The Job Whisperer ®

Off you go down the career path you’ve chosen!  First order of business: find the right job.  That way you can use all the pent up passion and energy you’ve been stockpiling, the knowledge you’ve gained, the skills you’ve acquired.

And then it doesn’t happen.  You get no leads, you get no action, you don’t get past the gatekeeper, you don’t beat the competition, you don’t get to do what you thought you would be doing right now.

There may be many specific reasons, but they will fall into at least one of two categories and maybe into both.  You either have a faulty strategy or a faulty way of executing it.

A faulty strategy means that somewhere in your planning process, you made an assumption, drew a conclusion, or set a goal that may not be reliable or achievable.  For example, you chose a job objective in a field crowded with competition, or a field with a diminishing market, diminishing number of jobs that you want.  Or both (uh-oh).  In this case, perfect execution is absolutely critical–you will need to have it all: grades, credentials, work ethic, attitude, flexibility, humility, recommendations, and the best connections.

A faulty execution means that your strategy is sound (enough) but you aren’t executing it effectively.  ”Effectively,” when applied to an individual, means that your individual effectiveness in some aspect of the process is lacking.  You aren’t doing enough of something, you are doing too much of something, or what ever you are doing, you aren’t doing it as well as others.

Is anything ever perfect?  Not for long.  But you can do better, you can make better choices, and you can go back and review your plans and your activities.

First, review your strategy.  This may mean all the way back to who or what you want to be, and where you planned to be.  If you chose a profession with serious limits on its market growth (let’s see, maybe aerospace engineering, maybe newspaper journalism?)  it might be time to retool your strategy.  On the other hand, if you have exceptional credentials or can acquire them now, you may be positioned to be competitive even though it will take exceptional  execution.

How do you know if you need to correct your strategy? If the following are true for you:

1.  You did not get good grades in your chosen field.  I said good grades, not top grades.

2. You cannot articulate why it is the most important thing in the world for you to do every day.

3.  You did not check to see how many other people in the place where you intend to live are doing it, and how many people or companies  are willing to pay anyone at all to do it every day.  You see articles about large numbers of layoffs and job shortages in your field.

4.  You checked the above, but didn’t believe it would apply to you.  For some reason.

5.  You are now angry or upset with the economy or the labor market, for which you blame for your problems. (Okay, that one will be true for execution flaws as well.)

6.  You wish you had chose a different path, which you can now see that you might have done with good results.

7.  You have researched this, and you know that there are other places in the country, state, or region where you could do what you have been trained to do.

8.  You have not done any research at all; you chose the field because it seemed like a good idea at the time, or you listened to either your parents, your spouse, or your friends, who also did not do research on the field but thought “you’d be good at it.”

To correct your strategy, you must change your plans.  You will either have to do something different, or do your thing in a different place.  For people who are extremely committed to a profession–it is the only thing they can imagine doing–it’s easier to pull up the roots and take the garden with them.  For those who love where they live, the soil beats the roots every time.  They fertilize and nurture whatever flowers are willing to grow. (I am not riffing on “Bloom where you are planted.” Honest.)

But you might have an execution problem, not a strategy problem.  If so, the following are likely to be true:

1.  Your friends are being hired in the field, in the same community where your search is being conducted.

2.  You get interviews, but not second interviews.

3.  You are answering ads on job boards, as your exclusive avenue to consideration for the jobs you want.

4.  You see articles about talent shortages in your field.

5.  You have been given negative or positive feedback or advice on your appearance, your presentation skills, your attitude, your work ethic, your personal habits, your friends of your network (or lack of), your understanding of the job seeking process, your confidence, your manners, your ability to say what you mean, or your distraction with one or more of the above.  You have failed to heed the advice consistently.  Yes, you have to heed the positive feedback; it may not mean what you think it means to your search. (next blog)

6.  You have very active Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In accounts.  You say whatever is on your mind, quite a lot, and if that isn’t enough, you add the defining photo.  And you have no idea how all that privacy stuff works, or you understand it but you don’t care.

