Wasim Hajjiri is the definition of relentless. Defying the odds, he journeyed from Jordan with an engineering degree to graduate with an MBA from the prestigious UCSD, The Rady school of management.
With his heart set on getting his dream job at Qualcomm, he finally met victory after going through 55 recruiters, 20 receptionists, and 25 different job interviews!
After eschewing fast food and embracing the joy of broccoli, he whittled his body fat down to a minuscule 5% to win 3 Gold Medals and a world-class ranking in fitness. He is also a boxer competing in the USA.
Wasim is an Executive Career Coach who helps Professionals land their dream job in a record time with great salaries. He is also a two-time #1 Best Selling Author with numerous TV, Radio, and Magazine appearances, including Forbes, FOX, CBS, ABC, and IHeart Radio.
Wasim is a part of the Forbes Career Coaches Council and publishes articles covering Career, Health, Personal Development, and more.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up writing a book?
I have an engineering background and my main business is career coaching. I help professionals land their dream job within 6-8 weeks in record time. My book: “Fulfilled? How to land a job that aligns with your purpose” is based on all of my experience and what I learned over the years and after helping hundreds of job seekers land offers with combined salaries of over 10 million dollars.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
When it comes to the job search there are four main things to focus on:
Mindset
Understand that failure, rejection, ghosting, fear, and doubt are all part of the job search journey, don’t take these things personally or get discouraged. Work on developing a strong mindset by clearing out old beliefs and stories of why you can’t get the job and then start building up your confidence.
- Branding: 90% of job seekers don’t know what the ATS(Applicant tracking system) is. It is a software that over 80% of companies use to hire candidates and if you need to learn how to optimize your resume and LinkedIn profile in order to pass it.
- Networking: 80% of jobs are landed through networking and LinkedIn is the most powerful platform for that. For each job you apply to, connect with recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn on a daily basis, that will get you much better traction with interviews.
- Interview prep: Study the interviewer, company, and relate all of your experience to the job description which is the secret love language of the company. Then practice some interview questions and find them by doing a google search based on the role you applied to.
What are the top three tools you are currently using to write, publish, and promote your books?
I worked with Juliet Clark who is a publisher and does publishing coaching to help you publish the book successfully on Amazon.
What were the top three mistakes you made while publishing your book what did you learn from them?
Well, I have two books. The first one I self-published and the second one I got a publishing deal for. I would say that having a publisher makes the process much faster but if you want to take the self-publishing route, invest in a coach or mentor who will help you step by step along the way. I didn’t do too many mistakes because I always had a coach who helped me even when I self-published. That avoids a lot of mistakes.
When will you consider your book a success?
I believe that even if my books help 1 person, that is a huge success. Both of my books now are number one best sellers on Amazon, I would love to reach more people in the world and my next step is for the books to be on the New York Times best-seller list.
Can you share a snippet that isn’t in the blurb or excerpt?
70% of people are unhappy with their jobs, 80% of graduates don’t have a job lined up upon graduation.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
At the beginning, it was very challenging for us because the entire job market was negatively affected by the shutdown: companies were laying people off, hiring stopped for a while and everyone was going through a lot of challenges mentally and emotionally. We lost a lot of clients and new clients were not coming in. Slowly but surely covid financial aid programs began to appear and that helped us tremendously to get back on our feet. For me, I have been working on personal development and building a strong mindset for a long time, this allowed me to deal with all these challenges in a much more effective way. All entrepreneurs know the rollercoaster ride of owning a business, challenges at times are expected to happen, it’s a matter of how you deal with these challenges and focus on finding solutions.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Initially, the biggest challenge is to get the book done, the first draft that is. Writer’s block tends to creep in from time to time and motivation is up and down. My advice to writers out there is to push through the first draft and don’t overthink it. Even if it is complete garbage, you can refine it later, just get all of your thoughts on paper and the rest will be much easier. After you have the first rough draft done, get in touch with an editor to help you clean it up. After that, the ideas will flow and it will be much easier.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before publishing your book?
To finish the first draft as fast as possible and not to be a perfectionist. Because I edited the book dozens and dozens of times before I published it, I wanted it to be perfect. The reality is that it will never be perfect, just do your best and the rest will follow.
Please share one thing new self-publish authors can do to gain more reviews on Amazon.
First of all, keep track of the people that you know closely who bought the book, I have an excel sheet. Stay in touch with them and after they finished reading the book, simply ask them to write a review for you and from the heart, it has to be genuine. Your personal network alone can get you a lot of reviews, if you don’t have a network, go out there and meet some people, now is the time.
Can you share some of the marketing techniques that have worked for you when promoting your book?
I did a best seller campaign with Juliet Clark the last 10 days before the launch date. Every day I would post content on social media and build excitement around the book, I would post something creative and different every day.
Example: day 1 I posted a picture of my dog with glasses and the book next to him, people loved it and started asking questions. If you have an email list, I also blasted out thousands of emails that have a lot of snippets from the book that people can use.
I also called every single human being that I know, family, friends, friends of friends, etc. I was on the phone like a machine, and that tremendously helped with the launch.
