“Myth is but an illusion of reality—enough substance to be believed, yet with enough smoke to reinforce the disempowering beliefs of the uninformed.”

Clyde C. Lowstuter

Myth 1: It’s better to look for a job when you have a job.

Myth 2: If you are over 45, it will be very tough to get a good job.

Myth 3: People aren’t going to help me, a stranger, network.

Myth 4: Companies discriminate against people who have been terminated.

Myth 5: Having to look for a job is a sign of failure.

Myth 6: If companies know you are actively looking, they will take unfair advantage of you.

Myth 7: Resumes should be only one page. Your resume can be any length.

Myth 8: I can’t get a good job because no one is hiring.

Myth 1: It’s better to look for a job when you have a job.

Reality: Au contraire! This is perhaps one of the most persistent and strongly-held beliefs which we encounter. It’s so common that most people accept it without question. It is certainly understandable that we do feel more confident and secure when we have a job as opposed to when we do not. However, if you operate confidently, it really doesn’t matter if you’re employed or not. In fact, most of us who have learned to network effectively now see being unemployed as a decided advantage if you properly conduct your career search.

Myth’s assumption: The basis for this myth is the belief that you are more powerful and can be more selective when you are employed because you will not be forced to accept a job if it isn’t right.

We have discovered that this myth just isn’t valid anymore. The facts are that unemployed people with 40 to 50 additional prime-time job-hunting hours per week:

• Have access to more job-hunting avenues than when they were employed.
• Are free from being secretive so they can access valuable resource people who may have gotten them in trouble while they were working.
• Can initiate and go on five times (or 10 times) more interviews and, therefore, generate more offers from which to choose and leverage a better position and salary than their working colleagues.
• Are more likely to be selective in the quality of the job which they take, thus having a longer and more productive stay in their new job.

Surprised? It’s absolutely true. The stigma of losing a job, which used to frighten off employers, is virtually gone. Job loss of qualified people for all manner of reasons is now so common that the fact that you are out of work is of minimal importance as long as you do not appear to be upset and damaged yourself. Clearly, employers do not want to hire someone dragging around a lot of emotional baggage. Of course, there are still a few dinosaurs out there who still think as they did in the 1950s, but they are fast becoming extinct. You never have a better opportunity to be more powerful and effective at job hunting than when you are unencumbered by work and free to conduct your career search full time.

Myth 2: If you are over 45, it will be very tough to get a good job.

Reality: Well, yes and no. We’ve seen companies reluctant to hire a talented person because she was over 45, and we’ve also seen companies gravitate toward another person because he was 61, as they wanted a mature, seasoned professional who could bring a calming presence to the organization and be a mentor to others.

Myth’s assumption: This dysfunctional belief is that companies only want individuals under age 40, as they are the ones who have the new ideas, energy, and drive to make things happen and lead the organization to its next level of performance.

Granted, if you are 55, you might presumably work only another 10 years until retirement. But remember, the average length of service for a young high-potential person these days is five years or less, so the argument to hire only younger people as they will stay longer is just not very realistic. Since the probability of staying in a job for more than 10 years for anyone is low, given today’s economy and the throw-away mentality of many larger companies, the retirement window just doesn’t seem to hold much credence. Also, age is so relative. You can be young and think old, or you can be older and think and act younger than your years.

Much of the bias against older employment candidates is that older employees are seen as not able to physically maintain a demanding work schedule, or they are not very flexible thinkers, or they have outmoded technical knowledge, or they have old-fashioned operating styles, or they expect younger employees to defer to them as more wise and experienced.

What to do: If you are over 45, our counsel to you is to pay attention to your appearance. Dress smartly and attend to personal grooming. Go to an upscale clothing store and place yourself in the hands of a knowledgeable, well-dressed salesperson for both clothes as well as hair styling. Keep in good physical condition, given your health and circumstances. Use positive, upbeat, and forward-thinking language. Avoid history lessons, which tend to perpetuate your being stuck, no matter how much you enjoy them when talking about others. Brush up on your technical skills, including computer literacy. Meet people’s eyes with a friendly, outgoing smile. Be genuinely pleased to be there. Offer a firm handshake. Exude a sense of well-being, confidence, and energy. If you do, then you will find that the vast majority of executives actually prefer seasoned veterans who can jump right in without training, make reliable judgments which come only from experience, and keep the younger troops settled down during the turbulent times. The bottom line: Learn to operate more flexibly and effectively and live joyously, for enthusiasm and confidence are contagious.

Myth 3: People aren’t going to help me, a stranger, network.

Reality: Will Rogers was noted for saying, “A stranger is a friend I just haven’t met.” If there is anything that we have learned during our years of helping people to effectively transition through difficult career and job changes, it is that there are a multitude of people out there who will befriend you in this process. All you have to do is initiate the contacts. Time after time, we have found that if you extend yourself, add value to others, be straightforward and nonmanipulative, be of good cheer, confident, and enjoy yourself, you will do just fine.

