you started reading this post thinking "I want to work at Google", that's totally fine. It'due south e'er expert to have a starting point.

So how do we effigy out what jobs are actually right for us? We will use a technique chosen the 5 Whys . Even if you lot recall yous know exactly what job y'all're looking for, I recommend you go through this practise.

The 5 Whys is a great practise for developing a deeper understanding of your internal motivations. We can use it to effigy out exactly what nosotros're looking for in a job.

The way that it works is uncomplicated. To outset with, you need to select a job that you lot are interested in. For argument'southward sake, let's say Google. Now, yous proceed to ask yourself a series of roughly v "why"s.

"Why exercise I want a job at Google?" Considering I want to work with a lot of smart people.
"Why practise I desire to work with a lot of smart people?" Because I want to acquire equally much as I tin from others.
"Why do I desire to learn as much as I can from others?" So that I tin be a badass developer.
"Why do I desire to be a badass developer?" Then that I tin get any job I want.
"Why practice I want to exist able to get any task I want?" And so that I have task security.

The concept backside the five Whys is that you continue excavation deeper until you ultimately get to your core motivations for something. You don't have to ask exactly 5 "whys", only continue going until yous get to the root want.

In the example in a higher place, our root desire is that nosotros want task security. There may be other ancillary reasons, only this is our core motivator.

Once yous get to the root desire, you tin outset considering what are all the options that will come across your root need. For instance, if your goal is job security, that could mean finding a chore where you go actually adept at a niche skill. Or it could hateful working for a giant company with a alimony plan. Or it could mean getting a really loftier paying job so that you tin can save up and retire early on.

The key is to realize that the company you started with is likely not the only company that tin run across your core needs. There may exist many companies that fit that criteria.

You lot also don't necessarily accept to have a single core motivation, simply you desire to effigy out what those motivations are and observe different jobs that fit those criteria. You will probable come up up with a master motivation and secondary motivations.

For example, your primary motivation could be job security, just secondarily, y'all also want to have a good piece of work-life balance. Yous may have to sacrifice some on your secondary motivations to encounter your principal motivation, only past agreement your motivations, at least you lot can choose wisely.

With these motivations in mind, you can come up with different types of jobs that might come across your criteria. Call back about both companies and specific types of positions that may be the sort of thing you're looking for.

Once you have several companies that meet your personal goals, it's time to move onto how you will really go the task.

Set SMART Goals

So we know what sorts of jobs nosotros're looking for, just that's only the first step. It doesn't really help to see the destination if nosotros don't take a route to become there. So allow's find that route.

To do this, we are going to utilise a powerful goal setting framework called SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bounded. Using this framework greatly increases your psychological response to the goal and consequently increases your probability of following through. It besides gives us a structured way to assess if nosotros're setting appropriate goals.

Specific

To have a potent goal, it must exist specific. Rather than saying that you just want whatever task, specify what blazon of job you want or even item companies. This is why we did the 5 Whys exercise earlier. It helps to clearly see where it is that we're going.

The more specific you lot can become virtually your goal, the amend. Ideally, your goal should be to get a specific position at a specific company. Or at to the lowest degree a position at i of a list of companies using a specific skill set.

Measurable

Nosotros desire to know whether we're on track and when we've actually accomplished our goal. If nosotros ascertain a specific plenty goal, this should be a given. For instance, if our goal is to get a task at Google, it is measurable by considering whether or non we got a job at Google.

Achievable

Achievable but asks if we can realistically attain a given goal. This tin can be one of the hardest parts of this process to appraise on your own because it requires a lot of honest self-reflection. It depends on many factors including how much work you have to do and how much work you lot are willing to put in. If you're willing to study full time for 8 months (non that I recommend it), what is achievable will exist very different than if you lot only have 30 minutes on alternating Thursdays (also not recommended). This is a very of import aspect of smart goals, which I covered in much greater detail here.

Relevant

Chances are yous're looking for a job right now, and then this is immediately relevant to y'all, but if a goal isn't something you actually care nigh, it'southward unlikely you'll get it done. You'll have no motivation to do it if it's non important to you.

Time-bounded

I don't know most you, but if I don't take a borderline for something, I'll keep putting it off. This is ane of the reasons I always recommend you become ahead andschedule your interview. Setting a borderline for your goals is key to your success. It helps you say I need to do exactly this much work every day to get to my goal.

Let'due south look an case of a goal and how nosotros tin can make it into a SMART goal.

"I desire to get a good job" could become "I want to get a job at Big iv company making $150k/year within six months."

The starting time goal is very vague and doesn't help us decide any explicit action steps. The revised goal is:

Specific. We know which companies and the desired salary.
Measurable. It's pretty obvious if nosotros achieve the goal or not.
Achievable. This depends on the individual, but let'south assume the goal setter in this instance is an experienced software engineer.
Relevant. Over again this depends on the individual, but if they're actively searching for a job, it'south definitely relevant.
Time-bounded. We have a clear goal of "within 6 months" which tells united states when we demand to reach the goal past.

