In order to meet and defeat the challenges you are facing, you need to practice what you have learned before you go out to meet the employers. First of all, practice what you are going to say.
Do not take my word for it;
consider the story of Stan and Bruno, the talking dog:
Stan, a man down on his luck and with little money, sat quietly with his dog Bruno in a park at favorite bench near the river. Stan sighed and idly asked his dog what he wanted to do. To his surprise the dog said “I bet you’d like to take a swim. Hey, I’d like to join you.”
Stan just stared as the silence between them grew. The dog spoke again “Hey, those Yankees are doing pretty well, huh? They have a great coach.”
“Bruno! You can talk! We’re going to be rich!! A talking dog, yahoo! We’re going to that talent agent downtown right now!”
Bruno said, “Hey, Stan, we should practice what we are going to say!”
Stan said “no time to waste, we’ll just start talking – it will be great!”
They reached the office building with a huge sign reading "Cash in on your talent” on top, then walked down the long hallway of photos of stars and into the talent agent's office.
The agent said “this better be good, most animal acts are not worth my time. “
Stan: “No problem. Hey Bruno, what is on top of this building?”
Bruno: “Roof! Roof!” The agent just stared.
Stan: “Let’s... let's try this one – Bruno. Tell her about the hard times we have had, me without a job…”
Bruno: “Rough, rough”. The agent said “One last chance or I throw you out.”
Stan: “OK, OK, Bruno… you’re a big baseball fan, you love the Yankees, right? Who is the greatest Yankee ballplayer of all time?”
Bruno smiled and proudly said “Ruth, Ruth!” The agent kicked them out of her office.
Stan and Bruno sadly walked back to their bench. Bruno looked sadly at Stan and said “We really should have practiced. And I probably should have said Joe DiMaggio.”
Folks, don’t be like Stan –
listen to your inner Bruno and always practice aloud the answers
In all of the hard work and frustration of your job hunting, HERE you have free lessons and exercises to customize to YOUR needs.
Enjoy this part of the copyrighted "Job Hunting Tool Kit I-IV", pass it along to friends but do not sell it, please.
Also, enjoy a really funny video for lesson 3Q, right HERE...
3I.
The Unasked Test - Eye rolling
3J.
Dealing With Your Ugly fish
3K.
Lord Churchill - - You Are Drunk!
3L.
Never teach a pig to sing
3M.
IPS – How to Eat A Cow
3N.
Informational interviews
3O.
Failure is not a person/ I never lost, only behind
3P.
Building Your Spirit/ Making Yourself More Interesting
3Q.
The Big Battle lines: Frosting versus Cake
Love that eye rolling
This
is my favorite because the unprepared fall for it
every
time.
You
are the employer for a moment... you have a job that requires a go-getter attitudeand ability to do things and
change plans on short notice. You want
to avoid anyone who would utter the words “I'm
not going to do THAT”. What to do?
Use an eye roller! Most of the time the eye-roller is a job
related test sprung on the applicant at the right moment.
So
you have completed the interview and the applicant has begun to relax. Their guard,
up for most of the meeting, is relaxed now and
you may see the real person behind the well-rehearsed
mask some wear at an interview. NOW!!
HIT THEM WITH THE EYEROLLER!
Give
them a job related test, simple math for cashiers, a written test with
vocabulary the right candidate should know. THEN I LOOK AT THEIR EYES AND
EXPRESSION!
Did
you see them roll their eyes and sigh a ‘oh, not a
test!' sigh? Well, they just told you how they deal with the unexpected. And they just lost a lot of their chance at
landing this job today. Why hire the eye-roller
when another candidate may enthusiastically grab the exam, welcoming the test
as a way to show their skills?
Back
to you being the job hunter... when an employer springs an eye-roller, like a
test or a ”come with me on a tour” or “I'll bring in another worker for a
moment”, welcome it and avoid
the eye roller expression
that can ruin a good interview in one second.
Making It Work:
What
are some unexpected things that can be thrown at you in an interview? Make a list of some off the wall questions
(like 'name six people living or dead you would invite to dinner tonight?’ what
animal most resembles you?) or job related questions (what would you do in
unusual situations at work) tests that can be dropped in front of an applicant.
Ask a friend to give you an interview,
have them select a few from your list or come up with their own and remember
yourtheir thoughts to your reactions.
Remember, the eyes have it, eh?
Everybody's got a smelly fish. The better you know it, the
better you will be at getting him from ruining your life.
First, a story.A single mother was hoping to one day buy a house,
but money was always a problem and her dream seemed far away. One day she went to visit a home for sale and
was soon chatting with the owner about the financial troubles that she and her
children faced.
