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Myth 9: Job hunting is inconvenient, difficult, time consuming, and no fun. Myth 11: Your credentials are more important than your ability to sell yourself. Myth 12: There is little support and gratification when you look for a job. Come back to Myths and Realities often, as we will add to this section periodically. If you have not yet read Myths 1 thru 8, click here. Myth 9: Job hunting is inconvenient, difficult, time consuming, and no fun. Reality: The extent to which you view job hunting as laborious and a hassle, that’s the extent to which you will have difficulty being enthusiastic, having a positive expectancy, and building rapport. Any time you change jobs, there is always a lot of stress involved, problems seem bigger and more difficult to handle, it costs more than you imagined, and you lose a little more confidence each time you have to look for a job. What to Do? Truly, it is as simple as getting what you create. If you envision your career search as a positive, challenging process which will undoubtedly stretch you to be the best you can be, then you will have a completely different experience than if you see this as a terribly gruelling time. Please don’t misunderstand. We are not naively saying that you might not have some rough spots in your career search. Rather, we are just being realistic. Try an experiment with us. Repeat the following phrase out loud, louder and louder each time until you are shouting it. GET EMOTIONAL! “I can do it!” “I can do it!” LOUDER “I CAN DO IT!” LOUDER STILL “I CAN DO IT!” SHOUTING! How would you rate your ability to do “it,” regardless of what “it” is? On a scale of 1 to 100 (with 100 being 100% confident in your ability to do “it” and 1 representing almost zero confidence), how would you rate your ability to accomplish “it?” You should have been able to both create a heightened sense of confidence and also be able to distinguish between the levels of your personal power when you were negative versus when you were positive. One last point. A well-run career search campaign doesn’t necessarily have to be fun to be successful. It’s like exercise. Sometimes exercising is fun, sometimes it’s not. It isn’t always comfortable. But then, comfort isn’t the goal. Physical fitness is the goal. The goal in exercising is to do it to the best of your abilities and physical condition and be disciplined enough to do it regularly, regardless of whether you are having fun or not. If you want to get or stay in shape, you have to exercise. Period. In the same manner, networking isn’t always comfortable. But then comfort isn’t the goal either. Getting a really good job is the goal. To conduct an effective career search, you have to learn to network well and do so to the best of your abilities. Period. Myth 10: Networking is the only way to go. It is the most effective avenue to locate the perfect job. Reality: Obviously, we are advocating networking as a powerful and effective means to connect with your ideal job. However lest we be misunderstood, let us state that we feel that networking is only one of four main avenues to getting connected. For some people, their myth is that networking is the best way to get connected. It is clearly action oriented and a great way to reach a large number of people directly. Being face-to-face with a network contact is much more personable and can produce multiple leads if handled well. The majority of managerial opportunities and many lower-level jobs are filled through the connections made through networking. What to Do? As you recall, the four main job changing paths are: personal networking, search firms/employment agencies, target marketing to organizations, and advertisements. There is merit in each careering avenue. The point is that you should not forget to utilize all four means to getting connected, though networking is one of the most effective ways to tap into the contacts of others to gain the much-needed careering visibility. Myth 11: Your credentials are more important than your ability to sell yourself. Reality: You can have the best credentials in the world, have accomplished a great deal, and have a tremendous amount of raw talent — and still not get connected because your don’t sell yourself well. An old tradition of the 1950s and 1960s had as its premise, “If you work hard, are loyal, and do a good job, you will be noticed, your company will take care of you through promotions, handsome salary increases, recognition, and you will have lifetime job security.” That was an appropriate premise for an expanding postwar economy. It is no longer a reliable rule for today’s economy. This myth is based on the idea that the rule still exists and is valid. The myth says, “You don’t have to sell or market your ideas, your projects, or yourself. Just get good results and you will be sought after in the marketplace.” Clearly, this old rule no longer applies in our current fast-changing economy. It’s interesting that some of the conflict between older and younger employees stems from the disparity from the way things used to be and the way they are now. Older employees often see their younger colleagues as shamelessly “politiking,” and the younger employees perceive their older business associate as naively waiting for the company to take care of them. The truth of the matter is, “People hire people they like. People hire people that are like them and with whom they are comfortable.” Connections are everything; if you have them — great! If you don’t build connections, you may be in for a possibly long and tedious career search. What to Do? In networking, and in interviewing, personal chemistry has a lot to do with whether two people will make the connection, share leads, develop the synergy important to innovation and creative energy, and want to spend time together. Marketing yourself is every bit as important as having good abilities and a record of accomplishments. In interviews, company decision makers will be evaluating you on the basis of: 1. Can you do the job? Do you have the technical competency, skills, and track record that would lead me to conclude that you have the capability to the work? 2. Are you interested in the job? Are you enthusiastic and excited to be here? To what extent have you done your homework on the company, its competitors, the industry, the socioeconomic trends, and other factors that might demonstrate your interest, your capabilities, and your drive. 