If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
I would do things slightly differently but not much, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, so all of the mistakes that I made I had to do in order to grow and learn, plus you need thick skin in order to keep the business alive long term because the economy fluctuates and you need to be strong enough to be able to deal with challenges. The small change that I would do is to delegate and hire people faster.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to finish writing your book?
Reminding myself of the why I wrote the book, which is to help people and positively impact their lives, I am not doing it for me, it’s all for them.
- Book: The Secret The Secret: Rhonda Byrne
- Podcast: NPR books NPR’s Book of the Day on Apple Podcasts
- Online Course: Udemy Top Writing a Book Courses Online
- Podcast: The Tim Ferris show The Tim Ferriss Show on Apple Podcasts
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
My book is currently a number one best seller on Amazon, my next goal is for it to be on the New York Times best-seller list. This is the next stage of growth and scaling.
If you only had $1000 dollars to promote a new book, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
Running ads on social media, and email blasts and I would hire an assistant to do warm and cold calling.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new authors?
Take the first step and start writing, even if it is 10 mins per day. Start with the outline something short and very simple, then add bullet points under each chapter and brainstorm ideas. After that start writing chapter by chapter without doing any editing or adding removing/anything just write a rough and garbage first draft. Push through and dump all your ideas ( even if the structure doesn’t make any sense). Now you have the first draft the rest will be much easier.
Who should we interview next and why?
- Shaniece Benson
- William Sims
- Mo Cisse
- Kael Roberts
- Brandon
ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTERVIEW
What is your company all about?
We help professionals land their dream job within 8 weeks and get paid the salary they deserve through our 1-on-1 and group coaching program. We mainly focus on Senior IT and Tech professionals (Engineers, Developers, Product Managers, etc..), and a small percentage spans between mid and junior-level professionals. We have two #1 best-selling books, the most recent one is titled: Fulfilled: How to land a job that aligns with your purpose.
Here are some key points:
- Founded in 2016, accepted into the prestigious UCSD Incubator in 2017, and published a #1 Best Selling Book in 2018.
- Published on Forbes in 2019 and joined the Forbes Career Coaches Council.
- Published a second #1 best-selling book in 2022.
- Featured on Forbes, FOX, CBS, ABC, iHeartRadio, and more.
An average of 50 offers landed per year with an average salary of $150K and a 75% success rate in landing offers and 85% in nailing interviews.
A total of hundreds of offers landed with combined salaries of over 10 million $. Clients landed offers at Google, Amazon, HP, CVS, Facebook, Rite Aid, Fortune 500 Startups, and more…
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I have an electrical engineering background, back in 2015 I started pursuing my MBA at UCSD and while I was in the program, I got the idea to create a service or product that can help engineers land a job which was based on my personal experience, as it was very challenging for me to land a job especially coming from another country and starting fresh in the US. When I dug into the market research, I learned that this is a huge problem for many people, 80% of graduates don’t have a job lined up upon graduation and 70% of professionals do not like their jobs. I got to work and created “The Dream Job program” which essentially started as an online course and developed into 1 on 1 and group coaching.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- Resourcefulness: In the current era we are in right now technology has changed everything. Within seconds by going on Google, you can have access to literally unlimited resources. If you want to write a book, for example, you can find coaches, courses, videos, and so many different resources to help you. It’s a matter of being willing to do the work and get the right type of resources for your specific goals. While it is easy to get resources, many people don’t take action.
- Being coachable: growth is a never-ending journey, especially in business. You can always get better and improve if you are open to receiving feedback and hearing the things that you don’t want to hear.
- Developing a strong mindset: having a business is an emotional roller coaster ride, there are many ups and downs. If you don’t have a strong mindset, you won’t last. That’s why only a minuscule percentage of companies stay alive and succeed.
What are your plans for the future, and how do you plan to grow this company?
Right now, we are a team of 8. My plan is to partner up with recruiting companies so that they can funnel clients to us and grow our pipeline. That will allow me to hire more people: Sales, Marketing, Career coaches, etc. We are now operating nationwide and as these partnerships grow and flourish it will allow us to tap into other countries such as Canada, the UK, and Europe.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
In the beginning, it was very challenging for us because the entire job market was negatively affected by the shutdown: companies were laying people off, hiring stopped for a while and everyone was going through a lot of challenges mentally and emotionally. We lost a lot of clients and new clients were not coming in. Slowly but surely covid financial aid programs began to appear and that helped us tremendously to get back on our feet. For me, I have been working on personal development and building a strong mindset for a long time, this allowed me to deal with all these challenges in a much more effective way. All entrepreneurs know the rollercoaster ride of owning a business, challenges at times are expected to happen, it’s a matter of how you deal with these challenges and focus on finding solutions.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
For us, it’s all about the client’s needs. We work very closely with our clients to make sure that not only they get a job but they also transform mentally and build a strong mindset along the way so that they can continue to succeed long term. Our average time to land a job is 6-8 weeks whereas it takes 12-18 weeks for most other career coaching programs. Our success rate in landing offers is 75% which is at the highest end in the career coaching market.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
I used to do everything myself: coaching, sales, marketing, building the website, etc.: Now that equaled a lot of stress and wasted time. I finally learned the power of delegating and building a team (cost-effectively) and that changed the entire game and exponentially grew the business. As an example, you can hire salespeople based on commission only.
