The Preferred Candidate · Level 0

Establish what you actually bring

Start here

0.1 The market you are applying into

Level 0 · 24 min · 2 knowledge checks

Level 0: 0 of 8 gates ticked0 of 7 tasks done

Wanting a role and being ready for one are different states, and the gap between them is invisible from the inside. This level makes it visible, for one specific posting, before you write a word of application material.

Nothing here asks you to change anything about yourself. Measuring first is not a stylistic preference. In the meta-analysis of leadership development, programmes that conducted a needs analysis before designing the intervention produced far larger transfer effects than programmes that did not, and the same logic governs a career-readiness course: you cannot close a gap you have described in general terms.

You will finish this level holding three things. A named vacancy you could realistically pursue. A readiness map splitting what that posting asks for into what you bring now, what you can transfer, and what you do not have. And a record of what a second person changed in that map when they read it, which is the only part of the exercise with any evidential weight.

Level 0 lessons

0 of 5 done

Replace your impression of your own readiness with a map against one named vacancy that a second person has checked.

0.1The market you are applying into24 min 0.2What your self-rating is worth18 min 0.3The readiness map17 min 0.4The requirements you do not meet26 min 0.5Deciding to proceed18 min

Level 0 exercises

0 of 2 done

Done against a real organisation you choose, not a case study. The gates below are about what these produce.

Exercise 0.A - The readiness map

Take the posting you fixed as your target role and produce a readiness map against it.

List every requirement in the posting, not the ones you remember. Most postings carry between eight and twenty once you separate compound sentences, and the ones buried in the responsibilities section count.

Against each requirement, record four fields. The category: ready now, transferable, or needs development. The evidence: what specifically you did, with a date and a context. The checker: who could confirm this, or which document shows it. And for transferable entries only, the difference: what is not the same about the target context.

Two rules make the difference between an instrument and a self-description. Every ready-now entry must name a checker, because Mabe and West's strongest moderator is the expectation that a self-rating will be tested against something objective. And every transferable entry must name the difference, because a transfer claim that cannot say what is not the same is a hope.

Takes about two hours. It fails in one specific way: a map with an empty needs-development column. If yours comes back empty there, either the posting is below your level, which is a finding worth acting on, or you stopped reading the posting at the point where it became uncomfortable.

Exercise 0.B - The external check

Give the map to your named reader and to one further person, and record what changes.

Ask three questions, in this order, and do not answer them yourself first. Which of my ready-now entries would you not have put there. Which of my transferable claims do you not follow. And what have I left out that you would have expected to see.

Write down their answers verbatim before you respond to any of them. Then record, separately, which of your original ratings you are changing and which you are keeping, with your reason for keeping each one.

Takes about forty minutes of your time and twenty of theirs. It fails when you explain the map before they read it, because a map that arrives with a commentary is being defended rather than checked. Give them the document, leave, and come back.

If nothing changed, that is a result, and it usually means the reader was too polite or too close to your work. The second reader in this exercise exists for that reason. Three of the six exercises in this course specifically want a reader outside your profession, because a reader inside it fills in your gaps automatically.

Level 0 gates

0 of 8 ticked

What you should be able to do after this level. Tick each one when it is true. Nobody marks these. Sign in to tick them.

You have one named vacancy at one named organisation, with a written description you can open, fixed for the remaining twelve weeks.

Evidence that shows it: Attach the artefact, or attest with a date if it lives somewhere you cannot upload from.

Not ticked

You have a second real posting selected for the tailoring exercise in Level 3.

Not ticked

You can list every requirement in your target posting from the document, not from memory.

Not ticked

You have a readiness map with all requirements classified, every ready-now entry carrying a named checker and every transferable entry naming the difference.

Not ticked

You have at least one entry under needs development, or a written statement of why the posting is below your level.

Evidence that shows it: Attach the artefact, or attest with a date if it lives somewhere you cannot upload from.

Not ticked

You have had the map read by two people, and you have recorded what each changed and what you kept.

Not ticked

You have named the third party who could vouch for one of your claims, with their current contact details.

Not ticked

You have decided to proceed, to proceed while closing a named gap, or to change the posting, and written the decision with its date.

Evidence that shows it: Attach the artefact, or attest with a date if it lives somewhere you cannot upload from.

Not ticked

Tools in this level

Readiness map reader

This sorts what one named vacancy asks for into ready now, transferable and needs development. Write each requirement in its row with when you did it and who could confirm it, and keep the gaps in.

Write it, get automatic feedback

The ten statement check

Ten statements scored one to five, before Level 0 and again after Level 5. Write your score for each with the date, and read the change on each line rather than the total.

Write it, get automatic feedback