South Bay transit corridor

Streetsblog » More Transit Expansion?: Metro Holding Meetings in South Bay

More Transit Expansion?: Metro Holding Meetings in South Bay

by Damien Newton on April 8, 2009

See link for map of newly proposed line.

It's funny. Los Angeles has a reputation for being the car-culture capital of America; and while I know the city's transportation culture is a lot more diverse than that; I have trouble arguing the point when I see things such as today's City Council Transportation Committee Hearing, which could be called the "how can we speed up cars in residential neighborhoods." But at the same time, pretty much the entire country is experiencing transit service cuts, or fare hikes and here in L.A., in large part because of Measure R, we're talking about the best ways to expand transit.

You could argue that we're just doing the expansion we should have been doing decades ago, but what's most important is that we're trying to do it now.

In the past week, I've announced hearings on the Regional Connector, the Subway to the Sea, the Gold Line Eastside Extension and the selection of a final route for Phase II of the Expo Line. If that's not enough, Metro recently announced a series of meetings along the South Bay to increase transit service. From their press release via the Daily Breeze:

The corridor stretches from Vernon and Huntington Park west through South Los Angeles to Inglewood, then south through El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Lawndale, Torrance and Carson.

Transit through the corridor could connect downtown Los Angeles with Los Angeles International Airport and Long Beach via a C-shaped curve through the county, according to a Metro map of the proposal.

Metro will gather public input on various transit options for the corridor, including a Bus Rapid Transit system, a light rail line and dedicated bus lanes.

The meetings won't begin until April 21, giving me a chance to catch my breath from this round of hearings, and for a complete list of dates and times, read on after the jump.

-- April 21 at 6 p.m. at the Boys and Girls Club of the Los Angeles Harbor in San Pedro, 100 W. Fifth St.;

-- April 22 at 6 p.m. at the Redondo Beach Main Library, 303 Pacific Coast Highway;

-- April 27 at 6 p.m. at Inglewood City Hall, 1 Manchester Blvd.,

-- April 30 at 11:30 a.m. at the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, 700 N. Alameda St., Room 2145;

-- and May 2 at 10 a.m. at Augustus Hawkins Nature Park in Los Angeles, 5790 Compton Ave. CNS-04-06-2009 17:23

Blog all caught up with mass transit articlues. Mass transit artilces found just before

the batch of articles on the job-hunting.

Seven Secrets of Successful Job-Hunters

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

Seven Secrets of Successful Job-Hunters
November 3 - November 10, 2004

Parachute Newsletter
by Richard N. Bolles

Well, the elections are over, and after a week of elation or depression, each of us will slowly return to the regular rhythms of life. One of those rhythms is Being Out of Work. Almost every one of us is out of work at some time in our lives. And not just once. The average person is out of work four - eight times in their lives. Wisdom can be distilled from the experience of successful job-hunters, that can benefit us all. Other than "giving up and waiting for God to prove He loves you," as one job-hunter put it, there are certain things you can do when you are out of work: study want-ads, job-postings on the Internet, tell all your friends and family what kind of work you are looking for, etc. There are also certain things you can think about, and keep clear in your head, at all times, while you are job-hunting. I call these "secrets", because they are not obvious to everyone. Here are seven of the most important.

1. Think of these as 'frontier days.' Think back to frontier days in the wild west. You rode into town or came in by covered wagon. And you were on your own. No one to help you, much. No unemployment offices. No government agencies. You had to create the work or find the work on your own. That is exactly the situation we are all back in. These are frontier days. Of course we do have ads in newspapers, such as this. Or on the Internet. But, nobody owes you a job. Not life, not the world, not the government, not the community in which you live.

2. Remember, there are always jobs out there. Maybe not in the field or specialty that you have been working in, all these years. But there are jobs that need you. Someone out there wants to see something get done, but either lacks the necessary skills, or the necessary time. You have the time, and (hopefully) the skills. They have money. The exchange of your time for their money is what we mean by 'a job.' Even during the hardest of times, many people have jobs, hence have money, hence are willing to give some of that money to other people who will do for them that which they cannot or will not do for themselves. Those who are already working create work for those who are not.

3. In looking for work, don't 'go it alone.' Build yourself 'a support group' comprised of family, friends, acquaintances, former co-workers, etc. Meet them often, talk about how this whole job-hunting process feels, get their suggestions and ideas and 'leads,' let your loved ones hug you….often.

4. In looking for work, you've got to take all labels off yourself. You are not a mechanic. You are not a truck driver. You are not a librarian. You are not a teacher. Or a secretary. Or a steelworker. Or an autoworker. Or a factory worker.

When you were born, and were lying in your crib there in the hospital, there was no tag around your wrist that said, "This is a nurse." Or, "this is an attorney." So, before you go job-hunting, remove all labels in your mind.

You are a Person, with certain kinds of knowledge, certain kinds of skills. You are good with your hands. Or you are good with your body. Or you are good with your mind. Or good at creating things. That is the only label you should mentally put upon yourself: "I am a Person, who is good at….or good with….(fill in the blank)."

5. In answering an ad, you must figure out what makes you different from nineteen other people who can do the same kind of work that you do. In interviewing for a job, an employer may interview twenty candidates (or more). The question going on, in that employer's mind, were he or she to speak to all the candidates at the same time, is: You are all gifted people, talented, experienced, with good credentials. But you all sound the same. I can't hire all twenty of you. So, I have to figure out who sounds different. The one worker who knows what makes them different from all the rest, and can communicate that difference to me, is the one I will hire.

In interviewing for a job, you must know what makes you unique. What do people praise you for? Is it your skills that make you unusual? Or is it the way you do your skills? Are you more thorough than most people who do what you do? Or are you faster at solving problems than most people who do what you do? Or are you more persistent than most people who do what you do? Or do you pay more attention to details than most people who do what you do?

6. In answering an ad, bring in any evidence you can that you possess the skills they are looking for. If the employer is looking for someone creative, bring in a scrapbook of your creativity. If the employer is looking for a computer programmer, bring in evidence of code you have written as a programmer. If the employer is looking for someone who comes in early, and stays late, bring any letters of commendation you received from a previous employer about how hard you work.

7. If you don't see ads for the kind of work you have been doing, then you must think through what services or products people need - - so that, figuratively speaking, you are making up your own ad, as it were. Think out what the people in your town or city need to have, or need to have done for them. Many people are working; they have money. What is it that the people who have money, need to have done for them? Delivering meals, to their place of business? Picking up laundry or dry cleaning from their home? Do people need advice, in areas where you are experienced, and an expert of sorts? Hang out "your shingle" as a consultant. Or do they need seasonal products? I used to frequently visit a mid-sized city. I noticed ingenuity everywhere. Unemployed people were selling umbrellas on street corners, if it started to rain. I noticed people were selling gloves and scarfs when it started getting cold. It was orange juice and fruits, when the weather got warm. I talked to some of these vendors, and found out that in many cases they were making a very good living. The website called eBay has started, for many people, careers that go beyond the boundaries of the town or city where you live. Your local bookstore, or amazon.com, has a number of books to tell you how - - such as How to Sell Anything on Ebay.…and Make a Fortune, by Dennis Price.

If you just can't find work you'd enjoy, but you still have some savings left, volunteer your time and services for nothing at the place in town that most interests you. Few employers will turn down good free help. And as you work there, you may 'be on the scene' when somebody quits, gets sick long-term, moves to another part of the country, etc. Better yet, while there you may be able to demonstrate you are so valuable, that the employer will move heaven and earth to find the money to hire you.

Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The Two Minute Crash Course on Picking a Field

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The Two Minute Crash Course on Picking a Field

When a woman is packing for a trip, she may throw in "this little frock, which can go anywhere." Likewise, when a man is packing for a trip, he may throw in a dark blue blazer, again because "it can go anywhere."

This idea, that you have something which could fit into a number of different situations, is probably the best introduction possible to the concept of "transferable skills."
Briefly stated, this concept holds that your basic skills – whether they be "organizing," or "analyzing," or "writing," or "teaching," or "planning" – are like that frock or blazer: they can go anywhere.

Therefore, you have to decide where you'd be happiest employing your transferable skills, because – believe me – where you'd be happiest is also where you'd be most effective.

This is called "picking a field." Sounds easy. But I have learned over the past thirty years that there is no subject where job-hunters and career-changers bog down more, than in figuring out their favorite field; so let me try to cut through the thicket by offering you ten ways to approach this.