The
owner, wiping tears away, asked her how much money she had with her today. She shrugged and pulled out the $4.00 she had
in her pocket. “SOLD!”
he said.
The
woman found he was not kidding and she accepted the house on the owner's one
condition, that he would still own a hook on the kitchen coat rack. He was sentimental about it, and the whole
house for $4.00? What
could go wrong?
She
was settling in when the former owner stopped in one evening. “Sorry to
interrupt dinner, but I want to take a picture of the hook. Can you take a picture of me and the hook,
please?” OK, no harm done - the house
was a steal...
Weeks
later, she was preparing a small party in her place when the old owner stopped
by carrying a 40 pound fish.
“Yup, just caught it” he said as the fish dripped on
the kitchen floor. “Just going to hang it up here on MY hook.”
She
allowed it, took a picture of the man and his fish and was surprised when the
man left the house leaving behind the fish.
The former owner just smiled and said “I'm
leaving it on the hook. Don't you touch
it now because, hey, a deal is a deal...?”
Days
passed - the fish remained there, stinking up the whole house. She was reduced to staring at it and saying “a deal IS a deal.”
*********
Folks,
every deal you make and every compromise made carries the prospect that you will be left with
a smelly fish. Is it the words you have
to say to close a deal on a product you aren't sold on yourself? Is it the late hours or shift work that keeps
you away from family?
A
different kind of smelly fish pollutes your own
self-image. What keeps you from
your dreams? Down-cast friends? Fear of the unknown? A condition (physical or mental) you feel
that keeps you from advancing? Best to
take a good, long look at the fish you have on your hook in the compromises YOU
are setting.
FREE
HELP:
Employers
can receive a large tax credit for hiring people who are members of certain
“target groups”, (ex. veterans, disabled, single parents and others. Go to www.irs.gov and see if you are one of the Worker Opportunity
Tax Credit (WOTC) targeted groups.
Once
you know you qualify, make that solid first impression and when the time is
right, tell them that the employer may get a fat tax credit for hiring and
keeping you as opposed to other candidates.
Making It Work:
Draw
a picture of the
house you want to live in and in the middle of the picture draw your
personal smelly fish...maybe it is a whale, or
one with thorns and spikes; maybe it is really a lot of little fishes. Name the fish by the thing(s) that holds you
back the most. Keep this very personal drawing aside and
understand the impact that fish has on your life.
In
your own time and your own way, figure how to lose the fish somehow and get it
out of YOUR house...
My fish:
Lord Churchill, you are drunk
Lord
Winston Churchill had a quick wit that helped him dozens of times. He had one famous encounter that helps with
your job hunting.
One
night he was at a dinner filled with the richest, snootiest people London had
to offer. One woman was shocked (shocked
I say) to see Lord Churchill having had too much to drink.
She
shouted at him “Lord Churchill, you sir
are drunk!” Winston turned to her
and said softly but directly: “Madame, tonight I am drunk and you are
ugly. Tomorrow, I will be sober but you, sadly, will still be ugly.”
The
lesson here is that time and effort, painful as they may be at the time, can
cure some temporary problems – but ugly stays.
Churchill would become clear and sober again, but her ‘problem’ would
remain. How about you?
Making
It Work:
List
the aspects of yourself that are ‘rust’ in that they are part of who you are
and cannot be painted over or hidden. Be
true to yourself –
•Are you a slob?
•Do you have
trouble taking orders or correction?
•Do you get into
arguments too quickly?
Make
another list this time of the lessons you need in order to address the problems
you face. What are the things that time
and effort can get it done for you.
Somethings
in life are just what they are. It will
snow in my hometown every winter, dandelions growing in my yard next year and
that the sun will come out tomorrow.
The
important part of this is the lesson comes from this quote. I have faith and hope that with your tenacity
and good sense you will land a job that brings you closer to your dreams. But, folks, there are somethings that you
cannot change.
It
is to save you time and energy (and sanity) I remind you that pig voice lessons
are a lousy investment because outside of Hollywood and Charlotte’s Web, pigs have
a terrible time carrying a tune.
Making
It Work:
Time to bring out tthat
beautiful Serenity Prayer:
“Grant me the
courage to change the things I can,
Patience to
accept the things I cannot and the
Wisdom to know
the difference.”
You
already have courage and wisdom (you are reading the JHTK series, right) Make
yourself a long list of what frustrates you about job hunt. Please
make it a long list.
Now
break it down into what you can change and what things you cannot. Now review the list a second time and
consider what you can’t change list again.
