My dear friends, colleagues, clients and students:
This issue has a funny but poignant article:
Dating and Dancing During Job Search.
Food For The Soul has a fabulous true story:
Greater Love Has No Man...
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Career Doctor Don Answers Your Questions appears as a regular feature in the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) - New Jersey Chapter newsletters. The September/October 2006, the November/December 2006, and the January/February 2007 newsletters can be viewed
here.
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Until we meet again through the magic of e-mail,
Peace! Love! Shalom!
Don Sutaria, MS, IE (Prof.), PE
Founder, President & Life-Work Coach, CareerQuest
Dating and Dancing during Job Search
by Don Sutaria
"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
Alfred Lord Tennyson - English poet
First, let me ask you a question.
Which activities during your job search most closely resemble something from your personal and social life?
Would you believe they are dating and dancing?
The Hiring Playlet
This hiring playlet takes place in three acts.
Act I: First Interview
Interviewer to interviewee: Do you love me?
Interviewee to interviewer: Yes!
End of Act I.
Act II: Second Interview
Interviewer to interviewee: Do you really love me?
Interviewee to interviewer: Yes, of course!
End of Act II.
Act III: Third Interview
Interviewer to Interviewee: Do you really, really, love me?
Interviewee to interviewer: Yes, most certainly!
End of Act III.
Encore and Finale.
Interviewer to interviewee: You are hired!
End of Playlet!
Seems familiar? Well, it is!
One of Dale Carnegie's principles is:
Make the other person feel important -- and do it sincerely.
You can never win or lose if you don't run the race!
Choices of Vocation and Marriage
Dale Carnegie is one of those people who has had a tremendous influence on my life. In his book,
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, he has a chapter on
One of the Two Major Decisions of Your Life. These are, first, your vocation, and second, whom you are going to marry. He goes on to say that frequently both of these great decisions are gambles.
I am going to assume for the moment that the career you have chosen is your passion, mission, vocation or calling. You are at the stage of giving job interviews.
Psychedelic Furs was a British band which started in 1978 and disbanded in 1991. Their famous song,
Love My Way, ends with the following lyrics:
It's a new road I follow where my mind goes,
So swallow all your tears my love and put on your new face,
You can never win or lose if you don't run the race!
How true that is!
The Ten (10) Axioms of Job Search
Axiom 1: Salesperson's Stance. I know it is hard not to take it as a personal rejection, but can you suggest any other option? If your date dumps you, you can sigh amongst all your emotional pain and say,
"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all!" Is it any different if you don't get the job you want? Undoubtedly, there are so many similarities between dating and job search. Ever heard:
It's not you, it's me!
Axiom 2: Better Days Ahead. Statistics show that very few people are married to their first love. You may be rejected from the very first job you have your heart set on. Difficult as it is to accept, it may the best thing that may happen to us. A better job may come along! A more compatible spouse may surface! We have to keep that faith.
Axiom 3: Be Yourself. This concept is usually hammered into our heads by our parents and teachers, but oh! how we resent it! It takes a lot of maturity to understand its value. In the recent (2006) hidden gem of a movie,
Little Miss Sunshine, the little girl, in spite of coming from a dysfunctional family, wins the title based on the advice of her grandfather to be herself. Grant you it is a sugary, Hollywoody movie. I am trying to point out an analogy here, without stretching it and breaking it!
Axiom 4: Masochism: In job hunting, you have to try hard to sell yourself, again and again and again...and possibly be rejected, again and again and again! Is that any different from dating? Is that much different from asking a person again and again for a dance and being repeatedly turned down? Is there any pleasure in being abused, rejected or dominated? Do you get my point?
Axiom 5: On-Line Resumes and On-Line Dating: After reading a resume, the interviewer has an image of the interviewee. The interviewee has reviewed the potential company's web site and has formed opinions about it. Some of these images are glamorous and some are not! Some are exploded during the first meeting. Isn't that akin to dating someone for the first time, after having seen their personal profile and photograph on the dating services' web sites? The first date or the first interview brings it all to a head, warts and all!
Do you really, really, love me?
Axiom 6: Postmortems: We get very introspective and analytical when our relationships fail to progress after the first date or the first interview, with no second 'interview' in sight. We wonder where we went wrong in our speech or action. We agonize over it, determined never to repeat our mistakes. This is of course, very human! Need I say more!