1. What kinds of problems do you most like to solve?
In a sense all jobs deal with problems, and if you are good at your work you have to learn how to solve them. So, the question is: What kinds of problems do you most like to solve: are they with people, or with data, or with things? You get to choose the answer to this question, because your transferable skills can go anywhere.
2. What kinds of questions do you most like to help people find answers to? Is it: what are the most popular videos this month? Or is it: how do I get my car to run longer? Or is it: what makes a marriage work? Etc. You get to choose the answer to this question, because your transferable skills can go anywhere.
3. What knowledge of yours do you most like to display, to other people? Is it historical trivia? Or is it knowledge of computers? Or is it knowledge of some foreign land or culture? Etc. You get to choose the answer to this question, because your transferable skills can go anywhere.
4. What are your favorite hobbies or interests? Computers? Gardening? Spanish? Handicrafts? Stamps? Skiing? Etc. Note that most hobbies are also industries. So, if you identify your favorite hobby, you may have identified your favorite field of interest, in which you can employ your transferable skill.
5. What are your favorite words, that you most like to be tossing around, all day? Every field is, in a sense, a language. For example, the language of theology is: God, love, forgiveness, compassion, sacrifice, etc. The language of computers is: keyboard, screen, interactive, Web site, Internet, e-mail, etc. Often your heart is guided to a field where you'd most love to use your transferable skills, by considering what your favorite vocabulary is. Your heart knows, before your head.
6. What's your definition of 'a fascinating stranger'? When you're at a party or conference, and you meet someone really fascinating, what is it that they talk about, that you find so fascinating? Granted that their expertise in that subject may be greater than yours, it's still often a very helpful clue as to where you might like to use your transferable skills.
7. What newspaper or magazine articles do you most love to read? I mean, dealing with what subjects? Let's say you get really interested when you see a magazine article that deals with. ... what? Answering this, may indicate the field where you'd like to use your transferable skills.
8. What Internet sites do you most often gravitate to? "I gravitate to sites that deal with what subjects or fields?" Look at your bookmarks, here! There your favorite interests may lie naked before you, even if all other pathways prove to be dead ends.
9. If you watch TV, and it's a 'game show,' which categories do you hope the contestant will pick? Or, if it's an educational channel, what kinds of subjects do you stop and watch?
10. If you could write a book, and it wasn't about your own life or somebody else's, what would be the subject of the book? What would you most love to write on?

Once you've identified or chosen your favorite field, the rest is a piece of cake (comparatively speaking). All you have to do is figure out how your transferable skills can be 'worn' in that field. This is just a matter of "Informational Interviewing" or research. That research is often easier than you'd think. For example, if you decide your favorite field is "Movies," just watch the closing credits next time you're in a theater. You'll get lots of useful clues. And what a wonderful headline, afterward: "I found my job while watching 'The Thomas Crown Affair.' "
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

job-hunting articles divide into three basic categories

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

All job-hunting articles divide into three basic categories:
WHAT, (What do you want to do?)
WHERE, (Where do you want to do it?)
and HOW (How do you get hired there?)


My Parachute Picks:

WHAT do you want to do?
1998 Career Guide: Find Your Career
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/bccguide.htm
Written particularly for college students or would-be college students, this guide from U.S.News and World Report lists "the hottest jobs of the year in 20 different fields" and has career outlooks for those jobs; it also lists related job-listing sites and associations, for each career. Very Nice! This guide has a number of other interesting articles, such as "Job search on the Net," "Part-time career paths" and "Estimated Starting Salaries for Graduates."

When the normal lists don't interest you, and your searching for something really different, check Unusual Jobs.

For additional help with the WHAT question, look in the Research section of this Guide, under Research Sites: Career Fields

WHERE do you want to do it?
Informational Interviewing
http://danenet.wicip.org/jets/jet-9407-p.html
This important technique, serving as an alternative to the traditional job-hunt, is explained and discussed at this site; while they make the technique a bit more complex than it needs to be, this site still provides a good overview.

For additional help with the WHERE question, look in the Research section of this Guide, under Research Sites: Geography and Research Sites: Companies.

HOW do you get hired there?
Careers.wsj.com
http://www.careers.wsj.com
Under the heading "Job-Hunting Advice," this site has a number of articles about the HOW: Including how to react after losing one's job, plus other HOWs: Making a career change, relocating, searching, networking, using resumes and interviewing. While the articles are aimed at executives and management, their advice should be useful to all job-hunters. Taken from the Wall Street Journal's archives (among other places), these articles are on this relatively new Web site, under the leadership of Tony Lee, a former editor of WSJ's National Business Employment Weekly. (The one negative: The way that frames are used on this site drives me nuts. Some other users of the site have reported a similar reaction. Hopefully, however, you will love them.)
Virtual Interview
http://campus.monster.com/tools/virtual/
Monster.com's Career Center has a famous virtual interview exercise. It gives you the opportunity to practice a hiring interview, by offering you questions with multiple choice answers, and then telling you whether or not you chose the best answer. If you did not, it gives you a chance to try and choose a better answer the second time around. While some of the questions are cute, in the case of the more serious questions, personally I didn't think any of the answers they offered was the correct ones to give! The exercise needs: "None of the above" as an option, after each question. But, taken with a grain of salt, the exercise is fun to do, and you should learn some things by practicing.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The Myth of the 'Job Market'

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The Myth of the 'Job Market'

Parachute Newsletter
by Richard N. Bolles

Three Scenes from a Job-Hunter's Notebook

Scene One:
The Flower Market
A number of years ago I visited the Aalsmeer Flower Market, in Holland. This Market (actually called an 'auction') is the largest covered trade center in the world, with an area equal to 120 football fields (or 100 soccer fields, if you prefer)! And you can stand on a catwalk, looking down on much of it. I have never forgotten the sight. 17 million flowers and 2 million plants are auctioned or sold there daily.

I was told at the time – and being of simple mind, I believed it – that Aalsmeer was the only flower market in all of Holland, and that to this central market each day came every flower that was to be sold in the Netherlands, and every wholesale buyer (or shipper) who wanted to buy flowers in the Netherlands. I thought at the time that it was a wonderful image, and idea.

\Unfortunately, it turned out not to be true. Though Aalsmeer is the largest to be sure, there are actually seven flower markets (which is to say, 'auctions') in the Netherlands. But never mind. That fantasy of one central flower market for all of Holland, has been indelibly branded on my mind, forever.

Scene Two:
'The Job Market'
When, some years later, I came into the field of job-hunting and career-change, and I had to deal daily with the phrase "the job-market," I thought to myself: Wouldn't it be wonderful if the phrase "the job-market" really meant what it implied. That there really was one central market for jobs, somehow, where all came to meet: everyone who had a job to offer, and everyone who wanted to find a job. Here to this one central place they would come, and meet and find each other!

Alas! The phrase "the job-market" was a merely a poetic metaphor, that existed only in a poet's head.

There was no real "job-market" – not in the sense of that Holland market, as I fantasized it. There was no catwalk anywhere – metaphorical or otherwise – that looked down on all the jobs to be sold, and all the potential buyers of those jobs, in one central place.

Rather, an employer could go out their door, and walk up and down the streets, looking for a certain kind of person, while some job-hunter who was that very person could pass right by them, on the street, without the two of them ever knowing how close they had come to finding each other. And often, often, the thought went through my mind, how much of the difficulty of the job-hunt would be solved if ever it were possible to create that one central job-market in real life.

But it remained a vain hope – at least until the World Wide Web was born.

Scene Three:
The Internet
And there, at last, we had the chance to build what our Neanderthal job-hunting system had been aching for: one central place, one central "job-market."

On the Web we had a chance to establish one job-hunting site, to which everyone who had a job to offer, and everyone who wanted to find a job, could come. All jobs would be posted there. All job-hunters could come there. The beauty of this possibility was that the one site could be reconstituted in the twinkling of an eye, into various configurations. There would never be a need for a job-hunter to go through all 120 football fields, looking for a particular job. Since it would be a 'virtual' building (hate that phrase!), it could be approached in a number of configurations: you could hunt for jobs that were only in a certain geographical area, or only in a certain field, or only with a certain job title, or only with a certain salary, or any other criteria you might choose.

A clever society would have built such a site – would have used the World Wide Web as the opportunity at last to create this one central job-market, as the only place we needed to come – employer and job-hunter alike.

But we are not that society. So, what have we ended up with?
Well, the flower market in Holland has but seven places ('auctions') to which you must go if you want to try to cover everything flowery.

Whereas, the job-market on the Internet now has at least 2,500 places (sites) to which you must go if you want to cover all the jobs listed on the Web. What a tragedy! What an opportunity missed!

And yet, I still see in my mind's eye that market in Holland. And I still hope, that someday, we will be able to talk about 'the job-market' and mean it as more than just poetry.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The place of religion in job-hunting

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The place of religion in job-hunting

A reader asks:

I've noticed some reader feedback on amazon.com, claiming your book is too religious. Why do you feel it's necessary to include so much religion in your famous book? Why not stick to the topic of job-hunting and save the preaching for another book?

In answering this question I've found it's always best to start off by being frankly defensive. (Whimpering would be even better, but if you're six foot five, as I am, that makes for a truly pathetic sight.)

But defensiveness is good. Seeing it, people know they're talking to a flawed human being, trying to find his own way out of the thicket called Life.

So, my immediate defensive response usually runs as follows: "In the current 1999 What Color Is Your Parachute? God or faith is mentioned in only five sentences in the entire body of the book (241 pages long) – one sentence (only) on each of the following five pages: xiv, 23, 27,61, and 175.

"To be sure, at the end of the book there is an Epilogue (19 pages) discussing my views about how faith relates to the job-hunt and life/work planning. Many readers have asked for this. But this passage is buried as an Epilogue at the end of the book precisely so that no reader will feel compelled to read it unless they wish to.

"That Epilogue aside, five sentences about religion in a 241 page book can't really be called 'too much religion', unless one is holding out for 'no mention at all'."