With time, help, education, perseverance are there some things in your
cannot list that can be changed. I could
buy something to get rid of the dandelions or get in snow shoveling shape to
prepare for the snow, making it less a problem. Like Little Orphan Annie sang “maybe what’s good gets a
little bit better and maybe what’s bad gets gone.”
Now
take your list of really can-nots, a pen and a roll of toilet paper. One by one, write down the items on your
can’t list onto the toilet paper. Once
the list is complete, one by one tear them off, sink them into the toilet water
and flush them away.
So
many things are happening to you all at the same time that it is easy to lose
track and feel overwhelmed by it all.
The best way I know how to deal with this problem is to learn from what
my late grandfather said –
“The best way to
eat a cow is one steak at a time.”
Hey
, folks, you are facing ‘a cow’ in being unemployed or underemployed. You will remember years from now how you
handled the pressures you are facing right now.
Well, with apologies to our vegetarian friends, you have to bring that
cow down to size.
One
way is to label each of the steps separately, as is done in the Individualized
Placement and Support model of job hunting.
By breaking it down into its components,
you may be able to have a greater sense of mastery and a better sense of how
you will accomplish something toward your overall goals every day.
Making
It Work:
List
all of the parts of the job hunting process from your point of view:
•Preparing
physically: Appearance, transportation, clothes, etc. so you present yourself
as energetic.
•Preparing your
message: Resumes, applications, Oz factors of you and the specific employer.
•Preparing your
research: What are perspectives of each employer, issues facing the hiring
managers for today/future, have you kept up with references?
•Preparing for
the fine points: Ready for the unexpected, preparing for questions you may
face?
•Add here any
other preparations unique to your personal situation.
So
you have tried your best to get interviewed but cannot
get past the Bulldog.
Maybe
you want to show your capabilities but cannot get through to the employers out
there.
Or
maybe you are trying to get a better understanding of the interests, points of
view and Employer Oz factor, but you cannot find out.
One
solution to all 3 of these is the
informational interview. One of
the best ways to find out an employer’s needs and point of view is to ask one.
A great way to express to an employer your skills is to, well, tell one.
Getting
that information and exposure can come through an informational interview. This takes some self-confidence to set one up
but as with potato chips, once you have finished one you cannot wait for
another.
Making
It Work:
Practice
setting up an informational interview with three companies in the field you
want to go to work in. You may not get
all three, but keep at it until you meet at least one.
You
will need the following:
•Who, Where and When–
Find the hiring manager at companies in the field you want to work in.
•How
– Compose a letter asking to meet briefly with the person you have identified
at their convenience whether or not
they are hiring currently.
•Why
– Well, what is YOUR reason? What is
YOUR interest in the field – why THIS company or THIS field?
•What
– Plan ahead, knowing specific things you want to learn about – especially in
the point of view of the hiring manager: how do you select the right
person? What directions do you see for
the future?
The
goal overall is to understand more about the field, understand the Oz factor of
the employers you are hunting and when that is accomplished to get the word out
about your skills.
It
is important to keep your spirit up as you face the challenges of job
hunting. Earlier in the series we
reviewed some actions you can take to feel more centered or to make your
application more interesting, but in the fine tuning we are more personal.
Remember
to feel a sense of gratitude in the gifts that you have – the gifts of the
world around you and the gifts that you have to share with others. It can make a lasting effect on you to make
an inventory of what you need to support your personal spirit.
Helping others toward their goals – whether it is helping someone with homework or
joining a job hunting support group – can feed your spirit in a unique way.
Making
It Work:
Let
us address all three-
•Gaining a
feeling of gratitude for the gifts you have requires that you make an inventory
of these gifts. Take a moment and list
gifts that you share with others - - the sunshine, 24 hours in a day and hope
for the future for example.
Include
the gifts that you have in the main realms of life – your physical body, your
intellect, your heart and ability to deal with others, resources to help
yourself financially and your spiritual gifts of faith in yourself, others or
tomorrow.
•Make an
inventory of what you need for supporting your spirit. This is often difficult at first and requires
you to consider what faith means to you and how to foster it for the
future. Faith in the future, faith in
your being able to meet the challenges ahead.
•Help others
toward their goals – give them the benefit of your experience, expertise and
caring. This helps open things in your
life that only come out in caring for others.
At the end of the day you will gain a sense that someone else’s life is
different because you were in it and know that this day was special to you as
well.
My
late grandfather used to enjoy warning me about seeing past the sweet words of
salesmen or others who he called “all frosting and
no cake”.
In
job hunting there is a tendency among some hunters to sell all of the sizzle
without having any steak to back it up.
Employers are often concerned that they may be fooled by an applicant
who is just all sweet words (frosting) without a foundation to back it up (no
cake). The trick to it is to make
certain that when faced with this the employer knows that she is getting cake
after all.
