Here you are -
Instead of selling a book to people who are struggling to pay bills
or to families looking for help or counselors facing tight budgets
HERE is the first section - The Essentials
with ways to build and win in the Job Hunt.
Two requests:
1. Do not sell this material, share it instead. It is protected by copyright laws
and hey, the idea is to give it away for free...
Thanks... and enjoy!!
The Job Hunting Tool Kit: By George Valentine
1A. The Most Essential Step: Where
to Put Your But
1B.
Comparing Yourself to Buddy
1C.
Introducing The Job Hunting Oz factor
1D.
Teaching Aliens About Baseball
1E.
The Sad, Sweet Truth about George Herman Ruth
1F.
Yes, the Libraries are Full of Them
1G. Breaking
News: Millions of Worried Bees Falling From the Sky
1H.
The Tale of the Chicken hawk
1I.
Following Your Passions
1J.
Building Your Cheeseburger voice
The Most
Essential Step: Where to
Put Your But
One of the greatest first steps in job
hunting is learning where you put your but.
(That is with one t in but… this is a family oriented book after
all.) Stop for a second and listen to
that internal conversation every job hunter has – where
the real battle for success is won or lost.
“I really want that job … but… I have this problem.”
Or
“I have this problem …but … I really
want that job.”
The problem is either in the macro or in
the micro. By macro I mean the
big picture of the world around you (high
unemployment, changes in the business climate, companies leaving your
area). By micro I mean the things that
effect you personally (I have a disabling condition; I am too
old or fat or ugly for the job).
In facing this question, it does not
matter if your problem is big and impersonal or small and really personal,
placing your but in the way of success stops you before you even get
started.
Think about that for a moment. It is very easy to watch the news and decide
that times are too tough and how are you ever going to make it in times like
these? THAT emotion will show itself in
your walk, in the way you talk and will sap the energy in your smile and your
style.
SO WHAT!
When you hear 20 jobs were lost across town, SO WHAT! You aren’t looking for twenty jobs, you are
only looking for one person smart enough to see the energy and spirit inside of
YOU and hire YOU. Lose that spirit
because of something outside your power to change things and it will show up
and have the energy slowly leak out of your energy balloon.
Now the micro side of things where you
take a look at yourself in the mirror and do not like what you see. Yes, I would like that job but come on, I am
just too darned (fill in the blank) to get hired. Folks, you have just fired yourself before
you even had a chance to get hired.
You are much more than your disability
or shortcomings – you are a valuable person and could become the employer’s
valued team member if they could see past the problem, right? Well, first YOU have to see past the problem
to seeing you as part of that team. As
the job hunter THAT picture in your mind is the most powerful thing you have
going for you. Use it, do not lose it.
How
you phrase the ‘but’ question determines your ultimate success.
If your but comes before your ‘problem’, the last thing you think of is
why you will NOT get the job. You have
built a mountain to climb even before you get to the employer, whew! Isn’t it harder to go into the interview that
way?
Putting the ‘but’ after the problem puts
your desire and drive first.
Hey, think of these things from the
employer’s point of view, who would you
hire?
Remember that the person with the self- confidence to land the job despite barriers
is the employee who will solve problems at work with ease and confidence as
well.
Making It Work:
Write down all of the things that are in
your way in your job hunt, listing them as macro and especially the micro
things affecting your hopes for your future work. Make it a long list (25 or more) and include some silly things like how it is
bound to rain on workdays and you may get Darth Vader for a boss as well as
personal things like I am pretty old or I have this prison record.
Be honest and true to yourself.
Which
ones of these are on the right hand of the ‘but’ sentence and which ones are on
the left side? Be painfully honest with yourself because
this IS all about you after all and if you are not honest you are only cheating
yourself.
Sit back for a moment and take a look at
the sentences where the problem stifles your chance for getting the job. Your tough chore here is to change your
perspective on these issues to saying Yes, I have that problem, but I still
want the job more.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Comparing Yourself to Buddy
You have great gifts and talents inside of you. For those of you thinking hey, George, you
don’t KNOW me, how can you be so sure? I
know because I know “Buddy”.
Compare yourself to a ‘blank slate’, my favorite fictional person,
Buddy - - a person without ANY real skills or motivation (OK, he knows how to
breathe in and out, but that is about it.)
