Jerry (due to the security nature of his job we are not
using his real name) came to my office a victim of the high tech bubble burst
in 2003 with an interesting problem. He was a middle manager in his middle 40s
and didn’t know how to look for a job. He really never had to look for a job in
the past. He had a good reputation and as long as things were going well with
high tech start-ups, employers were coming to him.
However, things were no longer going well. He had spent most
of his career in aerospace and telecom research and development. By time he
came to me, he had spent most of his summer sending out resumes without
success.
What Jerry needed from me was coaching on how to target
companies and tell his story in a compelling manner–concepts that he’d had no
reason to think about very much in the past. He also had to learn where he best
fit and what kinds of jobs to avoid. He was quite willing to do all three.
The first thing we did was work on “the fit.” The
opportunity of “making a killing” was the main draw to his previous jobs. In
retrospect, he realizes they were not good situations because he didn’t ask
enough questions. He even described his last job as a “toxic work environment.”
What he really needed was an opportunity to use broad
organizational and leadership skills to manage technical projects with some
high risks and exciting challenges. He also wanted to work with a
“reasonably-sized group,” which he defined as “over 10 people.”
Our next step was to have Jerry increase his networking
skills so he could make contacts to find his hidden opportunities–positions he
would fit that might not even exist. He did this by creating a spreadsheet of
20 target companies, who the principal players were at each company, if he knew
any of them and how to contact someone if he didn’t know somebody at the
company.
Next he called each company and wrote into the spreadsheet
what they talked about, when to check back and how he had left off the
conversation.
Then he would meet with me every two to three weeks and go
through what he did. If he was called for an interview, we would go through
typical questions and the methodology of answering those questions the day
before the interview. We also went through a debriefing during our next meeting
after each interview.
Most people go into an interview with the assumption the
employers know what they’re doing. Employers are just human beings, too, and
they’re subject to all kinds of flaws and weaknesses.
So instead of just answering questions, Jerry had to learn
to tell “his story” in a compelling way. People think that when they are being
interviewed, they are being interviewed for a job vacancy. If they can
communicate their value–Here’s what I bring to the table; here’s what I bring
to the company–more than a third of the time, the employer will create a job
for them.
It certainly worked for Jerry. After two interviews at major
defense contractor for a posted vacancy, the senior managers created another
job, one that is a perfect fit for him. He’s in charge of the research for
designing most of the surveillance equipment used to protect Canada.
Jerry got the job because he had a coach that helped him
stay focused on what he really wanted and then Jerry did the work. For More
Information Please visit www.jobjoy.com
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