In the next section, nosotros will see how to use these SMART goals to make up one's mind specific daily activity steps.

What should I practise right now?

So what practise we actually do? Nosotros have our goal, but it'southward totally meaningless without specific activeness.

To do this, we tin can recursively pause down our goals into smaller and smaller pieces. Nosotros want to set smaller and smaller SMART goals until we've ultimately broken down all the work that we have to do into 30-minute- to hour-long blocks.

This may sound similar a lot of work, but here's the fundamental. We're going to practise it in a depth-first search manner. We're only going to practice the specific time blocking for the coming calendar week. For future weeks, we know the big movie of what we're focusing on, and so we don't need to get so granular until we get there.

The other big question about this is "How do I know how to pause things downward?" This is where research comes in. You have to research the sort of job that you're looking for and make up one's mind what is going to be required of y'all so that you can set specific goals.

To do this, I recommend doing a close read of the job description, going on Glassdoor, and if possible, talking to someone who has the job that you are looking to get. Each of these will help you gain much greater insights into what the job requirements are and what to expect from the interview process.

Equally a loftier-level starting point, I recommend breaking down your prep into 3 categories: fundamentals, practice problems, and mock interviews. If you struggle to interruption things downwardly further and need more guidance, you may find it valuable to hire a coach.

Now that we sympathise the nuts, let's put this into practice with an instance. I highly recommend using bulleted lists in a Google Doc. It makes it actually easy to see the structure of what goals are the parents and children of other goals and I can easily build it out.

To start with, we only lay out the top-level goals. Remember to make them SMART.

From here, we want to go on breaking down the tasks until we know exactly what we need to practise this week and today. You'll need to divide upwards tasks plenty so that you tin can encounter the overall motion-picture show of how you lot volition progress, only you merely need to break down the electric current week on a granular level.

Every bit you can run into, I now know exactly what I demand to practice today:

Read pages 17 – xix and solve problems 1-5
Exercise the first do problem in Neat the Coding Interview
Schedule a mock interview

By breaking down my studying into this way, I now have precise tasks that I can do. All I accept to do is really follow through and exercise them.

Every bit you keep through the weeks, you will fill this out more. At the get-go of the week, exercise some planning. Suspension down the general tasks for that calendar week into specific actionable chunks.

You may find that things alter. That's okay too. Just update the plan as you need to as you go along. I find that too many people stick rigidly to their original goals and this can preclude them from making progress. Don't be afraid of this change.

Do it

The last thing to do is to actually implement your plan. Far too oftentimes, I see people set goals or make these elaborate plans, only to have them fall by the wayside. Either that or they spend so much time planning that they exit no time left for implementing.

There are three keys to actually taking action on your plan:

Schedule time
This is incredibly important. While I have no thought who said it outset, you lot should e'er call up this quote:

What gets scheduled gets washed.

This is critical considering if y'all don't schedule fourth dimension to study, you lot will always find other stuff to exercise. In that location is always another more important chore to practise until information technology is too late. The key is to block off time in your calendar. Make an appointment with yourself to report and do everything in your power to proceed that appointment.
Be consequent
Not only should you schedule study time on your calendar, but I recommend you schedule a manageable menses every solar day. Allow'south say you want to study 5 hours per week. That is going to be so much easier, and fashion more productive, if you schedule it in v 1-60 minutes blocks over the class of the week instead of i 5-hr block on the weekend. Let'southward be real, no one can focus for five hours straight. I recommend yous schedule 30 minutes to ane hr each mean solar day and stick to information technology. Information technology'due south not a huge commitment, but it'south plenty fourth dimension to come across steady progress and reach your goals. And if you try to schedule much more, you risk burnout.
Don't procrastinate
You lot're but setting bated limited time, so make sure you get the most of this time. There are many different techniques to mediate procrastination, and I suggest you check out this post on procrastination here.

If you lot implement these three steps, you'll start making rapid progress. You lot'll complete different subgoals and be able to get dorsum to your programme and make full information technology out further.

Every week or so, look back on the past week and see how you did. Did you stick to your goals? Did yous make the planned progress? If then, crawly! If non, then maybe it'south time to reassess your goals to make them more achievable. It's an iterative process, and it'south never going to be right the beginning time. Only every bit long as you keep improving on it, yous'll set yourself up for success.

Having a roadmap for your interview prep makes a huge difference. Instead of wandering around the backroads trying to observe your manner, you have a clear set of directions. Rather than taking capricious turns, you know exactly which turns to take.

This is a perfect example of the old Abe Lincoln quote about spending the first 4 hours sharpening his axe. This takes time. It'due south non easy to create this plan. However, if you lot do information technology, information technology volition make the rest of your studying and then much easier. Skip this pace at your own chance.

In the comments below, I'd love to hear your thoughts. What is your one biggest takeaway from this postal service, and how are you lot going to implement that right now?