7.  You are now angry or upset with the economy or the labor market, who you blame for your problems.  Or your Career Services department, if you are fresh off of a campus or still on one.  (And by the way, this is not just a young careerist’s problem.  Many of us return to school to change careers, not bothering to solve the problems that plagued us in the first one.)

8.  You aren’t making execution mistakes because you aren’t doing anything.  At all.

You can solve either kind of problem, but no one can solve either kind of problem for you.  You have to be in control of your choices, whether they are your strategic career choices or the kind you make every day when you decide what to do, who to do it with, and where it belongs among your priorities.  You can always change your plans; sometimes you must.  And how you spend your time and what you think and say about it really makes all the difference in strategy execution–the rest follows your lead.

It sounds so formal, a little daunting, the kind of thing you’d like to put off, maybe forever.  When you are in the middle of something active and important—like making the best of a great job opportunity, or preparing to take the bar exam, or planning your wedding, career planning seems out of place.  But in fact, everything you do in your life has a place in your career.  You just have to link it all up, once and for all.  You can change your mind, revise any and all of your plans, or chuck it all in the manner of Eat Pray Love (which was, by the way, a very well-planned plan).  But you have to start with something.  Yes.  Sigh. Even–or even especially–in a recession.

A career plan starts with your life strategy, and includes your life partner’s strategy if you have a life partner and you intend to walk any part of the path ahead together.  Or if you prefer to holler at each other from different paths from time to time.   You can all change your minds—stuff happens—but articulating who you are and what you are about makes your intention real, and renders it far less debatable.  It is, for the record, who you intend to be.  Here are some examples of 21^st century adult life strategies, useful in some parts of the world:

• Raise a large and well-adjusted family
• Retire as early as I can
• Travel the world
• Start a family business and spend all of our family’s time together
• Dedicate our lives to our church
• Make as much money as I can as fast as I can
• Change the world in a specific way
• Get the best education I possibly can; then give back
• Restore health and wealth to our community
• Give our children everything we can
• Seek adventure
• Make amazing art
• Serve my country
• Save enough money to buy a house
• Build our own house with our own hands
• Start a band
• Work from home

Everybody is different.  I know that Daniel Pink doesn’t think about planning quite the same way that I do.  But you don’t have to do what everyone else does, do it in a suit, do whatever you want to do on a timetable that makes sense to anyone but you, or make a lot of money at it.  You do have to take responsibility for getting yourself where you want to go, and understanding that if you don’t head somewhere, it’ll be just your luck not to end up where you want to be.

I know people who have planned their lives and careers around things like staying sober, having day to day access to their parents, children, and grandchildren, building a substantial bankroll for an early retirement, writing a novel, and driving expensive cars.  Whatever works for you, and you don’t have to apologize to anyone, or tell a living soul your reasons.  The point of the plan is the alignment of your decisions with the place you want to be.  The plan amplifies and highlights what is important, and sends background noise to the background where it belongs.

On to your career plan—how will you fund your life strategy?

Your career represents your economic life—if it does not produce income (or sustenance, as a missionary or cleric who has taken a poverty vow might receive) whatever you are doing is an avocation or a hobby, or maybe even an internship.  And it may be important to your career or the ramp up to it, but it isn’t your career, at least not yet.

Your career plan answers three main questions:

Where do you want to go?

When you look toward the future, what do you see yourself doing, every day? The physical geography of where you want to do whatever you see yourself doing is part of the question. If you are committed to a profession or industry, you will want to be flexible about where you live. If you are committed to a community or region, you are better off being flexible about what you do.  It’s not easy to become a movie actor while living in Pittsburgh, as an example.

What is on and along the road ahead?

Is yours a highly competitive field? Do you live in an expensive and challenging community with few jobs? Are changes in the industry or region expected in the future? What will it take to get your ticket punched in the field? What are the implications of age and experience in your field? Is travel or frequent relocation likely to affect the career or plans of your loved ones? To do strategy right, you have to look down the road and anticipate the terrain, the traffic, and the other travelers.

How will you get there?