On most days, this is about as defensive and whiny as I tend to get. Then I limp off in search of a more sunny maturity, looking for broad principles to answer the obvious follow-up question: "Okay then, why did you put an Epilogue about faith, in your book on job-hunting and life work planning?"

I can answer that best, through two similes or metaphors.

1.Job-hunting and Life/ work planning are like the rings of a tree.
The innermost ring, in our lives, is plain old job-hunting.
The next ring outward is career-change.
The next ring is career-planning.
The next ring is life/work planning.
And the final ring is finding one's mission in life.

We all tend to start with the innermost ring, job-hunting, but as we get older, we move outward, from ring to ring.

If one has religious beliefs – and according to Gallup polls since the 1960's, a vast majority of the American people (94%) have some kind of belief in God – there is danger if you leave your beliefs in a mental ghetto as you move through these rings. Most of my six million Parachute readers want some guidance, here, as evidenced by the fact I've gotten more appreciative mail about this Epilogue than any thing else I've written in my life.

And now to our second metaphor:

2. Religion is like a playpen or sandbox.
Every decent marriage counselor knows that there are two arenas in a committed relationship that function essentially as 'playpens' or 'sandboxes' in which the two partners act out in microcosm, who they most truly are in macrocosm. Those two playpens are "sex" and "finances."

In the playpen called "sex" there is a wide range of behavior, as people use their sexuality to act out who they are in relationship to others. And so we find sex used for dominance or submission, gentleness or roughness, anger or appreciation, love or hatred. Wide and various is this thing called "sex."

In the second playpen called "finances" there is likewise a wide range of behavior, as people use their money to act out who they are value-wise. And so we find money used for hoarding or giving, a love of power or a love of helping others, a love of things physical or a love of things spiritual. Wide and various is this thing called "finances."

Ah, but there is a third playpen in human life, and this is the arena called "religion" or "spirituality" or "faith." Here too there is a wide range of behaviors, as people use their spirituality to act out who they are in the life of their soul. And so we find:




Spirituality that is centered around God vs. spirituality that is centered around the self.



Spirituality that holds religion to be "a tale told by an idiot" vs. spirituality that holds religion to be God's constant grace in our lives.



Spirituality that is mesmerized by sin, vs. spirituality that is mesmerized by forgiveness.



Spirituality that sees oneself as "us vs. them", compared with a spirituality that sees oneself and the rest of mankind as "we."



Spirituality that is a desire to manipulate others, vs. spirituality that is simply a desire to share with others.

Wide and various is this thing called religion.

Hence, religion that is viewed as "preaching" by one person is viewed as the secret of life by another.

I hold the latter view.

I think religion and spirituality – the good kind – is not only the secret of life, but also the key to dealing with those rings.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The 3 Communities of Relationship Recruiting

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The 3 Communities of Relationship Recruiting
By Peter D. Weddle

As we have noted in past issues, the Internet is the perfect medium for relationship recruiting. Its technology provides a "mass one-to-one communications" capability which, for the first time in history, enables you to reach out and touch hundreds, even thousands of individuals with a message that is custom tailored to each and every one of them. It is an efficient and effective way to nurture the long-term recruiter-candidate relationships that are the bedrock of successful staffing.

But what relationships are we talking about? Ironically, the answer to that question has a greater impact on the outcome of your recruiting than does the technological power of the Internet.

Not surprisingly, many organizations focus on building relationships with candidates who are qualified for today's open positions. Time and resources are limited, and this approach gets the job done. But does it? Surveys and press reports have, for some time, documented widespread difficulty in meeting recruiting requirements. While full employment is often cited as the culprit (and it obviously plays a role), there is another factor that is exacerbating the situation: recruiters are selling their relationships short.

The 3 Communities of Relationship Recruiting

To be most effective, you should use the Internet to build relationships with not one, but three groups: your organization's employees, those who are candidates for your current job openings and those who are not in the job market but may be interested in a new position which they view as career-enhancing.

Your Own Employees. If your organization is like most, it now includes an employee referral program in its recruiting effort. The Internet can help you to extend and enrich this program and thereby expand its contribution to candidate development. For example, use e-mail to pro-mote the employee referral program, to announce awards and to thank those who participate. In addition, use your corporate Web-site as the platform for program participation. It should be the location where open positions are posted (so that employees can see what's available right from their desktops) and referrals are made.

Another way to build relationships with employees is to engage them in "selling" the organization to prospective candidates. Cisco's Friends program is a case in point. The company has en-listed its employees as "peer recruiters." They follow-up with visitors to the Cisco Web-site who have expressed an interest in learning more about the company and registered to be contacted. Their interaction with these candidates helps to personalize the recruiting process and gives them a psychic boost, as well.

Candidates for your current openings. Ask all respondents to your job postings to include an e-mail address with their resume. Then, use that medium to (a) respond to every application you receive (including those from individuals deemed not qualified for a current opening, as they may be a legitimate candidate for another vacancy in the future); (b) keep active candidates continuously informed of their status; (c) direct candidates to company information at your own Web-site or to articles in publications that appear on-line; and (d) continue the "selling" process by sending them a candidate newsletter or other regular communication about the organization.

Those who are not yet candidates. Build long-term relationships with high caliber individuals in a wide array of fields. Use the Internet to expand your networking from those you know (i.e., your Rolodex or Palm Pilot) to those who know you. Don't bombard newsgroups and other virtual communities (e.g., on-line discussions hosted by professional, trade and affinity organizations) with e-mail solicitations. Instead, join and participate in these groups, offering your expertise as a career resource for its members.

Similarly, transform the employment area of your corporate Web-site or your stand-alone recruitment site, if you have one, into a different (and more appealing) kind of job board. Make it a rich trove of job search and career management information and assistance that is open to and designed to serve everyone. Wherever possible and without being intrusive, capture individual information so that you can continue to interact with visitors after they've left the site. Focus on helping these proto-candidates to be successful, and they will eventually want to work with you.

The technology of the Internet enables you to conduct such mass 1:1 communications at a fraction of the cost and effort associated with conventional print and telephonic media. More-over, each interaction can be custom tailored to each individual so that it contributes to a positive and meaningful relationship ... and gives you a competitive advantage in recruitment.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The virtue of making mistakes

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The virtue of making mistakes

Life/work planning is my beat. And there are a thousand stories in the naked city. Oops, wrong column. Let's start again.

She was 22, and as bright as they come. But she had just been through an experience which she felt she had not handled very well.

"Guess I'm not as bright as I thought I was," she said.

I counseled, "Of course you are. You just haven't had enough 'life experience' yet." She stared at me, quizzically. So, I pressed on, with the following story.

I once found myself on an airplane, sitting by the window. No one was in the middle seat. But on the aisle was a woman in her early forties, reading a manuscript of some sort. What drew my attention to her was a nervous habit she had, of which she seemed oblivious: she was constantly moving her right hand and wrist in circles in the air. I felt sorry for her, having such a nervous mannerism.

She laid the manuscript down, eventually, when lunch appeared, and apparently in the mood to chat, she sweetly turned to me and said, "You know, I never would have believed how long it would take to get strength back after your arm has been in a cast for six weeks. The doctor makes me do these exercises endlessly." I slunk down in my seat, feeling like a complete idiot. But then I realized she had given me a beautiful metaphor for what happens to all of us in life.

The Metaphor of the Cast
From the time we are little, our decision-making abilities are put into a kind of 'decision-cast.' The grownups make all our major decisions for us through high school. And then suddenly we are told, "Okay, now you're a decision-maker. Go, and make a lot of decisions."
But we just sit there, figuratively messaging our arm, trying to get some strength back into this ability which has been in a kind of emotional cast for years.

It's not surprising that many of us have trouble. Trouble deciding what college to go to, or whether to go to college at all. Trouble deciding what our major should be. And trouble deciding what occupation to pursue after graduation, from high school or college.

We're not dumb but because we just hadn't had enough 'life experience' at that point, some of us go on to choose the wrong major in college, the wrong occupation in life, the wrong life-partner, the wrong habits, the wrong diet, the wrong value system, and the wrong addictions - often turning our back on spiritual strengthening and opting instead, for 'better living through chemistry,' as Joel Fort used to put it.

Sometimes we cause great hurt to others, by these wrong decisions, and wake up one morning to find ourselves living on streets littered with regrets. Ah, what to do then?

What to Do With Regrets
"Life/work planning" teaches us three important steps toward making our peace with those regrets.

First, learn to forgive yourself.
It's relatively – I said 'relatively – easy to ask God to forgive us, harder to ask others to forgive us, but hardest of all to learn to forgive ourselves. It perhaps helps to understand what that means. "To forgive yourself," someone has said, "means giving up once and for all, all hope of ever having a better past." We have the past we have; we must understand it made us stronger.

Secondly, understand that, for humans, mistakes are the way we best learn.
Many, many times I heard Buckminster Fuller emphasize this: "Man is a creature intended by His creator to learn primarily through making mistakes." And - he would add mischievously - in school we should give an A to the students who have made the most mistakes, for they are the ones who have learned the most. It helps to think that life too gives an A to those of us who have made the most mistakes, if indeed we learned from them - mostly not to repeat them. As the old saying has it, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." By mistakes, we acquire wisdom.

Thirdly, we must understand that experience is intended to teach us compassion.
The Old Testament has this exactly right. "You shall not oppress a stranger, you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Every experience we have in life must be remembered, for this is the source of our compassion toward those we encounter later on, who are now in the same fix we once were.

