Nevertheless, every game plan for finding a job needs certain key elements-objectives, strategies for reaching them, contingency plans, tactics to be employed against likely obstacles, and so on. These are the elements you must use in order to advance in your job campaign. If you apply these faithfully, your chance of achieving success on your own terms is high.
Unlike sports contests, more than half of the contestants can win in the job market. A lot of people lose simply because they are aimless and passive. The following principles call for initiative, which you must have if you're going to put a career game plan into action. We've used football as a metaphor for the game plan we present here, but we're sure you can translate the ideas into the terminology of your own sport. You are going to become your own coach, so get out the Xs and Os and you're on your way.
Know Where the Goal Line Is
Imagine being in a distance run, not knowing where you are going, how much time has elapsed, or how far you have gone. What's more, the coach won't tell you when you'll get to stop. That's what working without a goal is like. Energy is always best used for a purpose. What do you want to accomplish in your life? What would you regard as a worthy objective? The more concretely you can state: "This is what I am aiming for," the better your entire game plan will be. Determination, persistence, drive,-all those catchwords of the motivated soul-derive from that athletic attribute of goal-directedness. Name your goals as concretely as possible:
"I want to run a successful small business."
"I want to become a lawyer representing professional athletes."
"I intend to make $100,000 a year in the financial world."
"I want to be a successful coach for a small college."
"I hope to become a radio announcer for a big city station."
"I want to win statewide election to public office."
"I want to be a top software programmer for a leading computer company."
"I want to be a researcher developing an alternative to the internal combustion engine."
Successful career planning is the well-dressed equivalent of "taking it to the hoop." Decide what you want to do and concentrate your energies, thoughts, and movements toward that end. Even if you don't get the ball in the basket, you gamble that something else good will develop. No successful job seeker can ever predict what is going to happen. Your future will flow as much from the calculated risks you are willing to take as from the specific plans you are making. (The plans are important for the element of calculation they require; the plans are not intended to be tracks down which you must roll once you begin.)
Goals can be short-term and intermediate, as well:
"I want to complete my college degree."
"I want to move out of the New England area."
"I need to get out of debt before anything else."
Having one or more specific goals is absolutely essential, because they mobilize your energies, organize and direct your efforts, and give you ways to measure your progress. Just as "holding their offense to less than 150 yards," or "getting 70 percent of my first serves in," or "swimming the 200-meter breaststroke 5 seconds faster than last year" can focus your efforts, so must you have a particular job, a career goal, a rate of progress, a visible achievement, and other objectives in mind when you approach your work. A goal keeps all the cylinders in your engine functioning.
Assemble Your Arsenal
What specific weapons do you bring to the career game that will make you competitive? You may see this as a problem since, away from sports, you're not at all sure what you can offer that is marketable.
Don't be concerned at first about what the job market wants (most people believe themselves to be less qualified for jobs than they really are); just look at what you know about yourself first. Don't be looking for championship qualities or items of perfection, or ways in which you are better than everyone else. What do you do fairly well and wish you could do better? The job market is forgiving; it allows you to grow and improve. Look at everything you know about yourself. Make a list of your attributes that you regard as positive, regardless of how remote they may seem for what you imagine to be the work setting.
Ask your friends to add qualities to this list, because they will know aspects of talents you possess that you either deny through modesty or are completely unaware of because they come naturally to you. This latter tactic is crucial, because the tendency to downgrade yourself or overlook important qualities is common. People think if they say they are good at something, someone will come along and make them prove it. This is not a contest, but an inventory of yourself. Be generous enough to give yourself the benefit of the doubt.
Some or all of the qualities you possess will be valued or even prized in many different careers or occupations. If you know what these qualities are and can talk easily about them, you'll have the best chance to apply your assets to what an employer might need.
Become aware of the skills and attributes you possess that will serve your stated goals. Want to be a financial wizard and you are good with numbers? That's a good start. Are there other skills you need for a particular career but do not have? (This is where talking to people who already work in that area comes in handy.) You can work toward acquiring many skills in which you might be weak. The job market encourages personal development and growth. You want to be in journalism but need help with your writing style? You hope to be a teacher but don't speak very well in front of groups? Writing and speaking skills can be acquired through additional study and experience; build these skills to serve your career goals. Move forward armed with skills you possess and the determination to build those you don't have.