This is the key question. It addresses the choices you make, the ones you are likely to have to make, and the things you will give up. Your timing, your family and friends, your health, your age, your financial resources, and other factors play a part in how you proceed. It’s important to establish your career identity. In doing so, you are best served by being clear and focused, so that there is no confusion about your values and what you stand for. Your career itself, similarly, should be an unambiguous series of decisions that sets forth and provides context for your unambiguous identity.

Strategic career planning is a process of identifying the big picture, and then illustrating to yourself how you will manage the details in order to make the picture real. Ideas can be energizing, dreams are important, and affirmations are helpful, but actively managing a series of steps will bring you results.

I was in my thirties when I confronted the beast that was my education to that point.   There I was, in a management  job  I loved (Director of H.R. for a large diversified manufacturing and marketing firm), without the usual college degree.  I’d attended a big university for nearly five years, unable to settle on a suitable major.   Or, unable to sit in a seat in a classroom and focus, depending on how you view my bad decisions.  Or, if you view them as my parents did, more interested in social opportunities than educational opportunities.

Some of us do better in jobs than classrooms; I was one of those.  I liked working with others; professors back then tended to view collaboration as cheating, which meant you didn’t hear your profs say “Break up into your groups” as often as you do today.  Once I was employed, I enjoyed the constant feedback of the workday.  I loved the noise and interruptions of the workplace, the novelty, the chance to solve a real problem for someone, and, I’ll admit it, the drama of operations.

And apparently I did well enough to be moved up a few times and there I sat, missing a critical credential, when it became apparent that the fortunes of my employer were heading south, and the trend was picking up speed.

Having a job without all the usual punches in your ticket is not that unusual or difficult.  Replacing that job if you lose it can be not only difficult, but can take a very long time, if you can even do it.  Careers take place in two forums, What You Can Do, and What Other People Will Let You Do.  Others are less likely to trust you if you haven’t got all the usual ticket punches for the job you want.

Human Resources professionals and other decision makers work with a concept known as the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification.  BFOQ derives from and is outlined in federal equal employment rights laws and is set forth with the intention of prohibiting employers from establishing standards of selection that adversely affect protected minorities.

A college degree is a common BFOQ.  It is almost always required for management jobs, and you will increasingly note graduate degrees as a requirement, too.  The complexity of both the workplace and the world are creating increasingly higher standards for employment.

But, you say, what about Bill Gates?  Mark Zuckerberg?  Well, if you start your own business, you can do what you want.  But if you want to be employed by someone else, you have to be competitive.  Basic ticket punches are required.

So, here is my advice:

1.  Start by acknowledging that you can do this.  Get out of your own way by just making the decision that you will, and that it will change your life for the better if you do.

2.  Make the economic changes that you must.   If money is the issue, find a community college–most classes are arranged for the working professional.  You can take classes online, and you can’t afford not to, if you think about it.

3.  If you are employed, let the folks around you know that you are serious about this; do not hide either your goal or your reason.

4.  Be serious about this.   Do well.  Get top grades.  Attend class regularly.

4.  Celebrate your discipline and let it bleed over into other aspects of your life.  Rearrange your priorities and recalibrate your attitude.  Take things less personally; view the world around you from a different path.

5.  Meet new people and connect with a new network.  Make new friends.  Take the opportunity to remove yourself from the rut.

Education is only one aspect of the credential gathering that a career entails; there will be others.  Most people you meet in your day to day job may not realize that you haven’t gone to college, or finished college.  But you know it, and you know that it’s a critical element in your many next steps.  In the long run, it’s really easier to just do it, get the degree, finish (or start) your education, than it is to rationalize why you shouldn’t have to go to all this trouble for just a piece of paper.

It isn’t just a piece of paper.  It’s your career.

It would be great if we could always get the job, career, or compensation that we wanted, for doing something we love to do every day.  Or even work at something that we deeply believe in, for a cause that lives in our hearts.  When I see the words “Do what you love and the money will follow you” I cringe just a little, because I’d like to believe that.  But it isn’t completely true.