'Life experience' – it is to be valued, even the times we made mistakes, for, wisely used, it becomes the source of our wisdom, our forgiveness and compassion. In other words, the things that make us valuable human beings on this planet Earth.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

Childhood dreams come back to save us

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

Childhood dreams come back to save us

Parachute Newsletter
by Richard N. Bolles

Many of us take a job early in life that seems to offer everything we could want in a job: it puts bread on the table, clothes on our back, a car in the garage, and an interesting group of people to work with.

But an increasing number of us find, as we move toward mid-life, that we grow restless, like a caged tiger pacing back and forth within its cage. And eventually, we realize that our work is the problem. We weigh it in the balance, and find it wanting. It feeds our body, but not our soul.

Long forgotten questions resurface in our mind, such as "Why am I here on earth? What was I put here to do? What is it I want to accomplish with my life, before I die?" We want to feel passionate about our work, so we search for clues. And, strangely enough, we often find the best clues back in our childhood.

Something about that period – our childhood – that made us see things more clearly than we knew, for we were innocents, and our business was to play. It is in our childhood play that the clues most often are found.

It was also our business as a child to daydream. And the phrase we often hear, today – "Find the job of your dreams" – hearkens back to our childhood dreams, when dreaming was what we did best.

The Story of Anne
All of this is perfectly summarized in the true story of Anne. She is a woman who tried to make her living, for many years, as, first, a musician, and then, as owner of her own small business. But neither satisfied her. After twenty years of this, someone told her she needed to go after her passion – and said it in a way that she could hear. She went to a career counselor, who had her write seven achievements of which she was proud, and then search for the skills they all used, in common "The common theme," she discovered, "was that I live for data. I like to gather it, analyze it, look at it, reproduce it, organize it and dream about it."

For insight as to "What kind of data?" the counselor examined with her each of her seven achievements. But let her tell her own story: "The one which jumped out at the career counselor was the fact that I had taught myself genetics in my childhood. He encouraged me to talk about what I'd done in genetics, particularly in sixth grade. After listening, he pointed out that most sixth graders do not invent races of people and then think about how all the racial characteristics would be inherited, or spend hours drawing out the predicted results of every kind of cross imaginable between my race and all the others."

So that was it. Her favorite skills were with data, and her favorite data was genetics. "I finally came to understand that I was a geneticist, whether or not I made my living that way." And this passion had manifested itself in her childhood, as early as sixth grade.

She knew she had to do something about that childhood dream, even though the idea was daunting for two reasons. One was that she was 39. The other was that she is legally blind.

Anne found the strength by pressing into service the delighted child that she once was.
"The thought of working in the lab to transfer 50 50-microliter aliquots of liquid from one flask to another was maddening to me at age 39. But the six year old Anne who filled her grandmother's drawer with tiny bottles and longed desperately for a way to transfer liquid accurately between them, found the experience absolutely delightful."

Anne also pressed into service from childhood the skills she'd learned from being blind:
"I knew, because I'd had to do it in my daily life how to infer physical location from numerical data. I could, from the very beginning, look at a set of mapping data and 'see' the map. The process of inference so essential to genetics had been a part of my life for years – because of my vision impairment, not in spite of it."

And so, from the memories of her childhood, Anne found all the clues she needed, to identify her passion, her skills, her special interests, and her mission in life.

When we are at that place in life ourselves, where restlessness grows apace, it is to our childhood we must go, in memory, and search to find again what once was very plain to us, and now has grown obscure: our passion in life. Or, as Anne puts it, "I wish I could make people understand that everything which delighted them as a child still truly matters."
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

How long should you wait for your dream?

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

How long should you wait for your dream?

It's always interesting how we tend to rush things. For example, summer.
Technically, summer doesn't begin until June 21st, at 12:49 p.m. (PDT). But try telling that to those of us whooping it up on this Memorial Day Weekend. As far as they – or we – are concerned, summer has now begun.

And what a lovely thought that is, after the dreary cold spring we have had! Summer is a fun time, and a time – if we wish – for reflection on what we want out of life.

Some anonymous genius wrote a fable about this, which goes as follows (I am retelling it in my own way):

Building A Business
One summer, an American investment banker was vacationing in Mexico, in a small coastal village.

He was down at the dock just as a small boat was docking. The banker noted that on the deck of the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna, and only one young Mexican fisherman. He addressed the fisherman in English (which he understood), extended his compliments on the quality of those fish, and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman replied, "Only two or three hours."

The banker then asked why he fished so briefly. The fisherman said two or three hours of such work gave him enough money to support his family's immediate needs.
Said the banker, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" The fisherman said, "My day is this: I sleep late, then fish a little, then play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, then stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos."

The banker saw an opportunity to be helpful. He said, "Back in the States I am an investment banker. If you wouldn't mind a little advice, I think I could help you with your business." The fisherman looked curious. "What would you advise?"

"Well," said the banker, "Were I in your shoes, I would spend more time fishing each day. You would eventually be able to buy a bigger boat with your increased proceeds."
"And what then?" asked the fisherman. "Well, with the proceeds you would receive from using the bigger boat you would eventually be able to buy several such boats. You'd have a fleet. And with that clout, you could get rid of the middleman, and sell directly to the processor. Eventually you could open your own cannery, leaving you controlling the product, the processing and the distribution."

"And what then?" asked the fisherman. "Well, at that point you could afford to live anywhere. You could put your wife and your kids in a luxurious house or condo, say in New York, and just enjoy all the fruits of your vast enterprise."

The fisherman said, "Very interesting. How long would all this take?" To which the American replied, "I think you could achieve all this easily within 15-20 years."

"And what then?" asked the fisherman. The banker laughed triumphantly, "That's the best part! When the time is right, you take your firm public, and immediately you become very rich. In fact, you would make millions."

"Millions...!!! Very interesting. And what then?" the fisherman asked.
The banker thought for a moment. "Well, gee. At that point, you could afford to retire. A wonderful retirement, in fact. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your grandchildren, take siesta with your wife, Maria, stroll to the village in the evenings where you would sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Why Wait?
The point, of course, is that many times we could have now the life we are only dreaming about having sometime in the distant future.

But, the first condition of having it now, is to know what it is. Leisure time in summer is a good time to put this together, by noticing what you love to do, when no one is telling you what to do.

One man I know of – a salesman – used his summer in just such a way, but was dismayed to notice that what he most loved to do would never generate enough income to support his family: he loved to 'play bridge'!

But, he started small – holding on to his sales job – just teaching bridge to people on Friday nights and weekends. Soon he was in such demand that he had to quit his regular job to teach bridge full time. Eventually he had to hire other teachers. In time, he expanded to other cities. He ended up earning far more than he had ever earned as a salesman. And doing what he loved to do.

The moral of our tale: don't ever give up on finding the life you would most love to live. And finding it now.

Skills. Was ever there a more misunderstood subject, or a more misunderstood word?

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

What do you have to offer to the world?

I was reading the papers the other day, and came across someone talking about "unskilled American workers." Oh my, oh my, I thought to myself, as a paraphrase of Pete Seeger's song began to run through my mind (well, strolled, actually): "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"

Skills. Was ever there a more misunderstood subject, or a more misunderstood word?
It has been so, for ages: people "putting down" other people by saying, "They have no skills."
Let us stand in front of the mirror, and say it loud and clear: "Everyone has skills. Everyone has skills." Dozens. Hundreds.

I teach a two week workshop every summer, attended by people from around the world, poor, rich, young, old, schooled and unschooled, and no one – no one – has ever failed to have at least 500 skills. The only question is: which kind, and what are they?

We are all born gifted, we are all born 'skilled.' Even the most (so-called) handicapped among us. Watch a baby learn, digest information, and put it to use. The skills every child has are astounding!

What, then, are these skills? What do we have, to offer to the world?
Basically there are three kinds of skills that you have, and I have, to offer to the world. It is useful to think of them in three categories: verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

Your Skills as Verbs
Some of your skills are verbs, or can be made into verbs, ending in "-ing"
Like: healing, sewing, constructing, driving, communicating, persuading, motivating, negotiating, calculating, organizing, planning, memorizing, researching, synthesizing, etc.
These are your Transferable (Functional) Skills. They are also called talents, gifts, and 'natural skills.'

They are the strengths you have, often from birth.

Some people, for example, are born knowing how to negotiate; but if you weren't, you often can learn how to do it as you grow. So, some of these skills are 'acquired.' You rarely ever lose these skills.

They are called your Transferable Skills because they can be transferred from one occupation to another, and used in a variety of fields, no matter how often you change careers.

These skills are things you are good at doing with one of three universes: either people, or things or data/information/ ideas.

Most of us lean toward preferring work that is primarily with either people, or data, or things. And why? Because that's where our best skills lie, that is, the skills we most love to use.
You were born gifted: you are good with either data, or things, or people.

That's the first thing you have, to offer to the world.

Your Skills as Nouns
And then, some of your skills are nouns. Like: computers, English, antiques, flowers, colors, fashion, Microsoft Word, music, farm equipment, data, graphics, Asia, Japanese, the stock market, etc.

These are called your Subject Skills, or Knowledge Skills. They are subjects that you know something about, and love to use in your work.

