What Color Is Your Parachute? (14 page)

In general, traits describe:

• How you deal with time and promptness.
  

• How you deal with people and emotions.
  

• How you deal with authority, and being told
  what
  to do at your job.
  

• How you deal with supervision, and being told
  how
  to do your job.
  

• How you deal with impulse vs. self-discipline, within yourself.
  

• How you deal with initiative vs. response, within yourself.
  

• How you deal with crises or problems.
  

Here is a sample list. This list is borrowed from the
Flower Exercise
, as it is part of a more thorough self-examination, there. Check off any of the traits (using
Checkster.com
or similar) that you or your colleagues say describes you:

Click
here
to view the PDF version of the Traits List.

Having finished reading the list and checking off those traits you believe you have, go back and choose your top five favorites. Then, write down a story (a
true
story) about a time when you demonstrated that you have each trait, and be prepared to share this story in the interview, after you have told the employer you can indeed do the work they need done, and you now want to add: what distinguishes you from nineteen other people who can do the same work.

The employer will be paying attention to your
demonstrated
traits, as a job-interview begins, as shown in your actions. Were you punctual? Are you courteous? Do you seem to have a true interest in this position? Do you seem willing and eager to learn?

Well, not being a mind-reader, I can only speculate. But I would guess they’re trying to see how you think:

1. If the situation is one that should be familiar to anyone claiming previous experience with this kind of job, they are testing you to see if you really have the experience you claim. In which case, their expectation is that you will answer it quickly and confidently.
   

2. If the situation is one you’re not likely to have ever encountered before, they are trying to see if you can think on your feet. They deliberately give you a problem they know is new to you, and wait to see how inventive you can be.
   

3. It is also possible they want to see if you can come up with more than one answer. They want to see if you instinctively search for alternatives, in case your first idea does not work: a plan A, and then a plan B.
   

No, these days it is no longer sufficient just to say what your skills are. That has changed in the twenty-first century. Now, you must give evidence. That means a story about a real time when you used the skill or trait that you are claiming. Incidentally, employers call these kinds of interviews “behavioral interviews.”

Before you ever go into an interview you choose the five top skills that you think will be of greatest interest to
this
employer for
this
job that you are interviewing for. And then, in the case of each of the five you write out a brief description of a situation where you successfully used that skill, each on a separate page.

It may help you to “tighten up” each story, if you pose the following questions to yourself, as you’re writing out the story:

1. What was I trying to accomplish?
   

2. Why did I want to accomplish this?
   

3. What were the obstacles I faced, or the constraints under which I had to operate?
   

4. What exactly did I do?
   

5. What happened as a result?
   

6. How did I know I was successful?
   

When done, read the five pages over and over to yourself. You won’t be taking these pages into the interview. These are just “crib notes” to help you prepare for the interview. You must be able to offer “proof” that you have each skill, by telling each story as though it were second nature to you—now. Like breathing out and breathing in.

Our experience has been that this is rare. But if it worries you, there is an easy remedy. Go online and use a program invented by a friend of mine, Yves Lermusi, called
Checkster, which is free to individuals
(
http://checkster.com/web/talent.php
) in its most basic form (there is an upgrade you can buy but only if you wish). In the free version, you submit the names of up to twenty-five people who know you and your work well—be they colleagues, customers, former supervisors, or friends. Checkster sends them a request, on your behalf, to fill out a short questionnaire about you (five to seven minutes) and submit it back to Checkster within a mandatory four-day time period. Their names are then separated from their feedback, and an anonymous summary report is given to you summarizing what all these friends and acquaintances together perceive are your strengths and your uniqueness. Only
you
ever get this free report, and you can use it or discard it, as you wish. Use it to see what these people think is unique about you. Discard it if you think they’re way off base. Personally, I’d start with six people. Then if you aren’t satisfied with the feedback you get, choose six other people, and do it again.

If all else fails, then (sigh) you’re just going to have to do the paper and pencil exercises in
chapter 11
, which will take you through an in-depth exploration of what you want—and need—out of your new job.

If you don’t have a computer, there are non-Internet job-hunting resources, of course. For example, if because you lack a computer you can’t access “Job-Postings” by employers on the Internet, you can always look at the “Help Wanted Ads” in your local newspaper, especially the Sunday edition.