From the days I taught preschool kids, I have loved the lazy bones
who is
“Buddy”. Take a moment and picture him,
folks. He quit school the minute he
could and has since only hung around watching television, not developing any
work skills, responsibilities, social skills or hobbies. Now down to business...
Making It Work:
Below write down 25
ways you are different from Buddy. For the more advanced
version, compare yourself to a 'Buddy' at your job, school or neighborhood (Hint: you can spot him pretty easily at
work, he acts so much like the potted plants in the lobby). Need help?
** Write about ways others
have given you responsibility & you have performed well.
** List skills you have gained, from playing guitar to cooking to
not mixing darks & lights in the laundry.
** Abilities for dealing
with people, from selling cookies at fundraisers to giving compassion to
others in their time of need.
** Ways you have proven
being trustworthy (honest), loyal & brave (such as how you meet and beat
the challenges you face each day).
** List how you have worked independently meeting
goals/responsibilities.
** How do you respond to
the needs of others?
** How do you turn pressures into opportunities for yourself and
others?
Remember when you babysat the terrible Tanner triplets and you all
survived the night? Or when you had to
learn about new medications your grandmother was on so you could better care
for her? Or that school project you
completed with others as a team?
Have fun letting your mind wander when building your list. Compare yourself to that co-worker who never helps train other employees, never works overtime on short notice or
working with difficult clients. Keep in
mind, how are you different from “Buddy” and do not worry about being too full of yourself because you are
comparing yourself to a blank slate after all.
Let your imagination roam to areas that may not seem job related,
but that show your character and skills. Once you have listed the first 25
examples
add 20 more.
See? You already have capabilities making you valuable and
different from others. These unusual characteristics set you apart
from your job hunting competition, especially the aspects which raise your
Oz-nicity (see Oz-nicity in later chapters.)
Keep this list handy, it will come up again in the Tool Kit and in
preparing for your future. Onward!
My ‘Buddy’ List
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Introducing The Job Hunting Oz factor
Each job requires a combination of brains, heart & courage (hey, folks who have seen the Wizard of Oz, do you see where I am
going with this?) Though they may not
call it Oz-nicity, employers want to know the right candidate has:
BRAINS -- The ability to learn complexities of the job so they can perform them
at the speed and effectiveness they need the employee to know it.
Most applicants do not know what is needed to be known for the job
(example: how to make a Chicken Supremo Sandwich at Burger
World). They DO need to demonstrate that
they have the capacity and interest to learn what is needed to be known.
HEART - - New workers will
interact with the job's stakeholders and clients...do they have the heart to
deal with them (from the quiet of a library night security guard to the crazy
life of a political campaign manager)?
Do you have work/life experience to show you have that?
By stakeholders I mean the people who are an important part of the
job like the people you will interact with directly (customers, co-workers, the
boss, the public.)
COURAGE - - The toughest for an employer to tell
about is the candidate's courage
because nearly every candidate is practiced in socially appropriate ways of answering the questions. Here an employer wants to know that when the going gets tough the new employee
will not run away yelling “let me out!” and that he takes responsibility for
his mistakes and learns from them.
Also the boss knows that the employee will work just as hard and
effectively at the start of the shift as at the end of the shift and just as
well on days she is feeling well (the sun is shining, no aches or pains) as
when she is not (trouble at home, a sore knee and it is raining outside).
Making It Work:
Get the list you made
when you compared yourself with Buddy.
Put each answer into the category of an example of head, heart or courage.
Now that you are connecting the lists together, try to add more
examples of how you have brains to learn things, the heart to get along with
others & the courage to work while fighting the dragons you face every day.
Teaching Aliens About (Baseball)
When I explain about finding your Oz
factor, many people get all worried and humble.
“Golly, George” they say,
“I’m not smart at all, how can I tell
the employer I have the brains for that job… I will never get hired; I
should just go home and eat worms”. I
normally say “Stop! Really? Worms?” followed by “if you do not know that
you have the brains for the job, you are already as good as fired for a job you
have never even applied for.”
Here is a quick way to have the
confidence that you have the brains in something you enjoyed learning or had to
learn in order to survive.
FREE HELP:
The internet offers you great ways to
show you have brains. For instance
MOOC’s or Massive Open enrollment online courses give you the chance to study
any of the dozens of courses available from colleges and universities from
around the world – FREE! Complete a
course of two in a field of interest and you can gain knowledge, confidence and
a piece of paper saying you have some smarts … just like the Scarecrow in the
Wizard of Oz. Just do a search on a
list of MOOC.