Scout the Opposition
You are not only the coach of your game plan, you are also the scouting staff. Just as an athletic team feasts on good information about the opposition, so a well-developed career feeds off informed "intelligence gathering." Your game plan will wallow in uncertainty if you have little real knowledge about the fields of work you contemplate or fail to discover the many kinds of work suited to you and your skills. If you want to get into the film industry, get to know a good deal more about it than the bus schedule to Hollywood. Make it your business to find out about the many kinds of films that are made and the many organizations that make them (such as corporations, governmental agencies, and service organizations). Then go out to Hollywood with some professional exposure to sell instead of just your dreams.
In career counseling terms, scouting is called job research. This research yields three basic kinds of information about a prospective job:
- What is the nature of the work in this general category?
- What kinds of settings do these people work in: the physical arrangements, work relationships, etc.?
- Who are the personalities in this organization who do the work and with whom you might be working?
You will need research for two compelling reasons: (1) to make the best possible choice among the available alternatives; and (2) to demonstrate your motivation to an employer and therefore have a better chance of being hired.
Your game plan will surely fail without effective research. Interviewers are not impressed by unprepared job candidates. Furthermore, if you are guessing about the fields of work you are applying for, you will doubtless make a bad choice, and have to undo your decision later.
Scouting calls for using your informal network to its fullest so that you know which of your talents are most needed "out there" and where the positions are that will fit you best. Games are won by the best prepared, and jobs are no different.
Throw Long on First Down
A game plan is incomplete without a trick up your sleeve or a special play that exceeds normal caution. Take a goal of yours that others may label as unrealistic and try it anyway. Act boldly. If you see a career possibility that seems to be a long shot but that still appeals to you, find out how others got there, and then push in that direction. What is the worst that might happen to you? You are not likely to get trampled by a herd of wild buffalo or have a building fall on you for aiming at a long-shot job. Whatever the consequence of failing might be, the regret that you never tried for something you really wanted would be far worse. Besides, you can learn a lot for future tries. Trying to become a professional athlete is one of those bold gambles. If you decide to give it a shot, do so with your eyes wide open, with a termination point in mind in case things don't go as you hoped, and with a new direction to take immediately.
Just as every sports fan likes the attempted steal of home, so do those in the job market admire the guts and daring of people who set distant goals. A million bucks, a Ph.D., a screen test, a pilot's license, a business of your own, becoming manager of a skydiving club? Why not try it? The sooner you test yourself against something big, the more you will know about where your game is headed next and which abilities need more work. Even if you fail, you will wind up with an interesting experience and the satisfaction of having tried. Most important, you will gain a sharper definition of what you really want.
Take What the Defense Gives You
Some of those "throwing long on first down" plays will not work out as you had hoped. You don't get hired in the major corporation, the deal for a business partnership falls through, or you don't make it as a writer with a prominent magazine. What should you do when the results come in? Don't let your dreams die forever, but decide what you are going to do in the meantime. Put the dream on the shelf and adjust yourself to market realities. Even in professional sports, you may get a second chance. The difference is that in professional sports, a second chance can only come in a very few years, while your body is still young; in most other fields, your second chance for "stardom" may come a decade or more down the road.
If you miss a big opportunity, often it is not your abilities that failed. You have talent for the goals that you seek, but the market closes you off. There is too much competition for the role you want most, the product you hitch yourself to doesn't sell as well as hoped, or the market is not ready for what you have to offer. Try again later. Public preferences and needs change, you change, your product improves.
You must obey market pressures, even if they force you into a less thrilling line of work. In football, if the opposition denies the pass, you have to run. But in career development, if you miss an opportunity in one field or organization, there is usually something similar nearby. You may have wanted to sell stocks and bonds, but brokerage houses weren't interested. Seek out jobs in other financial institutions, such as banks or insurance companies. If you wanted to open a restaurant but it didn't work, try another small business where prospects are better. Remember, it's all right to make a mistake. Like fumbles, errors, and turnovers, they are part of the game.
Adjust your goals to market conditions, and try to choose something that enables you to build toward a more desirable long-range goal. If you hope to be a child psychologist one day, but cannot get into graduate school right now, then take a job that will give you experience and so improve your chances of being accepted later. Just as there are several paths to the goal line, there are many different routes to a career goal. If you make no progress at one juncture, simply look for an alternative route.
