Looking for a new job and not having success? In this four-part series, you will increase your odds of job search success in four steps.
Step One: Pretend that you’ve just gotten the scariest call in your life, and get in the right mindset. Before you read about what this means, please realize that step one might be a reach for some of you. You might roll your eyes. You might want to stop reading immediately. However, if you can suspend your disbelief for a moment and take in what I am asking you to do, then you might find that getting a new job becomes much easier.
Here is the scenario: Assume you get an anonymous call on your cell phone. The person on the other end gives you very scary news. They are holding hostage the person in your life that you hold most dear. You have exactly 30 days to find a new job, or you will never see this person again. At the same time, if you fail, they will come and get you next. Then they hang up.
Most people in this scenario would be clueless, but not you. You are going to take this scenario seriously.
You really are going to act as if your life depended on getting a new job. Most people lack urgency and edge when they want a new job – especially compared to someone whose life depends on it. Many are so cynical and discouraged that they give only a half-hearted effort. Others don’t work full time at it, even though they claim that they are. Too many job seekers treat the exercise as if their life were a dress rehearsal, not their one and only chance in this brief moment in this very short life.
You are different. You realize that getting a new job in just 30 days is going to be like pushing a boulder up a steep hill. You understand that you have to put five, 10 -- even 20 -- units of effort in, just to see one unit of result come back to you. While others barely get the rock moving before they quit, you are going to keep pushing and pushing – no matter how exhausted you are, until that rock starts its way up the hill. And then you are going to keep pushing. Even if you have to take a step or two backwards, you are never going to give up. You will keep moving up that hill.
One other thought: People pushing a boulder up a hill don’t have time to think about status, pride, or whether the next job is going to be as good as the last one. You also don’t have the luxury of going back to school or making a long-term plan to change your skills. Right now, you don’t have a job, and your life is at stake. You don’t have the luxury to whine, or think like a victim. Keep pushing up the hill!
Before you read the next part of this series, get into the mindset that your life – and the lives of those dearest to you – literally depend on your getting a job, fast. Then think about what you are going to do next.
Andrew Neitlich is the co-author, with Jay Conrad Levinson, of Guerrilla Marketing for a Bulletproof Career, a book that reveals the secrets to career success in perpetually gut-wrenching times. For more information, and for additional articles, visit www.bulletproofcareer.com. He also runs the Center for Career Coaching, which trains career coaches.
