Whenever someone is looking for a better job, a role that challenges and fulfils them as a person and pays what their strengths are worth - what's the hardest thing about finding one?
Nothing.
That is, not enough happens.
You apply, you wait, you worry.
You get no answer from employers, and recruiters show you junior opportunities. Network contacts try to help, but - from what I see people experiencing - what comes of networking, even on socnets, is too few suitable leads and even fewer interviews. Eventually, something takes, and you do get an offer. But then they want to underpay you.
Or maybe you stay put in your job, avoiding the whole thing, telling yourself you have good reason to.
When, every job opening, 299 out of 300 applicants, many of them qualified, waste their time, it seems to me that pipeline of talent to carry out the needs of business is getting choked off in the hiring process.
A person can get the education, gain the experience, do the looking, the networking, polish their resume, compose the cover letter, send it off, and then, for all that serious, good-faith effort --- what? Even if they do interview you, what happens? They change the specs, hire from within, go with a junior, often peter out and not hire at all... or some other mysterious outcome.
Hands up if you've had this experience all too often. I really am not being negative, it's what I've seen as a private advisor. It's a motivation-killer if you aren't told to expect it.
The burden of building and maintaining strong personal career value is borne by individuals. You're the supply, the resource, and the machine can't process you effectively enough anymore.
You're not meant to apply, wait and worry. Help organizations hire you.
Directing so many career moves tells me it's time organizations considered standing back and watching the accelerated results that happen when self-aware, business-minded talent take up a more equal role in the hiring process and lead the conversation.
For conversations are what propel everything. I've identified 7 that move a career forward no matter what. All tasteful, all non-pushy.
Organizations erect a people-engine that feeds in applicants in, spits them out, misses what they have to offer and says nothing. Not only does this turn talent off, causing legions to want to stop working for corporate any more - it leaves business problems going unsolved and busy managers no further ahead on critical talent acquisitions.
The erratic hurry up and wait rhythm, the waste of time and erosion of talent value and construction of business productivity that is the hiring process have got to go.
Around here, the vagaries of the hiring game have been overcome, and we've successfully rewritten the rules, retired the clanking old hiring machine, to the appreciation of hiring managers and talent in many industries.
A new era of leading your own career moves, not delegating your career to a value-quashing, cumbersome hiring system is here.
When you cultivate your next boss and coach them to make a hiring decision, you will be more valued, move faster and feel better and they'll gratefully decide on you.
After all, hiring is part of management's business. HR provides due -- and perhaps overbuilt -- process but doesn't make the decisions.
Talk don't write. Ask, don't tell
If you are not getting the kinds of offers you want, and multiple good offers to choose from, here's why.
You telling people things about you, proffering your career history and rattling off an elevator speech, doesn't help them perceive your relevance, place high value on you and make their decision.
Pose more questions than supply your old, static past facts. Stating anything is not nearly as persuasive as the other person saying it themselves. And how previous employers utilized you is not what this employer needs you for, I promise. That's why pose questions - to help the other person tell you what they want.
I don't mean information interview questions; those lower your value because it's as if you are new, don't have much relevance yet and you belong on the bottom rung. That's never so. I've seen people land equivalent-level jobs in new-to-them fields in 4 meetings without a lick of official experience... by asking what must get done and already being good at those things.
So I mean insight questions; productive questions, so the other party - your boss to be - -is helped to see what their true thoughts and requirements are like. As you know, these factors are not always clear in the posting, or known by HR or the recruiter. I say you do not have to roll the dice and make a guess what's key and state that in elevator speeches and cover letters. You can discuss it, then write it up after you make them want you.
You can claim the gap between companies and talent and lead within it, holding your own shoptalk meetings to pinpoint the business value that must be produced.
Any boss you should be working for next is an industry colleague in effect. You can approach.
Better questions are the kind that nobody else is asking, the kind that let the manager talk about things they needed to think through but didn't make time for. The wants they often really haven't clarified yet by the time they hear back from HR or the recruiter who have a number of candidates to show. You can be the first to help the manager get clear when you cultivate them and ask, and neutralize their other choices of who to hire.
Question-design tips
- What they really want accomplished.
- Why that is so important.
- What they'd like off their plate.
- What is important to their customer
- What's important to them
Think out what excellence would look like, and what probably is a challenge to the boss and this unit, and create questions so you know what it is you do that would get them where they need to go. Flesh out your understanding. Then you can state you are good at these things.
Asking makes you the only person who 'gets' what is relevant and of value to that particular manager's specific situation. That's what they need, and the hiring process is a rickety, clumsy way to get to it. You can be the answer. And you didn't have to overinvest your time in company research, you just wrote an effective note or called in the way that works, so you reached them, and had a meeting. You are not still queued up the screening process. Let other applicants do that.
If you can't deliver the result that is really required or it's not your thing, find out faster this way, keep this good contact, and move on!
'What Keeps You Awake Nights' is a feature in Career and Money Mojo™ ENews, for your career freedom through better conversations. To receive the complimentary Career and Money Mojo ENews, published monthly by Mary-Frances Fox, the # 1 expert in raising your work's value to yourself and companies, go to http://www.career-mojo.com/count-me-in/. Mary-Frances Fox has helped over 2600 individuals get the work they need and want at higher pay than they thought they could receive, using her simple, 4-step Career EnergyTM system, now available as an Audio Kit.
