I’d love to hear from you, as a subscriber, how close or far away from your original dream job you are? If you’re holding down a dream job, is it one you originally planned to get? If not, are you still trying to find that perfect job? Or have you given up?

What kinds of strategies worked? What kind didn’t? What would recommend to someone starting out to find a job that would produce as much happiness as possible?

Or have you found that it’s important to be “practical”?

Also, if you know someone who has a “dream job” but isn’t a subscriber, I’d love to hear about their experience.
Either second-hand or directly from them.

Let me know by e-mail. I’m interested in this subject, obviously, as much as whether someone finds a job, any other job, to support themselves. If you’re willing to share, let me know and I’ll reprint the responses so everyone can benefit from the experience.

Just send me an e-mail outlining your response.

Thanks in advance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Larry:
My resume must be working, because I DO get interviews....but here's what I get in "the dear ----- letter" ....although your experience is commendable, and you make a good impression at the interview, we found a more qualified candidate." <SIGH> How do folks break this hurdle?

Dear Subscriber:
The best way to “break this hurdle” is to (a) analyze in fine detail and very critically your performance and what happened in each of your prior interviews; then (b) work with someone, perhaps a coach, to rehearse yourself through a “mock” interview, including how you show yourself to be the best person for the job and those questions you stumble over or don’t want a would-be employer to ask; (d) do this a number of times; and (e) look into some NLP type training to heighten the effectiveness of your communication style. What’s happening, if I read it right, is that you’re coming in second in the competition, and perception, not the reality, is what’s knocking out of the box at the end.

Dear Larry:
What are the etiquette -- pluses and draw backs -- in filling out employment applications on their web site? Some of the companies wants the prospective employee to fill out their web forms and format to be considered for employment.

Also how do I answer the previous employer's phone #s, Manager's name, and references of present and past employers. The phone #s have changed, who knows where the previous managers are? Can I give out their cell #s?

Dear Subscriber:
I always believe you want to fill out their forms, if they want the information that way. It’s usually a hassle, a “pain in the neck.” If they give you an option, then by all means do it in your format. If the form calls for a phone number for an older employer, and you don't have it, then leave it blank. Basically the form was created as a "catch all" and the odds are they'll never call the older employer's phone anyhow. They do want to know who you worked for and for how long and when, obviously, and what you did. Ditto for any old supervisor. No, I wouldn't give out cell phone numbers.

Dear Larry:
I've got one for you, Larry. I teach communications to college students, and part of our class covers job interviews. You may have noticed that young people today dress very differently from us old farts. In summer, tanks tops and shorts that show a pierced navel are the norm for women, and in winter sweats with bunny slippers are what they wear to class. When they "dress up" to do a presentation, the women wear tight tank tops or sheer blouses, short short skirts, and often show a bare midriff; the guys, well, it's a struggle to get them out of their baggy jeans and tops.

Of course many of them have pierced various body parts--eyebrows, noses, and tongues are the most apparent aside from the multiple earrings--or they have obvious tattoos.

I wonder what kind of impression they are making on the HR person who gives them a screening interview.

I'm all for self-expression but I also know that appearance is a form of nonverbal communication, and just like written communication, it needs to be tailored (pardon the pun) to one's audience. Have you run across this issue with your clients, and what do you tell them?

Dear Subscriber:
My take on the dress issue is that it's important to look the way they expect you to look.

If it's an executive position in a bank or investment firm, you need to look like those who already work there with a tie and jacket and conservative dress or women's suit (skirt or pants). If it's an art director's position, you need to look as if you have some flair and creativity. If it's an entry level position, for a college student, it depends on the type of position it is – for data entry, they probably don't care; for a sales position, it's important to look like the existing sales people; for a junior level PR position, like the people already in that position (which may include pierced body
parts, tattoos, flip flops, etc.) No values here except that rule:

DRESS THE WAY THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE POSITION DRESS.

If anything, kick it up a notch to a tad bit more formality -- a light jacket or overshirt over the crop top, for example --
to decrease any shock value you may exhibit and to show you're being formal about the interviewing process.

That's my "take" on it, and thanks for the topic. Hope this helps you.

Dear Larry:
Do you have any observations regarding the trend towards drawing-out the hiring process by re-advertising the position long after a group of "finalists" has been identified and interviewed? This scenario has developed in two recent searches in which I was a candidate --

1) one of the positions was handled initially by a headhunter (in my opinion, he did not have a very good grasp of the position/requirements, and after a few screenings and completing an "assignment," he decided that I should not advance to the stage where I would meet with the CEO -- no one was hired, and the position is now re-advertised, by the organization itself, and I am pursuing it directly, since the company was never apprised of my candidacy). In this case, your conclusion that he wasn't a very good headhunter is undoubtedly correct; it also may be that said headhunter tried to "sell" you to the company, rather than being authorized by the company and they didn't want to pay a fee...