Myth’s assumption: People feel that others are so busy with everything else in their lives, they will not stop to help you with your little job-hunting project. Unless they know you, others do not have any vested interest in your well-being. Why should they? They do not know you or care to know you. Your career search issues are your career search issues—not theirs.

What to do: Remember: The basis of all networking is relationships. If you have solid relationships with others, people will not feel that you are abusing the friendship. Rather, your friends will welcome the opportunity to support you. Likewise, your friends and colleagues have equally good friends who would support them if they needed help. If your contacts are solid, doesn’t it stand to reason that they would have equally strong friends who would be willing to extend themselves to others in need, provided you handle yourself appropriately? Even strangers? Sure, it happens all the time. Think of a networking introduction as a metaphor. In the early 17th century, communication was limited to carrier pigeons or hand-delivered messages. Letters of introduction, then, took on great significance. A letter of introduction was considered to be a strong endorsement, and the bearer was to be afforded the same level of respect and assistance as would the originator of the note. So it is with you. Consider a networking lead to be an introduction to a contact who will extend to you the same courtesies and support he would extend to your mutual friend.

Myth 4: Companies discriminate against people who have been terminated.

Reality: The fact that companies might be hesitant to hire someone who has been recently zapped has less to do with his or her employment status and more to do with the extent to which the person may be emotionally beat up or have a flawed operating style.

Myth’s assumption: Because involuntary termination is usually so painful, most people experience a tremendous range of often conflicting emotions during their job loss.

Anger, depression, or even trauma will show up in the workplace and make working with a previously terminated employee difficult. Regardless of your own rationale surrounding your exit from a previous company, a potential employer is interested in what went wrong and the reason for some of your choices. (What led you to this company in the first place? What are some of the choices you made? What have you learned in the process? What could you have done differently and why didn’t you? What prevented you from operating more effectively at this time?)

No company wants to hire a person who is defensive or upset (bitter, sad, angry, or vindictive). The extent to which you communicate or telegraph your upset or defensiveness is the extent to which the organizations will, at the very least, zero in on specific problem areas. Don’t count on this though. It is much more likely that the company will simply drop you from employment consideration without telling you the reason for the rejection or isolation. It is a rare company, indeed, which would straightforwardly communicate its fears and concerns to you. Unfortunately, you are left in the dark with little feedback and even less insight.

What to do: Review the earlier sections in Network Your Way to Your Next Job—Fast! on taking responsibility, and be sure that you have consciously chosen things to be as they are. Have your close and trusted friends observe and evaluate your behavior and language for emotionally-ladened words and dysfunctional behavior. Drop these immediately. Review Myths 1 and 2, and make certain that you have incorporated this perspective in your job-hunting efforts and your life. Power up your sense of urgency. Make sure that you contact enough people every day so that the occasional rejection doesn’t loom out of perspective.

Myth 5: Having to look for a job is a sign of failure.

Reality: Welcome to the 1990s! Don’t buy this myth for a moment. There aren’t too many people who haven’t been adversely impacted by an economic downsizing, directly or indirectly or by a personality “mismatch” at some point in their careers.

It’s been said that if you haven’t been fired at least once in your career, you haven’t been doing your job or that you have been operating too cautiously. In these days of so-called “rightsizing” there aren’t too many people who haven’t themselves gotten zapped, know someone who has gotten zapped, been bounced around involuntarily within a company, or been concerned about job security, at least once in their careers. Being out-of-work happens to the most talented and most capable. In fact, if you have been zapped, then you are in the company with some of the country’s leaders, including a few Presidents.

What to Do? Review your strengths, your credentials, your experiences, and your past successes. Take time to quantify and write down your accomplishments and responsibilities. List the valuable contributions which you made to your organizations. Start with the present and go back as far as you need to demonstrate to yourself how good you are and your skills are? If your skills are up to date, then enhance them through formal schooling or learning from a seasoned professional on the job. When you very proudly declare that based on these accomplishments and capabilities—you’d hire yourself—then you are ready.

Myth 6: If companies know you are actively looking, they will take unfair advantage of you.

Reality: We suspect that there will some organizations who will try to deliberately underpay you because you are unemployed or desperate to leave your current employer. An analogy might be that we have been admiring your car and we want to buy it from you for $1200. You snort—“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s worth $12,500!” While our example may seem far-fetched to you, many of us unwittingly fall into this trap when it comes to employment relationships if we are not careful and forget our ability to negotiate a better deal.

