Apr
How to Win the Job Hunting Game
Today the media is focusing on a growing unemployment crisis. Schools and universities will soon be flooding the marketplace with job-hunting students. The competition will be fierce.
Perhaps my experience will give the job-seeker a helpful perspective in his search for employment.
When I got over the initial shock of being urged to “seek alternative employment” in my younger years, I found that I was just another one of the pack following the same traditional job-hunting procedures as everyone else.
I wrote resumes, mailed them to the same prospects that everyone else was sending theirs to and found little comfort knowing that mine was included in a pile that was growing bigger every day.
To be successful amid all this competition would be tantamount to winning the lottery! It sure looked like the odds were stacked against me; especially after enduring the long non-event waiting periods that never ended. I got the same frustrating non-results and suffered the same heartaches, delays and disappointments as did most all the other “sheep.”
This didn’t seem right!
I began to realize that I was being victimized by a “me too” situation. I was awakened to the fact that I was offering essentially the same thing in the same way at the same time to the same people. My situation became dependent upon someone else in a system over which I had no control. I had yielded the control of my future to a system that made me an impersonal pawn in a game that didn’t care whether I won or not.
This was unacceptable.
I did some deep soul searching. I got “me” out of the way and took a cold, hard, impersonal look at the facts. I was shocked at what I found. It was this:
EVERYBODY IS TRYING TO GET A JOB!
That didn’t sound shocking on the surface, but then it hit me: All these “sheep,” me included, are out there focusing on trying to get a job! GET: 1) a highly competitive “something” that was in short supply, 2) that everybody else was competing to get and 3) a “something” that most prospects probably didn’t even have to give.
I couldn’t afford to play this game! I had to start working. I’m darn good at what I do. I deserved better than this. There MUST be a better way.
Reason and logic forced me to accept the conclusion that if I wanted to break away from this seemingly dead end system I had to make some changes. I had to break the pattern of sameness that plagued everyone else. If I was going to change a procedure that doesn’t work, I would have to reverse it and implement a procedure that does work. But how?
1. No one was just going to give me a job.
First, I had to realize that, contrary to what many seem to think, a prospect/business does not exist solely for the purpose of supplying jobs. They are in business to make a profit by providing a product or service to its customers in their particular market.
Whether I was looking for employment, wanting to progress in my present job or set a goal to accept new challenges in a new relationship, I better stop trying to GET something and put myself in a position where I could reverse things and GIVE something.
2. I must GIVE something to the prospective employer that he needed!
Needs! As I thought about it I realize that my needs would be met only when I met the needs of others.
So I decided to bypass the system and re-focus my efforts from what I wanted and needed to finding out what my prospects needed. How could they increase their productivity and profits? How could they increase sales? What could they do to become a more dominant factor in their market? Etc., etc.
I did some homework. I did a lot of research, learned all I could about my prospect’s situation and worked out a game plan. I presented my plan to the appropriate department heads and decision makers of businesses in my area. I was able to show my prospects how they could accomplish their objectives and why they needed me, my talents, my experience and expertise to make the plan work.
This simple procedure resulted in more than one opportunity. In my particular case, I took on more than one “job” and was able to contribute to lots of businesses. I’ve received hundred of “jobs” this way. In fact, without realizing it, I found that I had become a creative consultant and professional problem solver to the business community.
That was more than 50 years ago. Some things don’t change and these procedures work just as well today as well as they ever did.
The basic axiom “Find a need and fill it” is still relevant.
“You fill your own needs by filling the needs of others” has been proven throughout all recorded history.
This cannot be done if you are satisfied to just run with the pack, passively wait in the employment line and make your success dependent upon the mathematical statistics inherent in traditional job hunting routines. To assure your success, you must depart from the pack and offer your prospect something he really needs and prove to him that you are the one best qualified to give it to him.
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