It takes time to make money: Going into to any business, entrepreneurs are excited by the endless financial opportunities, and everything can look great on paper in the business plan, but the reality is that initially, you will lose a good amount of money before breaking even and eventually becoming profitable. So, I recommend having a good amount of capital to start with or keep a job in order to have money coming in.
Don’t take failure, rejection, and doubt personally: If you study the most successful companies and founders, you will learn that they all went through a tremendous number of failures before succeeding. Having fears and doubts along the way is also normal. I used to take it personally and think that I am not good enough, but then when I learned how to improvise and push through the failures, that changed the entire game for me and made the journey much easier.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Organic marketing is definitely the most effective strategy to use especially when you are starting out. It takes time to learn the market and your clients/customers so spending money on paid ads is useless until you really hone down your target market, messaging, niche, pricing, and overall branding. So, I suggest leveraging social media to initially connect with your potential customers/clients and understand their needs. Then after that, you can go into paid ads. What we do for our marketing is leveraging social media: Thumbtack, LinkedIn, and google. There we find and connect with our targeted job seekers and do 1-on-1 calls with them to understand their needs and to see if they are a good fit for what we offer. Then we enroll them into our program which is hosted on an online platform called writesea in which we take them through the job search system from start to finish and they land a job within 6-8 weeks on average.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
There are always different types of flavors when it comes to business challenges. In the early stages, you will have the challenges of learning all the different aspects of the business: Sales, marketing, etc. As you work with more and more of your clients and customers, that gets better and your skills will grow, and when you launch and go full force into the market, you will learn that things are very different than the business plan and you have to improvise – adapt – overcome. Then at the later stages, you start hiring people and you need to take care of them just like your own family and that requires a lot of leadership, empathy, and patience. The definition of greatness is to first find your own greatness and then help others do the same. After you have a solid team and you are generating good results and revenue, now it’s time to scale and grow. That means talking to 5 different marketing agencies until you find the right one, you might also pick the right one, fail and learn. All in all, if you have the right mindset and team, anything is possible.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
That’s a funny story, my first business idea was to open a coffee stand right next to the business school where I finished my MBA. I even named the company: Wasimo’s Café LLC. It was a solid idea but didn’t work out at the end because there was a Pete’s coffee that was fighting any type of competition on campus. Then I pivoted into creating the career coaching business.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
Right now we are in the growth and scaling stage, the biggest thing that I’m learning is how to grow the company while remaining profitable and that is not the easiest thing to do. If you recently heard a show called “We crashed” which talks about the rise and fall of the multi-billion-dollar co-working space company WeWork. One of the biggest reasons they failed is because of the crazy overspending on growth and getting more of the market share. That show really taught me how to focus on sustainable long-term growth.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
I would do things slightly differently but not much, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, so all of the mistakes that I made I had to do in order to grow and learn, plus you need thick skin in order to keep the business alive long term, many things change and even the economy fluctuates so you need to be strong enough to be able to deal with challenges. The small change that I would do is to delegate more and hire people faster.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- LinkedIn.com (the biggest professional platform in the world)
- Thumbtack.com (It is a lead generation tool in which clients looking for services look for you and find you)
- Kennected.com (In order to scale and grow your LinkedIn profile)
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Having a consistent daily morning routine (as soon as you wake up): Meditation, Journaling, and Exercise.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
500$ on Building a Sales funnel and Hiring an Admin Assistant for 500$ a month
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
Having a consistent daily routine as mentioned in Question 14 and surrounding myself with positive and hungry people. The biggest thing that keeps me going is the reason of why I started the business which is to help and serve people and to be a positive influence on the world. Always remember to have a strong purpose of why you want to start a business and it has to be much bigger than yourself.
What is your favorite quote?
“Whoever or whatever hits you, make sure to hit back harder and never give up” That was from my father, may he rest in peace.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
- Start small and build. Baby steps daily and consistently add up and that’s how you can get things done.
- Keep a job while building the business because it takes time to make money
- Don’t try things by yourself, whatever you want to do google it and find resources to help you
What is your definition of success?
To have inner peace. When I started out, I thought that I would get the feeling of success from external things: accomplishments, accolades, etc. then I achieved these goals and felt empty. Success comes when you have inner fulfillment, and you focus on the things that matter the most which is your relationships. Relationships with family, friends, significant others, and most importantly yourself.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Fear will always be there, you have to understand that is it normal and part of the journey. They asked Mike Tyson(One of the best boxers in the world) do you get scared before fights? He said, “yes, I am terrified and sometimes I even cry in the locker room”. It’s a matter of moving forward even when you feel the fear, that is what courage is all about. I talked about mindset in the previous answers and to build a strong mindset it all starts with exercising mentally and physically on a daily basis. Take care of your health, a strong body builds confidence and overcomes fear. Meditation and journaling are mental exercises that also help overcome fear.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Website: Getyourdreamjob.net My LinkedIn. All other social media platforms: @wasimthedreamm