Making It Work:
Pretend that a Martian has come to earth
and says to you in whatever accent Martians have “hey, tell me about this baseball
you earthlings have.” Or maybe it says “tell me about this thing called makeup”
or “tell me some things about music, eh?”
Quickly
write 12 things you
know about baseball (famous players, some of the rules, etc.), makeup (brand
names, where/how applied, etc.) or music (styles, singers, instruments, etc.).
OK? Now
write down twelve more (the survival of our planet depends on it, folks.) Now finally add five more.
Now you have one impressed Martian
in front of you saying
“WOW! You know a lot about baseball/ makeup/ music…
you must do that for a living.”
The morals of this story are that
-
if
you can learn that much about something that
does NOT pay the rent… think of how
you will make yourself learn about things (like operating a cash register,
learning a computer program, caring for elderly patients) when it IS for money to pay the rent.
-
It
is already inside you, folks. The other
moral is that if you can talk baseball with an alien you can talk about
yourself with anyone who today is a stranger and tomorrow may become your
employer.
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The Sad, Sweet Truth
About George Herman Ruth
In his time, George
“Babe” Ruth was one of the greatest and one of the worst ballplayers in the
USA. Sure, he held the record for most
home runs -- many people remember pictures of him standing alongside home plate
watching yet another shot fly over the outfield
wall.
There are also pictures of Babe walking back to the dugout after
just striking out... again. You see the
“Sultan of Swat” was the greatest striker-outer of his era,
too.
Think about that for a moment.
The Babe could have walked
around with a mental picture of himself booming homers and had great confidence
every time he played. He could also have
pictured himself and the hundreds of times he would walk sadly, slinking back
to the dugout after 'striking out, again. It is all just a matter of perspective.
In job hunting you are facing some of the things the Babe
felt. Throughout the hunt you have
faced disappointment and you have
enjoyed some levels of success (hey, you knew enough to get
this book, right?)
It is all up to you and how you look at yourself in the mirror. Remembering your
homeruns is a whole lot more fun,
more satisfying and gives you more energy than dragging your feet and keeping
the picture in your mind of striking out again.
When meeting an employer, picture yourself cracking a home run. It'll show in your stride.
Tom Edison, inventor of the incandescent light bulb, tried &
failed over 2000 times to put together what later was one of history's
greatest inventions. Asked what he
learned from months and months lost time and failures, he said ”I learned 2000
ways not to make a light bulb.” It's all about perspective.
Making It Work:
Take a moment and draw two
pictures of yourself. In the first
draw a picture showing you doing
something you have accomplished (learned,
did, and met an important responsibility).
Now write a caption describing the picture and what you are thinking at
the time.
Under the other draw a picture of you accomplishing something you want to be doing someday. Now write a caption about how you are feeling
about doing that someday soon.
Hey, HAVE SOME FUN
& draw the pictures. It’s OK to erase and rewrite, but please have some fun. Make them things you will enjoy remembering
in the days ahead when you hit home runs and make the occasional strike
out.
Remember that your life is an
unfinished 'picture' with many miles to go and lessons to learn.
Picture #1
Picture #2
Libraries are full of
them
Did you know that Babe
Ruth grew up in
the Pigtown section of Baltimore and that all but one of his siblings died
before they reached their teens? In the
orphanage where he grew up, the brothers taught him first the trade of becoming
a shirt-maker and only later taught him to play this new game of baseball.
Or Mary Kay Ash, who as a single parent raising her kids in the Great Depression
mixed soaps in her bathtub to make ends meet?
She later became the leader of one of the world’s largest beauty
services companies making Mary Kay cosmetics.
That Michael Jordan was cut from his freshman high school basketball team before
deciding he would try again instead of thinking that basketball was a dumb
game. That Walt Disney was fired from his first job at a newspaper for not having enough
imagination? Yes, that Walt Disney.
There are thousands of stories about
people who had every reason to crawl into a ball and never become a
success. But they became successful
anyway.
Most
of the important work in the world is done by people who are too tired, too
disabled or too something else to do it… but they did it anyway.