Spot the Secondary Receivers
Throwing long on first down won't often yield a touchdown. By the same token, you will probably not find your ideal long-shot career wide open to you. Taking those little gains that the defense (the job market) gives you will serve your short-run needs but won't satisfy-and shouldn't satisfy-indefinitely. What you need is a secondary mode of attack to achieve your long-range goals.
Successful game plans, like passing attacks, flow from a many-sided probing of the opposition. Understanding that many fields of work are potentially open to you is a key to your eventual success. Knowing that you have multiple possibilities helps to lower the general anxiety associated with job hunting; having alternatives seems to be a great confidence-builder.
How do you mount a multiple attack?
- Investigate-scout many fields of work and assume there's a way into each of them for you unless and until you are convinced otherwise.
- Identify key skills you possess that cut across occupational boundaries.
- If you are closed out of one field of work, consider the entire cluster of related occupations.
Have a Secret Weapon
Let's say you've done enough scouting to have several career alternatives, you are expanding your network of good contacts, and people are showing some interest in you. You'll still have to get someone to say Yes. Because the informal network is effective and you are determined to show your numerous skills and personal qualities, you may be close to getting hired. But, you still have to close the deal. How do you make it happen?
Remember, you don't have to be the best candidate, because many capable people will not show enough initiative to make it to the final stage, the interview. But, when you make it that far, you still need a clincher. Let's say you want a job in a local recreation department. Did you have any relevant past experience in other recreation departments? Can you offer them something else besides your knowledge and experience in your competitive sport? Other sports? Non-sports activities, such as playing an instrument, leading square dancing? Arts and crafts? A special skill with elderly people? These extra abilities are attributes which can make you especially attractive and move you ahead of others looking for that job. It certainly helps, also, to get someone prominent to call or write you a letter of recommendation. You might even do' an informal survey on your own of what nearby recreation programs have and what they seem to need. Bring the information to the person who will be deciding on who gets the job. This approach is a little gutsy, but it is likely to impress those who are hiring.
They already like you because you've taken the trouble to find them. You're probably being compared with the ten people who sent their resumes yesterday but did not have the foresight to make a personal visit. You're there and they aren't. Your informal survey of recreation departments in the area can convince them that you have exceptional motivation and are better informed about this field than other job candidates. Why should they look any further than you?
With a little effort, everyone can develop a secret weapon, something that others do not have, and emphasize it as the reason they can do more for an employer than someone else. Secret weapons come in all sizes and shapes. Yours may simply be a determination to get hired, or your cleverness in getting in to see the right person, or your ability to see potential in a job where no one else does. The ultimate secret weapon is to avoid thinking of yourself as being just like the other job candidates. Know that you are different. Know why you would hire you if you were making the final decision. In fact, that may just be one of the key questions in that final interview: "Why should we hire you above the other candidates?" Know the answer, and be ready to project that answer to your interviewer firmly and calmly.
The Two-Minute Drill
A two-minute drill in football practice teaches a team to be its most coordinated and to use its best plays under time pressure and with little direction from the bench. Similarly, you must be ready to perform as a job candidate at any moment. Looking for work is an unpredictable, disorderly process. You may run across a career possibility when you least expect it. You may meet a person on a train, or have dinner with a friend's mother, and discover that either of these people offers you an opportunity.
Unlike football, your two-minute drill may come unexpectedly, not just late in the game. The most unpredictable aspect of your job search is when an information session or casual encounter turns into an impromptu job interview-and you are suddenly on the spot. You cannot prepare the night before; you must be ready when a person asks:
Why do you like this field?
What makes you think you'll succeed in this line of work?
What experiences, in or out of college, best prepared you for this work?
What is it about yourself that we would like and could use?
Everyone you meet may be the person who can open the door that you want and need. Every conversation, however informal or casually it may have happened, is a potential job interview. The best way to handle the two-minute-drill scenario is to practice-talk with enough people about yourself, your aspirations, your ideas, and your abilities, that it becomes second nature. Job interviews become like ordinary, informal conversations when you have been through them enough times. Just as football teams execute well in the last two minutes when they have practiced the sequence of plays and are accustomed to the pressure, so will you do well in your "two minutes" when you have been there many times before.