You have to work at marketable skills.  You can make the best product or provide the best service on the market, but if your sales and organizational skills aren’t up to par, or if your labor market tanks, or if your personal stamina, strength, or conviction falters at a critical moment, you won’t get far.

Most people don’t like entry-level jobs.  There is a reason; they are not at all like the exciting, uplifting, challenging academic life we just left.   Entry level jobs are worse than being a freshman again, but without the decent faculty, social opportunities, and sense of freedom that accompanies leaving home to go to college.  This is more like leaving college to go home, and sometimes that is actually what it is.  And it’s made worse if you have to endure unpleasant living conditions, hand over your clothing budget and walking around money to pay off your education debt, and watch some of your friends do something with their education that you think is more desirable.

Look at it differently and you will see the error of your thinking.  To an employer, you are a net liability for a while.  You have to be taught to do whatever it is that has to be done.  The smarter and more clever and rational you are, the less sense the work will make—to you.  After all, you didn’t go to school to do mind-numbing paper filing when you know perfectly well that OCR-ing and maintaining an electronic filing system would work so much better and then you could use that education of yours while showing everyone your stuff.   Of course, you don’t yet know what you don’t know.  There is a good reason for everything in an organization, and eventually it will become clear.  One very marketable skill is restraint.

There are others:

1. Patience. With yourself, your employer, your supervisor, your co-workers, your parents, and the newbies who showed up after you did.  The one thing that gets noticed in workplaces around the world is the willing, smart, helpful one who somehow gets things done because he or she is just like that.  Another thing is the identity of those who aren’t happy and make it known.
2. Organization. One thing you learned in school is how to organize your stuff, whatever it is.  Make a budget, make a list, make a schedule.  Teach yourself to seek the higher ground and organize the world around you every day.  That will not only give you less time to complain, but will effectively teach you management skills for life.  Organization shows through everything you do.
3. Optimism.  You think you are on the road to hell, don’t you?  This is the worst.  You will never get out of this pit.  These are all affirmations, and they aren’t good ones.  I hear them from everyone every day—there are no jobs, it’s a jungle out there. . . .blah blah.  Be the one who sees—and self-reports—the value in everything.  You want to be the optimistic one.
4. Strategy. Choose your strategy and stay with it.  No one gets the exact thing that they want right away.  It’s a long life, if you are fortunate, and both good and bad things will come your way.  You don’t have to follow a traditional path, and there will be lots of times that you have to change course to accommodate luck or disaster.  Just be prepared and alert to opportunities.
5. Agility. Once you are up to your ears in debt and lifestyle, you can’t be quick or travel light, so you lose opportunities to those who have less baggage.  Go basic.
6. Resource management.  Resources are: time, money, information, relationships, physical assets and materials, and above all yourself.  If you cannot do this, you will lose opportunity to those who can.
7. Sales: Listening for Need.  You think Sales is about the listing of attributes of a product or service.  But really, it’s about starting a conversation that leads you to understand how you can meet the needs of another.  Maybe not today, but someday.  Learn to listen between the lines.
8. Leadership.  It means being the first one in and the last one out, being punctual to meetings and respectful of the people who give you the paycheck.  It means not playing Plants v. Zombies where anyone can see you, and not trying to use the office computer to send your resume.  IT knows when you do that by the way.  And HR sees your material out there on the job board.  And everyone sees your Facebook posts.

You can learn and practice these skills anywhere, and they are worth working on.  You only get so much time in a lifetime, and your education on campus is only one aspect of your professional career.  That said, while you are on campus, it is in your best interest to maximize every minute of every day, and to establish a plan for your next steps as soon as you can.  If you are on the “just getting by” plan, if you are not getting your money’s worth from every single minute of every day, that is your own choice.

It is true that the value of your education will fluctuate throughout your life, and for the first few years you may not use anything you learned on campus.  Or you might, it depends on what you learned.  If you learn to be a great resource, helpful to others, leaderly in your approach to whatever task you are given, and accountable for the decisions you make, you will always have choices.