What to Do? When extended an offer, you do not have to accept any employment offer unless it is reasonable and makes sense to you. “Yes, but what if it is the ideal job for me?” you exclaim. Well, perhaps it is and perhaps it is not. If it is the “ideal” job for you—hopefully, the organization views you as the “ideal” person to fill the job which means you have some leverage to negotiate for additional monies, bigger title, company car, delayed start date, extra vacation—whatever you need to do to make it an acceptable offer.

If you are more in love with the organization than it is in love with you, you run the risk of being taken advantage of as you are entering into an imbalanced relationship. Closely evaluate the reason for the disparity in the relationship and see what company objections or misconceptions you can uncover, then dispel them. Several of our outplacement clients fell victim to blind loyalty, in that they were much more forgiving of the offenses of others in their company, while their colleagues were extremely critical of them. Fundamentally, our clients accepted positions in organizations where they did not have solid support and endorsement before they were hired, and things got even worse as time went on. Hopefully, no one is going to coerce you into taking a less-than-acceptable position. However, if you feel you are being bullied now, when everyone is supposedly on their best behavior, you have to wonder what these people will be like when you are part of the “family” and they can “abuse” you behind closed doors.

What to Do? Listen not only to your head, but also what your “gut” and heart are telling you. Is this the place for you? Are you being welcomed and made to feel a part of the team or do you feel like an intruder? While it is not uncommon for the negotiations to become strained if the offer is not great, you may need to assess the extent to which you are being unreasonable. Put yourself in your potential boss’s place and critically look at your behavior and demands. If you think you might be seen as unreasonable, modify your demands and behavior to still communicate what you want but do it in a highly supportive manner so as to create a “win/win” context.

Myth 7: Resumes should be only one page. Your resume can be any length.

Reality: While issues about resumes don’t technically fall into the category of networking, you will hear plenty of well-intended advice from your networking friends, colleagues, and search firms. This advice won’t all be restricted to the length of your resume; it will cover every conceivable element from the type font to its paper weight, color, and details to include, details to exclude—everything! You will find that everyone in the whole world is an expert in resumes and they want to give you their authoritative opinion.

What to Do? Your resume should be short enough to pique the interest of the receivers and not overwhelm them and long enough to communicate the breadth of your abilities, capabilities, and results achieved. The simple truth of the matter is that your resume should be a highly telegraphic marketing tool (and not a “tell all” document). It should be long enough to powerfully highlight your background and results achieved—and no more. You are dealing with resume “scanners”—not readers. To that end, your marketing cover letter has 5-8 seconds to “hook” the scanner and your resume has 10-15 seconds for the scanner to determine if your resume warrants a more in-depth screening. Clearly, that’s not much time to have your hard-earned credentials be evaluated and thrown into the “A” pile. Nonetheless, that is reflective of the stiff competition which you face when you venture forth on the marketplace. To that end, your resume should be no longer than two pages! If you are a recent graduate with less than five years of experience, then you might wish to consider a one-page resume which is normally associated with people at the beginning stage of their careers.

Myth 8: I can’t get a good job because no one is hiring.

Reality: Protests to the contrary, when it comes to the complex, multi-level market channels which must be used when looking for a job today, not many people really know how to market themselves in the most powerful and effective manner. You may have changed jobs before and learned a lot about job hunting, however just because you have changed jobs before does not necessarily mean that you captured all of the offers which were available for individuals with your background. In that last “go-around” how many offers did you receive? Did you get all of the money which you could possibly have wanted and dreamed about? On a percentage scale of 1 to 100%, what percent of your last job represented the perfect career move for you?

The phrase “No one is hiring” or “Everyone is cutting back” are used as the ultimate excuse for poor job hunting results. We have never, ever found it to be so, even in the worst of economic times. The belief that there are no jobs reminds us of the phrase, “Yes, but.” “Yes, I really am doing everything possible to find a suitable career position, but there are no jobs. I know exactly what to do. Why should I continue to look, there are no jobs!” When a person operates his or her life with an escape clause as big as this one, then it is easy to avoid assuming accountability for the way in which that person’s career and life looks. It’s no wonder some of us don’t accomplish much. These are the individuals who say that the market is terrible and, indeed, can cite statistics which seem to prove their point. These people know what they want, yet are unwilling to work for it. “Yes, but!” is the opposite of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”

What to Do? While you may be working harder and may even be exhausted, you may not be working as effectively as you could. If you are having a tough time in your job search, then you may wish to shift where you look and also improve the effectiveness of how you look. None of us operate fully to our potential. Your challenge and strategy is to learn what you are doing right and discover what you can do differently or do better. Even in the midst of significant economic downsizings some companies actually hire individuals with unique skills to “back fill” those positions created by the shrinking organization. As inconceivable as this is to departing employees, it is not that uncommon to hire one person with multi-faceted skills to replace two or more employees, thus lowering the overall payroll costs. Who knows, someone else’s misfortune may be your golden opportunity.