They are knowledges stored in your brain – which you may think of as a vast filing cabinet, at your command. They are often called 'your expertises.'

You have learned these, over the years. Through apprenticeships (formal or informal), school, life experience, books, or from a mentor. It doesn't matter how you learned them; you did. Question is: which ones do you absolutely love to use?

These expertises are the second thing you have, to offer to the world.

Your Skills as Adjectives
And then there are the third kind of skills, those that are adjectives or adverbs.
Like: accurate, adaptable, creative, dependable, flexible, methodical, persistent, punctual, responsible, self-reliant, tactful, courteous, kind, etc.

You know, of course, these are your Personal Trait Skills. Traits are the ways you manage yourself, the way you discipline yourself. Hence, they become the style in which go about doing your transferable skills. Often these are hammered out, in the crucible of experience.

We speak of our traits, in everyday conversation, as though they floated freely in the air: "I am dependable, I am creative, I am woman, I am man." But in actuality traits are always attached to your transferable skills, as adjectives or adverbs.

For example, if your favorite transferable skill is "researching," then your traits describe or modify how you do your "researching." Maybe: methodically. Maybe: creatively.
Maybe: dependably. And so forth.

These styles, these self-disciplines, are the third thing you have, to offer to the world.
How you combine these three kinds of skills, is what makes you unique.

It is important then, that you figure out what kinds of jobs need the transferable skills, and the expertises, and the traits that you most like to use. After all, you were born because the world needs what you uniquely have to offer.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The three dangers of resumes

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The three dangers of resumes

Resumes, ah resumes! How they are ever with us, in any talk about the job-hunt, whether in magazines, newspapers, or in books, or on the Internet.

For the employer, the virtue of resumes is that they offer an easy way to cut down the time employers have to spend with job-hunters. It only takes a skilled human resource person about ten seconds to scan a resume (30 seconds, if they're really lingering), so getting rid of fifty job-hunters, I mean fifty resumes, takes only half an hour or less. Whereas, interviewing those fifty job-hunters in person would take a minimum of twenty-five hours. Great time savings! Resumes are obviously here to stay, if some employers have anything to say about it.

For the job-hunter, resumes also appear attractive. After all, they offer an easy way to approach an employer. No maddening phone tag, no frustrating attempt to get an appointment with someone in authority, no taking the bus, or driving the car, or sitting in someone's outer office for a blue moon, only to be rejected after all of that.

No, with resumes you just take a piece of paper, summarize your qualifications, and mail it to the organization, if you have a particular target in mind. Or post it on the Web if you have no target and you want to cast a wide net – an "Inter"Net. And voila! – so the myth goes – with your resume "out there," your job-hunt will take care of itself.

Who perpetuates this myth? Well, job-hunting "experts" mostly, and job-hunting writers in particular: most of them emphatically tell you that a resume is the way to go.

So, let's look at what is never discussed, namely, the three dangers of resumes.

1. They may never get read.
"Employers" are not a united group: they are as diverse as a mob at the Super Bowl. Many employers dislike resumes, some detest them. I run into such employers all the time. "Can't tell a thing about a job-hunter from his (or her) resume." So, especially on the Internet, the odds are terrific that your resume is not even getting read.

Pete Weddle, who writes for the National Business Employment Weekly, got some resume sites on the Internet to tell him (last year) how many employers actually looked at the resumes on their sites. (Sit down, while I tell you the news.) A site that had 85,000 resumes posted: only 850 employers looked at any of those resumes in the previous three months before the survey. Another site with 59,283 resumes posted, only 1,366 employers looked at any, in the previous three months. Another site with 40,000 resumes, only 400 employers in three months. A site with 30,000 resumes, only 15 employers looked in, during the previous three months.

So, you send out your resume or post it on the Internet, confident that employers are reading them, when – in a depressing number of cases – nobody is.

2. They may cause you to give up prematurely.
Resumes may be a useful part of anybody's job-hunt, but they should never be your entire plan. You can send out tons of resumes, or post them on every resume site on the Internet, and not get a single nibble. The statistics are: only one job-offer is tendered and accepted, for every 1470 resumes floating out there in the world of work. Consequently, 51% of all job-hunters who base their job-hunt solely on mailing out or posting their resume, get discouraged, and abandon their job-hunt by the end of the second month.

3. They may wipe out your confidence in yourself.
This is the greatest danger, by far, of depending on resumes. If it were just a matter of trying a job-hunting method that didn't work very well, it might be okay. You pick yourself up, and go on, still keeping a good self-esteem. But in fact, the danger of resumes is that if you believe in them, and they don't work for you, you start to think something is really, really wrong with you. And if some of your friends tell you their resume actually got them a job (not true: it only got them an interview), you may feel lower than a snake's belly. Many job-hunters never snap out of the depression and feeling of worthlessness that ensures. Every resume should carry a warning label: "Using this may be hazardous to your mental health."

Given these three dangers, there is a better way to go: choose carefully the organizations that interest you (find them in the yellow pages), research them, in libraries or on the Internet, ask every friend you have if they know someone at that organization, and – using these contacts – get an introduction to the employer on the inside. It takes more work, but your self-esteem will end up riding high.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The five rules about taking career tests

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The five rules about taking career tests

When you're puzzled about what to do next with your life, the idea of taking some kind of career test may strike you as a really great idea. There are a lot of such tests out there.
They're not really "tests" – you can't flunk them; more accurately, they're called "questionnaires" or "assessment instruments." But most people still call them "tests."
They come in many forms and flavors – skills tests, interests tests, values tests, psychological tests, etc. – and their names form a veritable alphabet soup: SDS, MBTI, SII, CISS, RHETI, and the like.

Trouble is, they take time and energy. You have to get dressed and get yourself down to a community college counseling center, or career counselor's office, or State unemployment office, or one-stop career center, or a Johnson O'Connor Human Engineering Laboratory – where the tests and the test administrators can be found. You have to leave your house.
That's been true for years.

But now there's a new wrinkle: now you don't have to leave your home, to take some career tests. If you have access to the Internet (as you do, dear reader, because you're reading this here on my site) career tests can now be plucked off the Internet, and taken in the privacy of your own home. Our eyes light up! Now you're talking!

Here's the best of what's available in your home, by title (most sites explain what their particular test or instrument is trying to measure). All are free, or cost less than $10 (payable online):

John Holland's Self-Directed Search is available online at http://www.self-directed-search.com/. The best of the career tests (in my opinion), as of January 1, 1999 it has been taken by more than 24 million people. $8.95.

The Career Key at http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/l/lkj/. Related to Holland. Free.

The Birkman Method(r) Career Style Summary at http://www.review.com/career/careerquizhome.cfm?menuID=0&careers=6 with intriguing career suggestions at http://www.review.com/career/article.cfm?id=career\car_job_top_ten&jobs=0&menuID=2&resources=1. Related to the Birkman Method. Free.

The Personality Questionnaire at http://meyers-briggs.com/info.html (Yes, "meyers" is deliberately misspelled here.) Related to the Myers-Briggs. $3.00.

Keirsey Character Sorter at http://www.keirsey.com/. Related to the Myers-Briggs. Free.

The RHETI Test at http://www.9types.com/. Related to the Enneagram. Free.

Psychological Testing Tools. Eleven tests, to be found at http://www.metadevelopment.com/ $75.00 each.

(More tests can be found at http://dir.yahoo.com/Social_Science/
Psychology/Branches/Personality/Online_Tests/)

Now, before you reach for your modem, there are five rules to keep in mind when approaching career tests in general, and online tests in particular:

1. Treat all tests as suggestive, only.
Tests have one great mission and purpose: to give you ideas you hadn't thought of, and suggestions worth following up. But if you ask more of them – if you ask them to absolutely tell you what to do with your life – you're asking too much. On many online (and offline) tests, if you answer even two questions inaccurately, you will get completely wrong results and recommendations. You should therefore take all test results not with just a grain of salt, but with a barrel.

2. Take several tests, rather than just one.
You will get a much better picture of your preferences and profile, not to mention career ideas, from three or more tests, rather than just one.

3. Don't let tests make you forget that you are absolutely unique.
All tests tend to deal in categories, so they end up saying "you are an ENFP" or "you are an AES," or you are a "Blue." You are lumped with a lot of other people, as in a tribe – and sometimes it is the wrong tribe. Just remember, you are "a unique job seeker seeking to conduct a unique job hunt, by identifying a unique career and then connecting with a unique company or organization, that you can uniquely help or serve." (Thanks, Clara Horvath) Without some hard thinking about how you are unique, tests become just "a flytrap for the lazy," as job expert Mary Ellen Mort puts it.

4. An online test isn't likely to be as useful as one administered by a qualified professional in your community.
If you don't like the results you get from any of the online tests (or if you don't have access to the Internet) go out and look for tests in the kinds of places I listed above.

5. Don't force online tests on your friends.
If online tests do help you, don't for Heaven's sake become "A Career Test Evangelist" and try to force all your friends and family to take such tests. People are very skittish about tests. For example, some people dislike "forced choice questions," where they must pick between two choices that are equally bad, in their view. Others don't like questions about how they would behave in certain situations, because they tend to pick how they wish they behaved, rather than how in fact they actually do. And some people hate all tests. Period. End of story. So, trying to force these tests on your family or best friends could lead to your premature demise. Be gentle: the life you save may be your own.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

'Finding a support group,' and no job-hunter should be without one.