Whenever you feel that you are just
grunting through another useless day and that success must be meant for someone
else, just remember that the libraries
are full of stories of those who faced harder problems than you have now
and they made it to a brighter future anyway
FREE HELP:
Libraries have great resources in
learning of biographies which will motivate and inspire you. Most libraries have agreements with other
municipal libraries where you can borrow books for far away just like it was
being borrowed from your hometown. Look
up online the biographies on Wikipedia.org Give it a try!
Making It Work:
In your spare time, take a moment and
write down the names of 10 famous people you respect. Maybe they lived centuries ago or are living
right now; just make sure that it is a list personally important to you.
Now go to your library or do an internet
search find a biography of a few of the people on your list. List below a copy of what their resume would
have looked like before they “made it”.
Like Al:
at age 13 his family moved Italy after his father’s company failed due
to new technologies, Al stayed back in Germany.
He moved to Italy by quitting school with a medical excuse. He renounced his German citizenship to avoid
military service, earned a degree in teaching but was unable to find a job in
the field for years (by now he had a wife and two children.) In his early twenties he landed a frustrating
job as an assistant examiner in the Swiss Patent Office, all of this
preparation for becoming the Albert Einstein he was meant to be. As Albert put it himself
“Life
is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Take the time to read about them and the challenges that they faced. Jot down some notes that will help you in your search, ideas that will help you weather the darker, cloudier days in your job hunt.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bees Can't Fly: The real birds & bees story.
Yup, there was a theory for years that bees could not possibly fly. Scientists and other
really-smart-people considered that such round, tubby creatures with those
itty-bitty wings can't physically or aerodynamically fly. But they do, because nobody told them they
can't. If somehow we would get word to
the bees that they cannot possibly fly and that they should just stop trying,
then millions of bees would suddenly fall out of the sky never to fly again.
It was discovered in the 1990’s that bees actually had adapted a
way of beating their wings that was unique – not up and down but in a circular
motion that made what had been thought impossible to be possible.
Do you ever hear that
there are things you can't do because you are too short, fat, old, dumb, poor
or just too (fill-in-the-blank)?? Others say the same sad
things over & over to you or worse yet, maybe you are saying them to
yourself. Repeating these lies about who
you are and what you are capable of can limit you so that you may never “fly”
to where you are capable of.
Back to my original point – if bees didn’t fly, think of the
flowers that would never get pollinated, the honey that would never be made – we are all better off because bees do not
worry about what they “cannot” do and adapted a new way because they thought
they CAN.
How about you? The world
would be a sadder place if you do not take the steps to be more than ‘they’ (or
you) may think you can become.
Making it Work:
What are 3 stories you know of where “everyone” thought something
would happen and it did not? It does not
matter where the story comes from – politics, sports, weather.
Now write them down.
What are three stories you have heard affecting other people where there
were supposed limits people broke through?
What are three things you have heard about your limits? Write down these 3 supposed limits – through
the Tool Kit Series you will have fun proving them wrong. Before we move to the actual work, please
remember something I tell others at the groups I run: “Every
great idea that ever was started with someone dreaming it and a thousand other
people saying ‘Are you crazy?’” Keep
dreaming.
The Tale of the Chicken
hawk
There was a woman walking through a
forest when she found a baby eagle on the ground lost from its nest. This woman lived near a family of chicken
hawks so she brought the eagle to live with them and to be raised by the
chicken hawks.
For months, the little eagle learned the
ways of the chicken hawk, a bird that knows well how to peck at the ground and to
just survive. One day the
baby eagle saw an adult eagle flying gracefully overhead. He said to his brother chicken hawks, “wow,
what is that?” The reply was “Oh that is
an eagle, the most beautiful bird around here, flying when and where it wants
to.” But don’t waste time thinking of
that because you are just a chicken hawk.”
The baby eagle kept thinking about that
bird he saw and began working to be more like him. As he started running and falling down then
flapping his wings and falling down again, the other chicken hawks mocked
him. As he tried to stretch out his
cramped wings, they said he was doomed to fail, asked why he was shaming
himself and his family, making a fool of himself and wasting his own time over
and over again.
But with each attempt he became stronger
and more assured that he was doing the right thing. With time he began to fly – a little at first
then more the next day and he became the eagle he always was deep inside.
He never forgot where it was he came
from as he would bring back to his family gifts and stories of his adventures –
and he would fly like an eagle again.
So now is your turn. Maybe you are like the baby eagle facing
people around you who mock your attempts at a better life. Just remember that every great idea
(democracy, the pretzel, your goal to land that special job) begins with one
person believing it and a thousand other people saying “what? You must be crazy!”