(2) the other position was handled by an internal "team," and the day-long interview process for the four "finalists" involved asking each candidate to start out by sitting in a stark conference room with the computer and a case study, and emerging 40 minutes later with a press release and talking points for a press conference (the position for which I was interviewing was the chief public affairs spot, and had a staff of 15, including a lobbyist at the state level and one in D.C., with the remaining staff members being in-house public information and community relations experts) -- after completing the "assignment," the candidate was asked to meet with a three-person panel and told to begin by giving the press briefing and answering questions which the panelists asked (as if they were reporters attending the press conference) -- after finishing, I asked the panel whether my approach for handling the crisis had been on target, and was told that I "nailed it" -- following a hour-long interrogation with the panel, I was taken to the department and met the chief public information and community relations staff members (who would be direct reports), and then given a tour of the facility by the public information officer who doubles as the website guru -- then two more interviews -- one with a peer to the hiring manager (who is in charge of budget/finance and administration), and the final interview with the CEO (who informed me that he would ultimately decide who would be hired for the job -- I've been told that none of the four finalists will be hired, and that they will re-advertise the position. Here the CEO may have nixed all the candidates; be aware that invariably every candidate is told they're good when they ask and then, in private, the knives may come out…

Dear Subscriber:
Companies, by and large, are very schizophrenic about hiring today. They don't always feel secure about the funding for the new position; they often aren't sure it will make a contribution to the bottom line; it's easier to fob off the responsibilities to existing employees; existing employees often feel they may be dumped if a new employee does a good job. An upcoming quarter's earnings may nix a new hire if it's poor. My clients have been finding that the process has stretched and stretched. For example, one person was first interviewed last February; re-interviewed five more times; and only in July got a call from a new hire who said he was asked to interview her. Her wry comment was, "I wonder if they know what they're doing, since they can't make up their mind." At the end of July she was hired. Turned out it took that long to "sell" everyone internally on the idea of creating a new position, even so, some were still opposed to it.

So the truth is that there are things going on internally in companies that influence whether the hiring for the open position stays in focus; and the worst thing an applicant can do is to get angry, or hostile, or disgusted. Hang in there is great advice; keep looking and don’t get “hung up” on any given position, no matter how much you invest yourself in it.

Yes, I've been working with a number of people who have found your observations to be correct.

I do believe there is one way to increase your chances of getting chosen and that it doesn't always coincide with immediate hiring, and it's a process that needs individual attention, so I direct my coaching efforts to working with the client to concentrate on it. Too often, clients have a "blind spot" that lets them make the same mistake again and again, so they come close to getting the job but ultimately aren't chosen; I work on these “blind spots” with clients.

Dear Larry:
I appreciate your newsletter and always find it very informative.

In response to your request for suggestions for future content, I'd like to see your ideas for how to meaningfully communicate the value of one's accomplishments in a resume. While I've successfully tackled quite a lot of "stuff" in my career, I realized a couple of years ago that I was having difficulty expressing the results as a dollar figure, percentage or other hard data. Since that time, I've made a conscious effort to build more measurements into my projects so that I wouldn't continue to have the same problem.

I'm interested to hear your suggestions for how I might include some of the other "stuff" that I feel is important, but less quantifiable. I find it's much easier to present this information in person in an interview when examples of experiences are requested than it is to make it sound substantive on paper.

Dear Subscriber:
I realize this may be utilitarian, but my viewpoint is the real test of any resume is whether you're getting asked in for interviews, especially for those job listings that seem to be a natural fit.

If you're not, then the resume needs working on. What you're pointing out is interesting, and I find it works in a client's favor when we talk through and "draw out" their quantified achievements.

Trying to do it by yourself is sometimes an exercise in futility. The reason for this is many people work better in a domain that is "social"; as opposed to doing it all alone. I've had a good amount of success helping clients to quantify their achievements, and even digging up achievements they didn't realize existed, so that their resume then evokes interviews. If you're not getting the results you want, you might try a coaching session with me to achieve this; if you are, then don't strive for perfection but focus on the interview and preparing for it when you get it.

But if you do want to go-it-alone, you might try looking at your actions to determine how they benefited your prior employer, and describing that. For example, saying “…reducing turnover by half.” Some people get hung up on quantification; an honest estimate is OK to use and, if you do use one, rest assured that nobody can “check it out” easily, nor will they in almost 99% of the cases. “Half” in the prior statement may be an estimate; it isn’t exact; yet it will work just fine. No lying ever is permissible however. If it isn’t possible to quantify it, it is still possible to describe the impact of what you did, and that’s what’s important.

Dear Larry:
How about the heebie-jeebies of uncertainty when one HAS a job, but are scared that it might go away? Which affects one's performance, which increases the potential for unemployment...

Dear Subscriber:
A good time back I wrote that we all have to unhook our egos from our jobs, so that we felt good and secure about ourselves apart from anything that went on at the company we worked for. This is a new concept to those involved in judging their worth by their employment, or the money they earn, or their status in the work-world. It’s damned important to do.

The second part of this is what I also wrote about networking. If you don’t have a network in place, while you have a job, you’re short-changing yourself. Sure, it takes work to do this, but it’s absolutely necessary to have those connections so you can switch easily whenever necessary. Perhaps I should say, more easily, because very little seems easy in this job-losing economy.

Third, I believe we’re all becoming like the legendary wandering marshals of the old west who went from town to town, hired by the local gentry for a time, fighting the battles, but always moving on. That’s romantic, isn’t it?

If you think of yourself as a hired hand, always subject to down-sizing, then you know you’re going to have to move regularly to (a) improve your salary, (b) your job title, (c) your peace of mind. Nothing mysterious about it. Many clients retain me to keep them looking for another position, even while employed these days, because they know that one bad revenue quarter, one merger more, one relocation of a production facility to a third country, will result in their being on the street.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2002 by Lawrence M. Light. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part prohibited without prior permission.

What do I do first?

Why outplacement isnt so effective

Salary negotiations

Part-time work