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

Two thirds of a depression

When you are out of work during a prosperous time like the present, it's easy to get the feeling that everyone in the country has a job except you.

As you walk the streets, seeing everyone laughing around you, with no one guessing the depth of your lostness or sorrow at losing your job, it can be a mighty lonely feeling.

You Are Not Alone
So, let's put that feeling in some kind of perspective, with actual numbers. Turn to the so-called Great Depression. During the height of that Depression, which was 1933, the government says there were over 12 million Americans out of work. We all would agree that's an awful lot of people out of work at the same time.

Now turn to the present time, and what do we see? We see 7 million Americans currently out of work, which is close to two-thirds the number of people who were out of work at the height of the Depression. Whoops!

Why didn't you know that? Well, it's not ever popular to talk about how many people are out of work. Year in or year out, regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats are in power, it's more popular to talk about the unemployment rate. 'Rate' is so clinical, so objective, so removed from the thought of actual souls going through a very difficult period in their lives.

Also 'rate' can be made to sound good! For example, the unemployment rate in 1933 was 24.86%, which sounds terrible, while the unemployment rate recently has been hovering around 4.4%, which sounds great.

Hiding Suffering
We rarely think to ask: 24.86% of what? And, 4.4% of what? The answer is: "the number of people in the labor force at that time." Hence, what can vary greatly, over time.

In 1933, 12,830,000 people were out of work, but because the labor force was much smaller than it is today – there were only 51,590,000 people in the labor force at that time – this worked out to a 24.86% unemployment rate.

Today, the government admits there are at least 6,083,132 people out of work, but because the labor force is much larger than it was in 1933 – there are now 138,253,000 people in the labor force – this has worked out to a 4.4% unemployment rate. 4.4% sounds like a small figure, but it masks a large figure – over six million people out of work – beneath it. And it masks a lot of suffering.

Unhappily the true figure is even worse than that. The government now counts unemployment in a different way than it did in 1933; it no longer considers people to be 'unemployed' if they've not looked for a job in the last four weeks. Those people, 1,200,000 in number currently, are now classified as "discouraged workers." (!?!!?) Add their number to the unemployment figure currently, as any sane person would, and you find there are actually 7,283,132 people out of work in this country, currently.

So, you are anything but alone, if you are out of work in these prosperous times.

Don't Go It Alone
But you can sink into a depression – not the economic kind, but the emotional kind – if you try to go it alone. You need to go find some of those seven million other unemployed, and work together with them on your job-hunt.

It's an exercise called 'finding a support group,' and no job-hunter should be without one. Here's how to find a support group:

(1) Ask about local groups. Such groups are likely to be found in religious centers, or at your local college or community college, or at the State employment office, or your local Chamber of Commerce, or in the pink/white pages of your phone book under such well-known names as "Forty Plus," "Experience Unlimited," etc.
(2) Check the newspapers. Look in the business section of your local newspaper, all week long, as they often list group meetings of job-hunters. Also check out the National Business Employment Weekly, available at your local bookstore or newsstand. ($3.95 an issue) They have a weekly "Calendar of Career Events" which lists a sampling of support groups around the nation. You may, to your great surprise, find one that's near you
(3) Check with local career counselors. While they primarily offer individual services, some also run support-groups. Before deciding to go with such a counselor, however, please read pages 306-315 in the back of the 1999 What Color Is Your Parachute? to learn how to appraise career counselors.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

The 14 Ways to Look for A Job

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The 14 Ways to Look for A Job

Not many people realize it, but the job-hunt is one of the most studied phenomena of our time. It is amazing what we know about it.

Acquainting yourself with this research can pay rich dividends to any job-hunter, and especially if your job-hunt is running into trouble. Let me illustrate what I mean.
Most job-hunters think there are basically only three ways to go about their job-hunt: resumes, ads, and agencies. Actually, there are fourteen:

1. Using the Internet to look for job-postings or to post one's own resume. (1%)
2. Mailing out resumes to employers at random. (7%)
3. Answering ads in professional or trade journals appropriate to your field. (7%)
4. Answering local newspaper ads. (5-24% depending on salary demands)
5. Going to private employment agencies or search firms. (5-24% depending on salary demands)
6. Going to places where employers come to pick out workers, such as union hiring halls. (8%)
7. Taking a Civil Service exam. (12%)
8. Asking a former teacher or professor for job-leads. (12%)
9. Going to the state/Federal employment service office. (14%)
10. Asking family members, friends, or professionals you know for job-leads. (33%)
11. Knocking on the door of any employer, factory, or office that interests you, whether they are known to have a vacancy or not. (47%)
12. By yourself, using the phone book's Yellow Pages to identify fields that interest you, then calling employers in those fields to see if they're hiring for the kind of work you can do. (69%)
13. In a group with other job-hunters, using the phone book's Yellow Pages as above. (84%)
14. Doing what is called "the creative approach to job-hunting or career-change": doing homework on yourself, to figure out what your favorite and best skills are; then doing face-to-face interviewing for information only, at organizations in your field; followed up by using your personal contacts to get in to see, at each organization that has interested you, the person-who-actually-has-the-power-to-hire-you (not necessarily the human resources department). (86%)

There are five interesting things about this list:

1. Researchers have discovered 'the effectiveness rate' of each of these methods.
By which I mean, we now know how often each method 'pays off' for the job-hunters who use that method to hunt for a job. Those figures in parentheses above are the effectiveness rate.

2. We know the failure rate of each of these methods.
That is, how often they don't 'pay off' for the job-hunters using that method. This failure rate is found by simply subtracting each effectiveness rate, above, from 100. You can do the math.

3. I listed the fourteen methods above in inverse order to their effectiveness.
That is, researchers have discovered that method #1 above is the least effective way to conduct your job-hunt, while method #14 is the most effective way.

4. Generally speaking the effectiveness rate for each method is directly proportional to how much work that method requires of you.
That is to say, method #1 requires the least work, but it is also the least effective; method #14 requires the most work, but it is also the most effective.

5. You want to use more than one method, but less than five.
Researchers discovered that one third of all job-hunters never find a job because they give up too soon. And the ones who give up most easily are the ones who are using only one job-hunting method (such as sending out resumes).
51% of those who use only one method of job-hunting abandon their job-hunt by the second month. On the other hand, of those who are using two or more methods, only 31% abandon their search by the second month.

Does this mean that you should try to use all fourteen methods, if your job-hunt just isn't working? Not exactly. As I said earlier, it is amazing what we know about the job-hunt.
Researchers discovered that job-hunting success increases with each additional method you use, but only up to four methods. If you use five or more of the fourteen methods listed above, job-hunting success starts to decrease.

I have pondered this bizarre finding, and concluded that the explanation may lie in the fact that you can give up to four methods the time each deserves, but if you try to do five or more, you start cutting too many corners.

Well, there it is. Some of what we know about the job-hunt. The moral for your next job-hunt? Don't just use one method, such as resumes, or ads. Use up to four methods, and especially those that pay off the best.

And give thanks for our friends, the researchers!

The Magic of Alternatives

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

The Magic of Alternatives
November 11 - November 17, 2004

Parachute Newsletter
by Richard N. Bolles

If you are job-hunting, the most important thing you need to do is to keep hope alive. That is not always easy. . Day after day of sending out resumes, with not a single answer, day after day of searching employers' ads, here or on the Internet, without a single nibble. It is easy to get discouraged. Yet hope is everything. Hope will keep you going, against all odds. Therefore we must understand the rules for keeping hope alive.

Having studied successful job-hunters for over thirty years, I have discovered that their most important Secret for keeping Hope alive is that from the beginning, the successful ones have chosen alternatives.

At least two alternative job-hunting methods
At least two alternative ideas of what they could do with their skills
At least two alternative fields that they would enjoy being in
At least two alternative 'target' organizations that they can go after
At least two alternative ways of approaching employers
At least two alternative job prospects
And so forth.

There is magic in having alternatives. The reason is simple. If you have only one way - - one process, one field, one job, one target, and so forth - - and that one way doesn't work, you have no backup strategy to save you, and so Hope dies.

But you can keep Hope alive if you are obsessed with the idea of always having alternatives - - from the very beginning.

I can illustrate this with many examples. But this one from job-hunters' actual experience is as compellling as any: in the U.S. one third to one half of all job-hunters simply give up, by the second month. Yikes!

Okay, now the sixty four dollar question: why is that?

It turns out the 'why' is related to the number of job-hunting methods they used. There are many job-hunting methods to choose from: Answering ads (here or on the Internet); sending out resumes, via the Internet or by direct mail; visiting the Federal/state employment agency; asking family or friends for 'leads'; asking friends for vacancies where they work; going to your high school or college placement office; placing an ad on the Internet or in your local paper, as a job-hunter; etc.

A study of 100 job-hunters who were using only one method of job-search, found that 51 of them abandoned their search, by the second month.

By contrast, a study of 100 job-hunters who were using several job-search methods, found that only 31 abandoned their search, by the second month.