3. Will you fit in? Do you have the personality to relate well to me, to the team, to the corporate culture, to the others in the organization, and to what extent will you reflect the values of the company to our customers, vendors, and suppliers? While the above questions are important, the third question is the most critical, as it addresses the issue of personal chemistry and your ability to establish the much-needed rapport to effectively market your skills and abilities. Try as you might, if you and the other person are not in synch, you aren’t going to sell yourself well at all even if you have excellent accomplishments and capabilities. There is an old saying, “There are two ways to move a string. You can either push it or you can pull it. It’s a lot easier to pull the string than to push it.” You will be much more credible when talking about your accomplishements, if at first you have built rapport. This means taking the time to have thoughtfully and carefully made your network contact (or an interviewer) comfortable with you. It will be much easier to secure networkng contact information when you first establish rapport and sell yourself than to push for leads before legitimizing your request for information. Myth 12: There is little support and gratification when you look for a job. Reality: If you believe your career search will be long and hard with little support from others, it will be. You get what you create and you get what you focus on. As a way to help his daughter cope with the loss of her leg after a skiing accident, Reverend Robert Schuller challenged her to “look at what she had left, not at what she had lost.” Dr. Schullers’ premise, and ours, is that if you focus only on your job loss, your slow and difficult career search, or the extent to which you are emotionally upset or drained, then you will be operating largely out of the context of job loss or upset. Many people believe that after all is said and done, you are alone in this world (and in your job hunting) to manage the best you can. No one is going to hand you a good job on a silver platter. Besides, people are looking out for themelves, and they will care and help out only when it is convenient. Also, the work of job hunting is disagreeable, demeaning, and unpleasant. Pretty disheartening and pessimistic assumption upon which this myth is based, isn’t it? As with all of these myths and their assumptions, there is some truth in this myth. It is true that you are ultimately alone with your choices, decisions, and beliefs. If you believe that people are not supportive and will not help, then they won’t. However, if you believe that there are people who you know (and some that you haven’t yet met) out there who are more than willing to extend a listening ear, an empathetic shoulder to lean on, and a Rolodex file that they are willing to peruse through with you — then they will. Before others can even remotely begin to support you, you need to support yourself with affirming beliefs and actions. Your internal support system is composed of those beliefs, images, messages, and psychological and emotional “tapes” that seem to run your life, as if it is on automatic. Ironically, the time when you need to reach out to others the most will be the time when you are least likely to do so. The time when you need to be most open and receiving will be the time when you will be most closed and defensive. Sounds pretty desperate and scary, doesn’t it? You might think, “This could never happen to me! I’m too much in control to ever allow this to occur.” Well, welcome to reality. This debilitating crawl into isolation is very common, slow, insidious, and experienced by most of us at some time. You rationalize that your friends do not want to be burdened with your problems, so you tend to bury the issues and not address them while ignoring your friends and the very resources you need. What to Do? If you are interested in shifting from the above-described negative state to one which is more positive and powerful, we recommend the following. Ask yourself the following questions to shift your focus from negative to positive, from lack to abundance, from sickness to health. Ask yourself these questions at least four times a day (before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner, and before drifting off to sleep). By the way, if your find yourself saying, “ I have nothing to be grateful for!” — keep looking for something in your life for which you are grateful, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant. 1. How confident am I? How can I increase my confidence and boldness? 2. What am I grateful for in my life? How can I enrich this? 3. Who do I love and who loves me? How might I love more? 4. What am I happy and excited about? What can I do to be more joyous? 5. When I am peaceful and content? How can I enhance my peacefulness? 6. What am I most proud of? What else am I proud of and how can I be more proud? 7. How have I served others today and how have I been served? How can I increase my support and service to others? 8. What have I learned today? What other things do I need to learn to be even more effective? 9. What am I committed to doing? How can I increase my commitment to ensure the accomplishment of this task? 10. How have I been successful? How can I be more successful and contribute more? To myself? To my family? To my employer? To my friends? 11. How am I in control of my life and my career? How can I accomplish more of my personal and business goals? |
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