Don’t give in.
Don’t give up. Don’t quit.
People tell
you this when you’re looking for a job. They tell you to stay positive. They tell you stay prayerful. They tell you to keep hope alive. They may even tell you where you can go to get a job, and when you go
where they say go you find there is nothing there. You’ve been bamboozled, lost time, lost energy, lost
hope. An exercise in futility is
how many of us view the job search.
And so, we quit.
Don’t give in.
Don’t give up. Don’t quit.
I’m telling
you this because the times they are a changing. The promise implied in that old lyric
from a Bob Dylan song spoke to the end of one time and the beginning of
another, and how we must come together to accept change. The last four years have produced pain
and suffering, longing and loss of hope, but there has ever been brightness at
the seams, truly a light at the end of the tunnel. Consider that the times have changed, and it is now absolute
necessary that you change with them.
You are a job
seeker and the job market his shifted literally under your feet. There are only two things that create
jobs, innovation and demand. All
other efforts at job creation are a secondary to these primary requirements. To that end, as businesses have
learned to do a great deal more with a lot less, they have created new needs,
new industries, and thus new demand.
Ideas abound, and in this environment there is a job with your name on
it.
For the IT
professional the job market is incredibly promising. In any other field you can name IT is tied to its prosperity
and if you are not an IT professional the demand created by innovation these
fields can be the job you are seeking.
So, with that
understanding we must come to the cold hard facts, the brass tacks necessary to
pin your name to the wall of real-world job possibility.
I’m an
aspiring critical thinker and I make us of a particular problem solving
methodology, 3FE: Find, Focus, establish the Fundamentals, and Execute. It is the simple person’s critical
thinking tool for problem resolution.
Use 3FE and
figure out how to lock the job you seek.
Start with the critical thinker’s core questions. What skills do you have? What do you bring to a perspective
employer, and if what you bring is exactly what others have, what do you have
to do in order to differentiate yourself?
How can you make your skill set look far better than everybody
else’s? What makes you
special? And know there is an
answer. We are all special, and
that is something you do in some fashion that sets you apart from everyone
else? Brand that special
something. Brand yourself, and
make yourself shine.
When can you
start? When can you bring strong returns on the company’s investment in
you? When will you know enough to
really start working as a leader in your own space, and perhaps turn the curve
and lead others in increased efficiency?
Can you do this? Are you
this type of employee? If not,
determine what it takes to turn yourself into this type of employee and brand
that skill as part of what makes you so right for the job.
Why should the
company choose you for this job?
Why should the company invest in you? What is your story and how are you so much better than the
fifteen other candidates we’ve interviewed?
As a new
aspiring critical thinker focused on locking the right job for you this
question will not present itself as a challenge. By the time you’ve completed working on yourself and your
personal brand through your own 3FE exercise you will know what to say, and how
to say it. Your resume will speak
loudly to why you are the right candidate. And when you do go in for the interview with strong mind and
voice, all the interviews will be over.
The company
should invest you because of those fifteen candidates you are the only one that
provided them with information and artifacts that spoke clearly and loudly to
exactly what makes you so very special, and ideal for the job.
Don’t give in.
Don’t give up. Don’t quit.
Just this week
on the news a couple was being interviewed who spent their last bit of money
driving to what they believed was an opportunity for a job in construction in
Missouri. They were responding to
an ad on Craigslist. The job,
offered by a subcontractor called Black Sparta LLC. promised two years of work.
When they arrived in Missouri, there was of course no job, nothing.
There is a job
out there waiting for you to claim it, to lock it down. You can not only compete against others
in your chosen field you can beat them, and win what is yours. You have done a great deal. You’re tired. You’re weary.
You may have even given up.
Now, is the time to change, for the times they are a changing, and you
must change with them. Innovation
and demand are on the cusp of exploding into a new growth cycle. You must be ready. Seek, find, and lock your job.
The Aspiring
Critical Thinker,