I don't think it's hard to figure out why this is. As I just said, if you use only one job-hunting strategy - - say, resumes - - and then that strategy doesn't turn up anything very quickly, you tend to lose Hope. You staked everything on that one strategy. If it doesn't work, you're finished.

On the other hand, if you are using two, or more methods, your Hope tends to stay alive - - because, when one method doesn't work for you, you think to yourself, well surely one of these other methods will pay off - - and so, you keep on going. You keep Hope alive.

How many job-hunting avenues should you use, in order to keep hope alive? Well, it looks as though logically the answer should be: the more job-hunting methods you use, the greater your success will be, at finding a job. No limit.

But, actually it turns out there is a limit. One study revealed that the likelihood of your uncovering those jobs that are out there increases with each additional method that you use, up to four. However, if you use more than four methods, your likelihood of uncovering those jobs that are out there, starts to decrease.

I have pondered this strange finding, and concluded that the reason for this is that if you try to do more than four methods you will end up only taking a stab at each one, rather than giving each the time and thoroughness that it deserves and needs, in order to be effective.

So, by all means add a second alternative (besides, let us say, resumes) to your job-hunting strategies, but do it carefully and thoroughly. And only after investing the appropriate amount of time in that, should you consider adding a third, or - - at most - - a fourth alternative.

When should you go on to another alternative? Basically, it's when you've tried the old method, and it just doesn't work. Our tendency, altogether too often, is to just do more of it. Job-expert Carol Christen defines this as "job-hunting insanity." In the job-hunt, the cure for this kind of insanity is alternatives.

So, if you answer ads in the newspapers, if you answer job-postings on the Internet, if you send out your resume everywhere, if you sign up with agencies in vain, and nothing is working, don't just do more of it. And don't give up. Change your tactics.

Thus will you keep Hope alive. And that is everything to someone who is out of work, and hunting. Wise job-hunters know from the beginning that they are hunting secondly for a job but first of all for Hope.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

All That I Know About Job-hunting I Learned from ... The Apprentice ??

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

All That I Know About Job-hunting I Learned from ...
The Apprentice ??
November 18 - November 24, 2004

Parachute Newsletter
by Richard N. Bolles

No, I’m just kidding. Sort of.

Truth is, I don't watch TV much. I do hear gossip about this TV series or that, from time to time, but basically they go their way and I go mine. They come. They go. And, so do I.

But then last January 8, along came a series that my friends told me I just had to see. It was called The Apprentice, and described itself variously as The Ultimate Job Hunt, or The 17 Week Job-Hunt, or whatever. Inasmuch as The Job-Hunt is the field in which I have toiled or danced for the past 35 years, of course I did watch the series.

So did a lot of other people. The Apprentice - - now in its second season, hence: The Apprentice 2 - - has been wildly successful. It was the most watched show on television the first week that it launched. It has continued to enjoy ratings that advertisers love. It's so valuable to NBC that the network moved it to a new day when it looked like The Apprentice would get trounced by "American Idol." Its audience is made up of young, ambitious, upwardly mobile young people, plus your basic Survivor ‘target population’: millions of people with their nostrils still flaring, hungering for more elimination contests, grief and rejection

It’s a huge hit. To give you an idea of how huge: during its first season (January 8 – April 15, 2004) an average of 20.7 million people watched each week. It was NBC’s #1 series of the season. In its second series, the show has a lower viewership (15.7 million a couple of weeks ago) but that’s still a lot of people.

It’s category is entertainment. After all, its Mark Burnett. And, Donald Trump. It's Survivor - - in a new dress: set in the jungle of the business world. It’s two teams - - 16 contestants in its first season, 18 in Apprentice 2, competing against each other, with one team losing, one contestant eliminated, at the end of each episode. And the last to be left standing, is the winner of The Big Prize, a long-lasting (maybe even lifetime) job, paying six-figures, with The Donald and his organization. It’s Donald Trump himself saying, to some hapless contestant at the end of every episode, “You’re fired.”

But, the show isn’t pure entertainment. It’s edutainment -- entertainment mingled with some education in part. The Apprentice is always teaching, teaching, teaching, whether it intends to, or not. After all, these contestants are real people, facing real problems and challenges. As you watch the teams being set the task of, say, remodeling a house so as to raise its appraised value, you have to think to yourself, How would I have done this?

As I said, it is partly education. Unhappily, it’s education primarily by bad example, and by way of warning. The Apprentice’ teachings are mostly in the form of “here is what not to do”. So, I’ve turned that around, and my summary here is in the form of what you should do, if you’re looking for a job.

Here is all I have learned, or re-learned, from watching The Apprentice:

1. Never Have Just One Target. A really good job hunt is one where the job hunter, from the beginning, has alternative "targets," which is to say, alternative employers, in mind to choose between, ranked in order, so if the top one doesn't pan out, they can turn to the second. And then to the third. And the fourth.

Unhappily, in The Apprentice, the one and only target is a job with Donald Trump.

2. Treat the Whole Job Hunt as a Research Project From Beginning To End. There are two questions to be answered in any really good job hunt, once you’ve chosen a target: The first is obvious: Do they want me? But the second is equally important: Do I want them?

A pioneer in the job hunt field, Dr. Nathan Azrin, was the first to observe that hiring is more like the dating game than it is like buying a new car. In the hiring process, as in the dating game, both parties get to say whether this is someone they want to spend the rest of their life with.

If you are conducting a good job hunt, the would-be employer is always on trial with you, just as you are always on trial in the eyes of the employer. It’s a two week street. You thought this was your dream employer. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s not. Therefore, every new encounter (and that includes the hiring interview or interviews) with him or her should be another part of learning whether or not you want to work for them..

Unhappily, in The Apprentice, the question, “do I still think this is the job that fits me best?” is never even asked. It is assumed that if it is with Donald Trump, the job has got to be fantastic.

3. Always be an information-gatherer. A really good job hunt is one where job hunters have taken time to research the job they are seeking. - - on every step of the way If you hire a sub-contractor, you should ask a lot of questions first. When assigned a new project, a little information-gathering first before taking action, is mandatory. .

Unhappily, in The Apprentice, fools rush in, where angels fear to tread. They see themselves as men and women of action, rather than first researching the task at hand. And the ultimate question, “do I still think this is the job that fits me best?” is never even asked. It is assumed that if it is with Donald Trump, the job has got to be fantastic.

4. Don't Think of Yourself as 'A Job Beggar. A really good job hunt is one where the candidates think of themselves as "resource persons" rather than as "job beggars." They approach an employer in order to offer themselves as a resource for the tasks that employer needs to have done, rather than as one who is desperate for just any old job there.

Since the candidates on "The Apprentice" don't know what the tasks of the Ultimate Job will be, it's impossible to act as anything but job beggar. True, the candidates might guess that the tasks will involve selling, hiring, advertising and negotiating/buying, but they can't be sure. They are essentially shadowboxing in the dark.

5. While Job-Hunting, Be Aware of Who Your Competitors Are. Competitors? Who has competitors? Well, you do - - if you’re job-hunting, or soon will be. Your competitors are other job-hunters who are going after the same job as you are.

It was discovered quite some time ago that the most successful job hunts are conducted by people who are job-hunting with other job hunters. The concept was invented by Dr. Azrin (again), and is called "The Job Club." It has been widely copied ever since. The idea is that if you and others are job hunting, you could and should band together, tell each other what kind of job you are looking for (in detail), and enlist the ideas and contacts of those other job hunters (just as they enlist yours). It's the old "one hand washes the other" theory of human relationships. It works, and it works well, because all the job hunters are looking for quite dissimilar jobs.

So far, so good. But, what we have in The Apprentice is a warped, fun- house-mirror version of this idea. These are not people trying to help one another find complementary jobs. These are 18 people -- nine on the Apex team, and nine on the Mosaic team – all of whom are after the same job and with the same employer. Team members may be pretending to work together with each other toward each episode's goal, but in the end they must do their best to eliminate each other. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, because you never watch, just remember the principle in real life: Job hunters or candidates work best as a team or job club. On such a team, you need others' help; they need yours, if all are to emerge not only with a job but also with their humanity intact.

Incidentally, the thing about this series that I found most amusing was something Donald Trump said when he appeared on "The Tonight Show" at the end of the first season. He was explaining to Jay Leno that the producers had told him The Apprentice: The Ultimate Job Hunt would only require three hours of his time each week. Instead, he complained, it was turning out to be more like 30 hours per week. I laughed out loud. Apparently, even bosses need to do more research before they agree to something.
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.

INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWING

JobHuntersBible.com: Newsletter Archive

How To Research Companies or Places When You're Off the Internet



INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWING

Before you walk in the door of an organization, you want to know something about it. The Internet, and your local library, are good sources for finding out some of this information.

But sometimes the Internet (and libraries) just aren't going to tell you what you need to know. Most specifically, they are not likely to tell you what the problems of that organization are; and that information is important.

You want to have some idea of what an organization's problems, challenges, needs, etc. are, in a broad and general way, because you need to be able to present your skills in terms of their needs or problems.

So, you're going to have to go out and find the information yourself, face to face. This is called "informational interviewing" – and what it means, quite simply, is that you need to go talk to everyone you know, who may know people inside the organization that interests you.

And you need to do this before you go in there for an interview with that all-important person (there): the person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you-for-the-job-you-are-interested-in.