How to do that?
First,make sure that in your resume, application and JIST
cards that you are showing the cake. Detail specifics of what you can do – have
proof with statistics, references who will back up the sweet sounding
statements you make.
Second, the cake should be inviting
to your audience – review the
words about your accomplishments as related to THEIR interests (noted in the
job description and all that you have found
in research.) If the employers want
angel food, avoid giving devil’s food.
Third,too much frosting makes the employer wonder how deep
the frosting goes compared to where the cake begins. Avoid
too much sweetness by keeping sentences short, resume easy to read and
filled with at least some cake.
Making
It Work:
Review
your resume, application and JIST card in light of the cautions listed above
and make the changes as needed. JIST
cards? Bulleted points of your best
qualities and qualifications targeting what the employer is looking for.
For years I have watched as job hunters were becoming frustrated by resumes that did not tell of just how qualified they were for the jobs they wanted.
They were thinking like job hunters -
worrying about their clothes in an interview, the fonts used in their resumes -
and not thinking like the person who's opinion REALLY matters in the interview,
the employer.
They did not know the four essentials of any job and how to tell the employer
Thanks to the hundreds of people who are enjoying the FREE workshops here on this blog.
As a way of giving thanks - here is one of the most popular videos in the Job Hunt Tool Kit vault.
Have you ever faced the problems of applying for work or getting interviews and you never get a call back? It is soooooo frustrating that it may impact your spirit and the way you look at yourself in the mirror.
This may effect the way you approach the next interview - do not let that happen!! It would effect the way you walk, the way you see yourself in the mirror and the way you approach the next employer.
Avoid this trap and you can get on with the hunt.
Making It Work:
Sure, you have tried to contact employers who have not called you but when it appears clear to you that you will not get the call...
Put words to the feelings you get when you wind up not hearing from employers you have applied to.
Anger Worry Self-pity Lack of self-confidence Fear
Make a list of these feelings and write them on separate pieces of toilet paper.
As promised... HERE is your second FREE Workshop from the Job Hunting Tool Kit. For you, the job hunter and for the people who care for hunters - counselors or family members.
This one is a workshop (with a bonus video) with a lesson from a world famous man known to millions as "|The Babe"
Enjoy...
George Ruth's Job hunting lesson for YOU
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 youand how you look at yourself in the mirror. Remembering your
home runs 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.
Welcome to the |first in dozens of FREE workshops to help job hunters and the people who care for them get ready and land that job. Check out more blogposts to see what I mean. In the meantime, enjoy... Helping people in the Job Hunt, you need to start with one basic... how to prove that the Job Hunter has brains? This is when I use "Teaching Aliens About (Baseball)"
When I explain about finding your Oz
factor, many people get worried and humble.
“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.
Making It Work:
Pretend that I am a Martian 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 I ask you to 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 Not bad, earth person" I laugh the way Martians laugh and say "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.
- Now I am back to being earthling George - - 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. *************************************************************************
It is often hard to see it in your own life, but there are strings that by themselves are nothing, but together hold you down from what and where you want to be.
Like in Gulliver’s Travels (I will wait here while some of you do a web search on the title), where the Lilliputians (little people) held down our hero with lots and lots of little strings, it is often the combination and accumulation of so many little things that make us feel overwhelmed. Tired. Unable to move.
Down So Long, Looks Like Up To Me
Counselors, family and friends can often see the strings before you can – things like medical problems or trouble in paying some bills. As a vocational counselor, I work with people who have a disabling condition and other strings from medications to figuring our transportation to just plain old fear of the unknown.
The days and especially the nights of feeling stuck in this web of strings take their toll until people find ways of coping with the pain of being stuck.
– Settling: There is getting comfortable with the cramped apartment and the demands of the landlord; the food budget that shrinks every month and a sense of just having to accept things “as they are”.
– Fear: Sometimes this fear becomes like a snowball rolling down a hill (sorry for any post-traumatic shock for people who survived this past winter), gathering other smaller fears into what becomes larger and scarier as it rolls.
– Baby steps: THIS is what every counselor and parent hopes for in the person wrapped by those strings. By breaking some of the strings the person begins to see a way out. For example- –
* Finding a way to get transportation to a job site.
* Getting reliable practice in job interviewing skills.
* Meeting people who respect them for the capabilities and ‘gifts’ they have.
* Finding they have an internal locus of control and can have an effect on the world around them.
By the Yard, Life Is Hard; By The Inch, Life’s a Cinch
Once a person gains a sense that their actions have an effect, they can begin to break the strings they face. Here is a video that describes it – enjoy, eh?