But we’re certainly moving toward that day when a computer will be considered to be indispensable for anybody’s job-hunt. That’s because more and more people are using the computer and the Internet for, well,
everything
. Indeed, with the present shall we say obsession with social-networking sites such as Facebook (400 million users, and climbing) and miniature computers such as smart phones, usage keeps increasing, percentage-wise. According to the latest available figures, which currently are for the last quarter of 2009, at least 74.1 percent of Americans use the Internet (which adds up to 227 million users), and 48 percent are
frequent users
—defined as those who use the Internet for more than one hour each day.
⁴
Others usually at least have a friend who can go on the Internet for them.

Moreover, if you know how to use a computer but just don’t happen to own one at the moment, many public libraries provide free Internet access to its members, and “Internet cafés” let you use their computers for a fee. (To locate the Internet café nearest you, have a friend use his or her computer, to input your zip code into the comprehensive directory found at
www.cybercaptive.com
.)

In view of this virtual omnipresence of the computer in our culture now that we are firmly in the twenty-first century, I have freely listed Internet job-hunting resources, throughout this guide.

For overall free guides to the entire job-hunt process, in addition to my own website,
www.jobhuntersbible.com
, there are seven sites you will find are the most comprehensive and helpful:

1. www.job-hunt.org
   , run by Susan Joyce.
   

2. www.jobstar.org
   , run by Mary Ellen Mort.
   

3. www.rileyguide.com
   , run by Margaret F. Dikel.
   

4. www.quintcareers.com
   , run by Dr. Randall Hansen.
   

5. www.cacareerzone.org
   , run by the California Career Resource Network. Once you are on the home page, it gives you a choice between running the site under Text, Graphic, or Flash. Choose Graphic.
   

6. www.asktheheadhunter.com
   , run by Nick Corcodilos.
   

7. www.indeed.com
   , run by a privately held company founded by Paul Forster and Rony Kahan, with the New York Times Company among its shareholders. This is the answer to a job-hunter’s prayer. There are lots of “job-boards” out there, thousands in fact; these, if you don’t know, are websites that list employers’ job-postings, i.e., vacancies. Such postings are also to be found on employers’ own company or organization sites. Want to look through every one of them? No, you don’t. What you want is something that sweeps through all of them for you, and summarizes what it finds—in just one place. What you need is a site like Indeed. It is the most comprehensive job search service on the Web, as it “plucks” job listings from thousands of company websites, job boards, newspapers, and associations. It has a UK site, whose URL, not surprisingly, is
   www.indeed.co.uk
   . There is a similar omnibus search engine for jobs, called
   SimplyHired.com
   .
   

When all is said and done, about statistics and surveys and that sort of stuff, these truths about the job-hunt remain:

Job-hunting is not a science; it is an art.
Some job-hunters know instinctively how to do it; in some cases, they were born knowing how to do it. Others of us sometimes have a harder time with it, but fortunately for us in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, there is help, coaching, counseling, and advice—online and off.

Job-hunting is always mysterious
. Sometimes
mind-bogglingly mysterious
. You may
never
understand why things sometimes do work, and sometimes do not.

There is no always wrong way to hunt for a job or to change careers
. Anything
may
work under certain circumstances, or at certain times, or with certain employers. There are only
degrees of likelihood
of certain job-hunting techniques working or not working. But it is crucial to know that likelihood, as we saw earlier in this chapter.

There is no always right way to hunt for a job or to change careers
. Anything
may
fail to work under certain circumstances, or at certain times, or with certain employers. There are only
degrees of likelihood
of certain job-hunting techniques working or not working. But it is crucial to know that likelihood, as we just saw.

Mastering the job-hunt this time, and for the rest of your life, done right, is a lot of hard work and takes some hard thinking
. The more work, the more thinking, you put into pursuing your job-hunt, and doing the homework on yourself, the more successful your job-hunt is likely to be.

Job-hunting often depends on some amount of pure blind luck
. Mastering the job-hunt doesn’t mean absolutely, positively, you will always be able to find a job. It does mean that you can get good at reducing the amount that depends on blind luck, to as small a proportion as possible.

All in all, job-hunting—like Life—has an edge of mystery to it, no matter how much it is researched and studied. But it also has an edge of adventure—sometimes a
wild
adventure. So keep your sense of humor always at the ready, as you hunt. You should be able to find some fun as you go about it, no matter how grim or long-delayed your re-employment.