So, here are Four Rules for finding out the information you're looking for.

RULE NO. 1:

IF IT'S A LARGE ORGANIZATION THAT INTERESTS YOU, YOU DON'T NEED TO DISCOVER THE PROBLEMS OR NEEDS OF THE WHOLE ORGANIZATION. YOU ONLY NEED TO DISCOVER THE PROBLEMS, OR UNMET NEEDS, THAT ARE BUGGING THE-PERSON-WHO-HAS-THE-ULTIMATE-POWER-TO-HIRE-YOU.

Conscientious job-hunters always bite off more than they can chew. If they're going to try for a job at the Telephone Company, or IBM or the Federal Government or General Motors or – like that – they assume they've got to find out the problems facing that whole organization. Forget it! Your task, fortunately, is much more manageable. Find out what problems are bugging, bothering, concerning, perplexing, gnawing at, the-person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you. This assumes, of course, that you have first identified who that person is. Once you have identified her, or him, find out everything you can about them. The directories will help. So will the clippings, at your local library. So will any speeches they have given (ask their organization for copies, of same).

If it's a committee of sorts that actually has the responsibility (and therefore the power) to hire you, you will need to figure out who that one individual is (or two) who sways the others. You know, the one whose judgment the others respect. How do you find that out? By using your contacts, of course. Someone will know someone who knows that whole committee, and can tell you who their real leader is. It's not necessarily the one who got elected as Chairperson.

RULE NO. 2:

IN MOST CASES, YOUR TASK IS NOT THAT OF EDUCATING YOUR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYER ABOUT A NEED THEY'RE NOT AWARE OF; YOU'RE ONLY TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT NEEDS THEY ARE AWARE OF. THIS IS MIND-READING, NOT EVANGELISM.

Sure, if you're real good at finding out stuff, you may have uncovered – during your research – some problem that the-person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you is absolutely unaware of. For example, in your research you may have uncovered the fact that, "Gosh, this firm has a huge public relations problem; I'll have to show them that I could put together a whole crash P.R. program." That's the problem that you think the-person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you ought to be concerned about. And you may be convinced that this problem is so crucial that for you even to mention it will instantly win you their undying gratitude. Maybe. But don't bet on it. Our files are filled with sad testimonies like the following:

"I met with the VP, Marketing, in a major local bank, on the recommendation of an officer, and discussed with him a program I devised to reach the female segment of his market, which would not require any new services, except education, enlightenment, and encouragement. His comment at the end of the discussion was that the bank president had been after him for three years to develop a program for women, and he wasn't about to do it because the only reason, in his mind, for the president's request was reputation enhancement on the president's part ... "

Interoffice politics, as in this case, or other considerations may prevent your prospective employer from being at all receptive to Your Bright Idea.

In any event, you're not trying to find out what might motivate them to hire you. Your research has got to be devoted rather to finding out what already does motivate them when they decide to hire someone for the position you are interested in. In other words, you are trying to find out What's Already Going On In Their Mind. In this sense, your task is more akin to a kind of mind reading than it is to education. (Though some people-who-have-the-power-to-hire are very open to being educated. You have to decide whether you want to risk testing this.)

RULE NO. 3:

DON'T ASSUME THAT THE PROBLEMS, OR UNMET NEEDS, OF THE ORGANIZATION HAVE TO BE HUGE, COMPLEX AND HIDDEN. THE PROBLEMS BOTHERING THE-PERSON-WHO-HAS-THE-POWER-TO-HIRE-YOU MAY BE SMALL, SIMPLE, AND OBVIOUS.

Often what's bothering this person is the day-to-day friction he or she had with the people they have to work with. If the job you are aiming at was previously filled by someone (i.e., the one who, if you get hired, will be referred to as "your predecessor"), the problems that are bothering the-person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you may be uncovered simply by finding out through your contacts what bugged your prospective boss about your predecessor.

Samples:
"They were never to work on time, took long lunch breaks, and were out sick too often"; OR
"They were good at typing, but had lousy skills over the telephone";
OR
"They handled older people well, but just couldn't relate to the young";
OR
"I never could get them to keep me informed about what they were doing"; etc.

Sometimes, it's as simple as that. You may think they should be bothered by much larger issues. But, in actual fact, what they may be mainly concerned about is whether (unlike your predecessor) you're going to get to work on time, take assigned lunch breaks, and not be out sick too often. Don't overlook the Small, Simple, and Obvious Problems which bug almost every employer.

RULE NO. 4:

IF THE NEEDS ARE NOT SMALL AND SIMPLE, THERE ARE SIX WAYS OF FINDING OUT WHAT IS GOING ON IN THEIR MIND; DON'T TRY JUST ONE WAY.

A. Analyze The Problems Of An Organization That Interests You, By Thinking About It's Future:.

1. If the organization is expanding, then they need:
a. More of what they already have; OR
b. More of what they already have, but with different style, added skills, or other pluses; OR
c. Something they don't presently have: a new kind of person, with new skills doing a new function or service.
2. If the organization is continuing as is, then they need:
a. To replace people who were fired (find out why; what was lacking:); OR
b. To replace people who quit (find out what was prized about them); OR
c. To create a new position. Yes, this happens even in organizations that are not expanding, due to:
1) Old needs which weren't provided for, earlier, but now must be, even if they have to cut out some other function or position.
2) Revamping assignments within their present staff.

3. If the organization is reducing its size, staff, or product or service, then they –
a. Have not yet decided which staff to terminate, i.e., which functions to give low priority to (in which case that is their problem, and you may be able to help them identify which functions are "core-functions"); OR
b. Have decided which functions or staff to terminate (in which case they may need multi-talented people or generalists able to do several jobs, i.e., functions, instead of just one, as formerly).

B. Analyze The Problems Of The Person Who Has The Power To Hire You, There, By Talking To Him Or Her:.

It may be that your paths have accidentally crossed (it happens). Perhaps you attend the same church or synagogue. Perhaps you eat at the same restaurant. In any event, if you do ever have a chance to talk to her or him, listen carefully to whatever they may say about the place where they work. The greatest problem every employer faces is finding people who will listen and take them seriously. If you listen, you may find this employer discusses their problems – giving you firmer grounds to which you can relate your skills.

C. Analyze The Problems Of The Person Who Has The Power To Hire You, By Talking To Their 'Opposite Number' In Another Organization Which Is Similar To The One That Interests You..

If, for some reason, you cannot approach – at this time – the organization that interests you (it's too far away, or you don't want to tip your hand yet, or whatever), what you can do is pick a similar organization (or individual) where you are – and go find out what kind of problems are on their mind. (If you are interested in working for, say, a senator in another state, you can talk to a senator's staff here where you are, first. The problems are likely to be similar.)

D. Analyze The Problems Of The Person Who Has The Power To Hire You, By Talking To The Person Who Held The Job Before You – Or, Again, Their Opposite Number:.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, knows the problems bugging a boss so much as someone who works, or used to work, for them. If they still work for them, they may have a huge investment in being discreet (i.e., not as candid as you need). Ex-employees are not necessarily any longer under that sort of pressure. Needless to say, if you're trying to get the organization to create a new position, there is no "previous employee." But in some identical or similar organization which already has this sort of position, you can still find someone to interview.

E. Analyze The Problems Of The Organization Or The Person Who Has The Power To Hire You, By Talking To Every Contact You Have, In Order To Find Someone Who:.

1. Knows the organization that interests you, or knows someone who knows;
2. Knows the-person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you, or knows someone who knows;
3. Knows who their opposite number would be in a similar/identical organization;
4. Knows your predecessor, or knows someone who knows;
5. Knows your "opposite number" in another organization, or knows someone who knows.

F. Analyze The Problems Of The Organization Or The Person Who Has The Power To Hire You, By Reading Everything You Can Lay Your Hands On:.

DO research in the library, on the organization, or an organization similar to it; research on the-individual-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you, or on their opposite number in another organization, etc. – using the resources listed throughout this section, as well as in the Internet section.

POSTSCRIPT:

Ultimately, this business of figuring out the problems that bother the person who has the power to hire you for the position you want, in the organization that most interest you, boils down, in the end, to a language-translation problem.

You're trying to take your language (i.e., a description of your skills), and translate it into their language (i.e., their priorities, their values, their jargon, as these surface within their concerns, problems, etc.).

As I have emphasized, most of the-people-who-have-the-power-to-hire-you for the position you want do not like the word "problems." It reminds them that they are mortal, have hang-ups, haven't solved something yet, or that they overlooked something, etc. "Smartass" is the street-word normally reserved for someone who comes in and shows them up. (This isn't true of every employer or manager, but it's true of altogether too many.) Since you're trying to use their language, you should probably speak of "an area you probably are planning to move into" or "a concern of yours" or "a challenge currently facing you" or anything except: "By the way, I've uncovered a problem you have." Use the word problems in your own head, but don't blurt it out during the interview with your prospective employer, unless you hear them use it first. But in your own private thinking, your goal is to be able to speak in the interview of Your Skills in terms of The Language of Their Problems.

These are the keys to researching an organization. It just takes a lot of hard work, and some good luck.

Good luck!
Copyright©1996-2009 by Richard N. Bolles
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be quoted or reproduced without written permission.
For any suggested additions, updating or corrections to this site, please e-mail the Webmaster.