Making It Work:
So what makes you so special, brother or
sister chicken hawk? Why are you not
satisfied with just pecking at the ground and just surviving? What is the image that you carry for the day
when you are flying away?
Draw the outline of a house you want to
live in someday in the future and fill in a picture of what you want that house
to look like - - including pets, a car or piano or river in the
background. Whatever you hope for in
that dream even if others think it is crazy, it is your dream.
Write down five things that today are in
your way from this dream – like the mocking others may throw at you. Make certain that you do not join in the
mocking, but as you knock off each thing that separates you from the dream,
cross out the thing you have listed.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Passions
One often overlooked aspect of job
hunting is that you should have something in your life that provides you with passion. Even if it is only part of the job, that
source of passion makes the day and the daily grind go easier. It also makes the job interview more fun. (Yes,
I said job interview and fun in the same sentence.)
For a moment, sit back and dream of what
stirs you inside to action or take your attention and time. Take a moment and write down your answers to
the following questions:
•
Name
two things that while you are doing them you lose all track of time.
•
When
a topic comes up on the radio, TV or computer what makes you stop and listen or
read?
•
When
you were a child, what did you want to become as an adult? Why?
•
Many
people want to have an ‘end product’ to their work while others like working
with others – which one are you and why?
•
Tomorrow
you will wake up right when and where you want to live – describe the
scene. Who are you with, where are you
and what are you doing for a living?
Now that you have these answers, compare
them with the jobs you are going after today.
I appreciate that many jobs are there for you to make ends meet, but
what is it about the jobs you are seeking that matches, even a little, the
things you listed above?
Take your time with this one because
when you find the connections, it will allow you to have more of a spring in
your step going to the employer – more of a reason to tell the hiring manager
that picking you is a good idea because you have a special connection to the
job. And that special ingredient is
passion.
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Using Your Cheeseburger Voice:
One of the great questions you need to answer before hunting is how
to talk with a prospective employer while making a first
impression.
Your tone of voice needs to portray assertiveness and
self-assurance. Your voice should not
sound pushy or boastful; be polite
and respectful, but not too soft-spoken.
In short, be blended like a fine wine (not a whine).
HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO GET IT RIGHT?
First of all, do not buy expensive job
hunting books or hire speech coaches hoping that you hit just the right sound when
talking to the employer. It’s already
inside of you.
Folks, you have that voice
inside of you and here's how to
use it: Quick! Raise your hand if you have ever ordered a
cheeseburger (or soy burger for our vegetarian friends). THERE! THAT is the tone of voice you need!! That commanding yet friendly tone is what
you are hungering for. Relax and picture yourself ready to
order and say out loud “I
want a cheeseburger.” WOW! Say
it again, slowly: “I want a cheeeeseburrrger.”
Hey, you really mean it! You said it straight up, plain and
seriously. Sounds like you aren't
leaving this place without that cheeseburger. Hey, you
are not making excuses or apologies for what it is you want to say. You are not bragging or angry, just direct.
You want to get the right tone in talking with the employer? Use your cheeseburger voice from saying hello
to getting through the interview:
•
it's
sensitive without being whiney
•
it
gets your point across easily
•
it
doesn't frighten or put-off employers
•
it’s a well-known and accepted tone and it
gets the burger every time.
The cheeseburger
voice helps you in other areas (like “getting past the bull dog”, “ending with
a period” and “don't think like a job hunter”).
For now, practice it & enjoy it. With relish.
Making It Work:
Practice this tone of voice. Try saying
other things you will be saying with that tone, like “I want to see the
employer” or “I have the experience you are looking for.” Make a list of 15 statements you will want to
say to the employer and other statements you want to make to friends/teachers/coaches
then practice them with that cheeseburger
voice of yours.
1.)--------------------------------------------------2.)--------------------------------------------------3.)--------------------------------------------------4.)--------------------------------------------------5.)--------------------------------------------------6.)--------------------------------------------------7.)--------------------------------------------------8.)--------------------------------------------------9.)--------------------------------------------------10.)-------------------------------------------------11.)-------------------------------------------------12.)-------------------------------------------------13.)-------------------------------------------------14.)-------------------------------------------------15.)-------------------------------------------------
Practice your cheeseburger voice with
friends, a stuffed animal, anywhere you can hear the sound of your own
voice. More on this later.
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