Why do some job hunters give up when they are just in sight of their goals? I've just seen Simon, a client who has been looking for a job for 6 months. Like many people on the market, he started out optimistically but has given up — not officially, mind you, but he's suddenly taken an urgent interest in redecorating his house.
Based on work with scores of clients like Simon, I suggest that there are six types of frustrated job hunters out there. The first type are people who think they know how to get hired, but don't. They have a lack-luster CV in overstuffed with clichés, a poor sense of what the market is looking for, and pay weak attention to the messages (both explicit and otherwise) they broadcast. If you've ever said to a friend, "All this job hunting advice is insultingly basic," this could be you — and you could be ensuring that you stay stuck in first gear. While some candidates say that job hunting and interview preparation are all common sense, plenty of employers simultaneously complain that even in a recession many applicants exclude themselves from a job conversation from the start.
Habit and pride are powerful forces, demonstrated by the category of people who have got their own way of doing things, thank you. Putting in the same dull interview performance repeatedly is very evidently an adopted strategy. Defending a resume that simply fails to get the right message across comes from the same school of thought. Often a radical rethink is the answer in that case. For instance, I came across a great test for a resume recently. You have the document with you at a party. A stranger asks you to tear off and give him the top three inches of the first page. Would that stranger have enough information to spend the rest of the evening telling people what you have to offer?
Then there are people who are too angry to change strategy. Blogs are full of these people who express irritation at any advice which is vaguely upbeat or optimistic — for them, discussing the glass as half full shows a naive blindness to the harsh realities of the economy. To sustain this anger, job hunts must be long and painful for these people. And yet their dominant mindset seems to be, "This tactic isn't working too well, but I will do it a couple of hundred times more to be sure." These people may start to believe that nothing can work, even holding on to rejection letters to prove to themselves that the market is too tough, too impenetrable, too random. Yet in fact, people in this position often only need to change a few small things to get very different outcomes.
Don't forget the people who engage in activities that look like job hunting. These candidates know they need to network towards decision makers, but they spend time drawing up contact lists and don't pick up the phone. They know you should be out there talking to people, but it's much easier to email resumes into the ether. They know it won't land you a great job, but sitting in front of a screen looks like work, and allows them to tick off all kinds of checklists. Even though candidates know that conversations with decision makers are most likely to shorten job search times, they still hide behind screens. They use LinkedIn as a reason to avoid human contact, not a means to encourage it. They pretend that social interaction in the job search process is an ultra-extravert activity, not a learned technique that can be adapted even by the most introverted.
Finally, there are the job hunters who know what to do, but don't do it. Most candidates looking for professional positions know that they're supposed to do a focused, multi-strategy job search. So why don't they do it? Yes, it's hard work, but the real hesitation comes from wandering outside your comfort zone, facing the risk that someone will say no, or you'll have to ask someone to do something they don't want to do.
Fortunately, I think these people all have the potential to become the sixth type of job hunter: people who learn how to do the right thing late in the day. You can make classic mistakes in the first month of your search: you can fire off random messages to random organizations, unburden your soul to key decision makers (rather than approaching them when you have an intact, single-focus request), and hit the market before you have got their redundancy story out of their system. But they recover.
By insisting that job searching is logical, simple and hardly worth thinking about, we don't think about it at all. We act as if it's as simple as making an online purchase. Yet it's an activity which is all about influencing, communicating a brand, eliciting support, and making connections — skills that can take half a lifetime to perfect. It's about persuading people you don't know very well to do something risky. Less like filing a patent request, more like launching a new product. Less like applying for a postal vote, and much more like getting yourself elected.
Here's an important reality check: employers have a strong sense that the way you look for a job is the way you will act on the job.
So, if you're the sort of person that says "I can organise a job search in my sleep," think again. A good job search means thinking ahead about how you are going to use your time most effectively, and knowing when to use which strategies. Yes, challenge advice and adapt it to your needs. Do things your own way, but make sure you include the things which are most effective, even if they are the least comfortable.
If you reinvent the wheel for yourself, it could be some time before you discover that a circle is the best shape.
John Lees
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