When it comes to landing a new job, there are several things that need to happen, in the right order, at the right time.
It ain’t magic. And although luck is involved, it’s usually your attitude and experience that will get you through the other side. (I wrote about this here ). Now, there’s also a process one needs to follow.
Many people looking for a job don’t follow this process correctly, thus they fail. You change the steps, you fail. You don’t put enough effort in each step, you fail.
The way you treat job applications, job interviews and job offers.
In other words, how do you strike the right combination of curiosity, engagement and negotiation? The more you invest in understanding how these correlate with each other, the better your chances will be to land a great job, faster.
Curiosity (Job applications)
The only purpose of your job application is to generate curiosity among a hiring manager so they get interested in you and you can get your foot in the door. The only goal is to get invited to a job interview. You don’t need to be cute or clever, you don’t need to tell your whole life story, you don’t need to convince them that you are the ideal candidate and that you would love to work for them. The only thing you need to do is to generate curiosity so you get invited. Just like a movie trailer.
Engagement (Job interviews)
What type of personality do you have? What’s your energy like? What the story you tell yourself? What the story you tell to others? What do others say about you when you leave the room? What do you value the most? What are your strongest beliefs? What does your voice sounds like? What do you look like?
Negotiation (Job offers)
Do you have the wind in your sails or are you lugging an anchor around? How’s the job market and the economy in the area you want to work? Who are you competing against?
There are people that look great on paper, but will never be shortlisted at a particular company.There’s people with career gaps and only a few short years of experience that land the job the want straight away. There are people that find gold in a time of crisis, and folks that just can’t seem to catch a break, even in a bull market.
Almost like a game of rock, paper, scissors, these three factors interweave with each other to produce a particular outcome.
Sometimes attitude beats experience but not luck. Sometimes experience beats luck but not attitude. Sometimes luck beats both. It’s knowing how to handle these three in right balance of them gets you the job. In ways similar to a slot machine at a casino, pull the handle at just the right moment, and the jackpot is all yours!Good luck exists but it needs to find you doing the work. So button up, show up and follow up until you get shortlisted.