Axiom 7: Adam & Eve and the Forbidden Fruit Complex: I would say it is pretty good advice to try and get a job when you are already employed. If you are unemployed, you are sometimes treated as
damaged goods. Compare that with a social situation where you have your arm wrapped around someone which makes you look taken, thereby raising your quotient as an attractive person...
the forbidden fruit! You are an intelligent reader and let me stop here while I am ahead.
Axiom 8: Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match! Ah! You are not alone! Like in Oriental arranged marriages, the matchmaker or headhunter can find you a mate or a job. If you are
hot, (...you can fill in the blanks..), a hot field or very attractive/handsome, the
matchmaker may pay off...but don't bet your horses on it!
Axiom 9: Networking and Friendships: We rely so much on our friends and develop a compatible social circle with the help of our friends. Why should it be any different for job search where your friends provide leads through your network? I have personally given up on the term networking a decade ago, because of its selfish, negative connotation, and developed a new copyrighted term called PFD (
Professional Friendship Development)...just kidding about the copyright...you may use this term freely.
Axiom 10: Strong-arm Tactics: If you propose to Jane on Thursday to marry you, and give her an ultimatum that if you do not receive an answer from her by Sunday, you are going to propose to Mary on Monday, how do you think Jane will feel? You also tell Mary that you are waiting to hear from Jane. Did you consider Mary's feelings? Guess what, buddy, you have lost both of them! Are you surprised? Yet many times I have seen this strategy being used during job hunting. This strategy can backfire very seriously, wiping out even future chances with other companies, because news travel.
"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
From English poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A. H. H. XXVII
Food For The Soul:
Greater Love Has No Man...
William L. Stidger tells the story of a young man John, he had baptized as a baby. The boy grew up, and when World War II began, he joined the Navy. One night his ship came into Boston, and he visited his former pastor and friend, Dr. Stidger. During their visit together, Dr. Stidger asked him:
"John, tell me the most exciting experience you have had so far." John, who was modest, hesitated a little bit. His recent experience was so overwhelming and spiritual that he was choking emotionally.
John was the captain of a large transport vessel, and along with a convoy, was crossing the Atlantic Ocean. One day during this voyage, an enemy submarine rose out of the water nearby. He saw the white-nosed torpedo heading directly towards his ship, filled with hundreds of men. He had no time to perform a course change maneuver. Through the public address system he shouted and warned his crew,
"Men, I am sorry! This is it!"
Unknown to him, there was a small escorting destroyer. The captain of the destroyer also saw the submarine and the torpedo. Without the slightest hesitation, he gave the order,
"Full speed ahead." This tiny destroyer went into the path of the torpedo and took the full devastating impact. The destroyer was completely blown apart, having been struck in the middle. It sank quickly and every man of the crew was wounded heavily and drowned, including their captain.
John remained emotional and silent for a long time. Then he looked at his beloved pastor and said,
"Dr. Stidger, the skipper of that destroyer was my best friend." Then he uttered slowly:
"You know there is a verse in The Good Book in John 15:13, which has special meaning for me now. It is, 'Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends'."
(Adapted from God's Psychiatry by Charles L. Allen.)
Don Sutaria is Founder and President of CareerQuest (formerly New Life Career Counseling), located in New York and New Jersey. CareerQuest is also mentioned in "What Color is Your Parachute?" Sutaria is a consultant to individuals and various corporations, offering executive coaching and career management services. He has developed unique methods for capturing jobs in the new millennium. He appeared on a Phil Donahue TV special on unorthodox methods of job hunting. Known as "Career Doctor Don", he has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Star-Ledger, The Union Leader, WorkingSmart, SmartMoney, Fortune, and on WINS and WOR radio. He specializes in counseling of international professionals, Generation X (age 20-29), career changers, freelancers, consultants, mid-career executives and people over age 50. He really believes that your career is a pathway to your soul.
Mr. Sutaria has over forty years of diversified industrial and management experience, complemented by training in career development and hands-on experience in career advising. He is an international cross-cultural trainer. He has also served on committees of several organizations, and conducted courses, seminars and symposiums at Columbia University, New York University, Nyack College, Alliance Graduate School of Counseling, Rutgers, and Stevens Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Association of Career Professionals International and the Career Counselors Consortium.
Don earned his MS degree in Management from Kansas State University, an IE (Professional) degree in International Management and Personnel Relations from Columbia University, and obtained New York University's postgraduate Certificate in Adult Career Planning and Development.
