Obstacles in Your Way, Part III

(Con’t)

Okay, so let’s wrap this up. If you already know it all and know more than me, good for you, but if you find yourself nodding your head with me in agreement, let’s start small. To begin, here’s a simple suggestion and one so crazy and radical I may find myself on a watch list as someone fomenting discontent. Don’t so easily take “no” for an answer. Instead of accepting limitations and illegitimate rules imposed on you by bureaucratic lumps, indeed do your preliminary online research, and then peel yourself from your comfy chair, clear the cobwebs and reboot your creativity and burn up a little shoe leather; go out and speak to real people. Knocking on doors, shaking hands or actually speaking to hiring officials will do a lot more for you than emailing resumes. You get what you give and when someone tells me, with their head hung low with defeat in their eyes and whining “…but I sent a lot of resumes and nothing’s happening”; at that moment I don’t know whether to pity them or feel frustration, but I make it clear to them they haven’t really done anything. 

If you do get up and get out there, what happens when you are inevitably faced with a self-important bureaucrat who stands in your path as an obstacle? Smile, thank them for their time and then go around them because that is what you do when something gets in your way. If you are exercising all your options you will inevitably encounter a jerk at one time or another. Don’t let it deter you or take you off your game; don’t sink to their level when you run into someone who is nasty, instead celebrate because that is one less jerk you'll  have to talk to again. 

On most occasions I use this blog to share the Best Practices resulting from over 20 years experience representing top 20% professionals and also helping client companies to attract the best available talent. However, for this particular post I feel the need to take the occasion to remind people they are very often their own biggest obstacle, limiting themselves and handicapping their own efforts. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different, most realities about looking for a job have not changed; company managers like people who take initiative. Innovation is still something of value. Go ahead and be the oddball, if everyone wants to sit back and wring their hands, as most people will do anyway, let them – the advantage then becomes yours. The worst thing that can happen is you may be told “no”, and each “no” brings you closer to a “yes”. Fortune favors the bold, as the saying goes.

(Okay, so enough about what’s wrong and how people have been shortchanging themselves, if you’re serious and  you really want a better and different results, let’s  next discuss  what you can do about it) 

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