3FE: Lock The Job - What Is 3FE & How Do You Lock It?

In the quest to Lock The Job it is absolutely imperative that you utilize critical thinking skills.  In fact, critical thinking is absolutely integral to living effectively in all aspects of our lives.  Some may call this an opinion.  For an effective life, I consider it a fact.

3FE is the tool for motivational empowerment and the everyday individual’s tool for applying critical thinking to any given situation.  3FE: Lock The Job is the utilization of the tool in order to gain employment and put your career in over-drive.

In order to understand 3FE:Lock The Job we must understand 3FE in general.  The tool is designed for simplicity and at its heart are principles many of us learned in grade school.  The great thing about using grade school principles to solve real-world complex problems is that we can break them down into the constituent components and address them in child-like fashion, making the activity infinitely rewarding, and if we go about it the right way … FUN!

3FE is Find, Focus, establish the Fundamentals, Execute.  FIND is the act of scouring for data.  In any given problem we must gather data.  Raw unvarnished data may be numbers, facts, addresses, names, incidents, occurrences, products developed, customer base, employee stats, retention, turnover, employee satisfaction, salary, benefits.  WHO are we looking to connect with at WHAT?  WHY do want to connect with this organization? WHEN can we connect?  WHEN must we have made our connection?  HOW long until we are in dire straits if we are trying to secure a position?  HOW can we connect with important individuals in this organization? WHERE is the organization located and WHERE do they go to look for prospects?   WHERE can I meet people that might have contacts with the organization?  The organization, IT Folks Incorporated looks like the kind of place we might like, where we might build a career.

We take this data and we start to scrutinize it, to either understand its meaning, or give it meaning based on the additional data we discover. By looking closer at the data we are focusing.

Focus is the phase of 3FE where we start to ask pertinent questions about the data we’ve collected.  We FOCUS on the details by elaborating on those basic critical questions we learned in elementary school.  We look closer at the details and start to make inferences that work well for us.  IT Folks Incorporated maintains ties with all the local recruiting offices.  However, they also sponsor organizations like BDPA, Next Level Technology Foundation, Women In Technology, and LISTA.

By Focusing on what we have found we start to see relations between the disparate bits of data.  Now the data has meaning, with meaning it becomes information, and as we examine and work with the information we can discern a logical path of progression.  This path of progression becomes our list of tasks, our schedule, our plan.  This is how we establish the FUNDAMENTALS.  The FUNDAMENTAL part of 3FE is how build a plan that we can use to achieve our goal. 

We have asked critical thinker’s questions.  We have kept it simple.  We have focused on the data and refined it as information.  We have looked at the information and what makes sense to us is a plan that requires us to not only reach out to recruiting agencies that have a relationship with IT Folks Inc., but we should also join one of the organizations that IT Folks sponsors, like BDPA.  We leverage not only the skills the recruiting agencies can bring to our job search but we understand clearly that we must build a network, leverage a network, and create an opportunity.

With a plan in hand, the only thing for us to do is EXECUTE the plan starting today.  Simplicity and elegance of execution are the key.  We want to achieve the objective and we want to do it in such a fashion that is motivating and elevating, confident and fulfilling.  This, is 3FE: Find, Focus, establish the Fundamentals, Execute.

In the Lock The Job process 3FE becomes Finding the company we want to target, Focusing on the details about the company and the people that can perhaps help us in a quest to join their ranks, establishing a Fundamental plan that increases the likelihood that said company will make us an offer; through critical thinking questions and answers that differentiate us and elevate us above the competition, and finally Executing a plan that we have put together that ends with us working for the company we’ve targeted. 

This, is 3FE:Lock The Job in action.

Utilizing critical thinking skills in everyday problem solving activities is not common place.  We aren’t taught to think critically.  We aren’t taught to problem solve.  We aren’t taught to use our minds in such a manner as to ease our burdens through the application of logic, partnered with passion, not overwhelmed by emotion.  3FE is the poor man’s critical thinking tool, an approach that works, that motivates, that when used correctly will most certainly guide you, and help you Lock The Job.  Consider it critically, and use it today!

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,

D.S. Brown

3FE: Lock The Job – If You Are Jobless The Job Search Is Your Job

It’s Monday morning and you have no desire to get up and continue the grind, the search, the look for something that has eluded you for almost four years.  You are not lazy.  You are not a quitter.  You are just incredibly, so incredibly tired.  You are tired of looking for a job.

It is always darkest before the dawn.

This is not a trite statement, especially in light of the changing economic environment. Corporations have squeezed incredible amounts of efficiency out of their employees.  Technology has allowed companies to increase profit margins without increasing payrolls. Globalization has allowed corporations to leverage efficiencies by using workers from all corners of the globe.  However, innovation is burgeoning and demand has increased.

Innovation and demand are the only two factors that create jobs.  That’s it.  That’s all.  All other factors are sub-variables of innovation and demand, and at this point in time job creators cannot continue to leverage their current work forces and manage to keep pace.  In essence, they are hiring.

So now is not the time to quit.  No matter what morning it is you must arise from bed ready to proceed with the job you have.  And if you are unemployed the critical point you must internalize and understand without equivocation is that you have a job.  Your current job is the job of looking for gainful employment that pays the bills, satisfies your desires within the confines of the best that is available, and offers you the opportunity to be fulfilled.

You may have been serious about the search for employment.  Or, maybe you have not taken it as seriously as you should.  No matter what has been, now is the time for you to make a change, to view what is before you with the seriousness it requires.  If you are jobless the job search is your job.

Apply the power of critical thinking to the job search and see yourself become successful.  I would ask that you use 3FE, the tool for motivational empowerment in order to harness everyday critical thinking skills in your effort to find a job.  3FE is Find, Focus, establish the Fundamentals, and Execute.  Use this tool in order to identify your path forward every morning.  Use this tool to remain positive and elevated as your pursue your goal along the path you have chosen.

Find the job opportunities for the week, or the day.  Identify which jobs you are going to pursue, which companies you want to place in the crosshairs.  Who are your targets?  Identify them, write them down, consider them deeply, and move aggressively into the next phase of 3FE. 

Focus on the companies you’ve identified.  Why have you chosen these companies?  What do they have to offer?  Who do you know or who can you rely on to give you the inside track on these companies?  Remember, build a network, leverage a network, create an opportunity.   When will you approach these companies, when will you be prepared to go on the interview, what will you do to be prepared for the interview, when will you schedule the interview?  Put the tasks on your calendar.

Now, you’re establishing your Fundamental plan.  You have dates for the tasks that prepare you.  You have tasks that help you gather your information about the companies you seek to engage.  You have a time and action plan for your interviews, and you have given earnest thought about how you will present yourself in the interviews.  In fact, you have given the effort a great deal of thought and you have pursued the 3FE: Lock The Job approach to pursuing the job and you have re-branded yourself appropriately.

Your plan is clear.  You have prepared your approach.  You have utilized the 3FE: Red Resume treatment, and your resume is appropriately colorful.  You have practiced you elevator and anti-elevator speech.  You have prepared your artifacts for review.  You even have developed www.I_Am_Hot.com to highlight what skills you bring to the job.  You are ready.  You can, and you will Execute. 

My mission in this article and in my interaction with all who seek me out is to remain committed to empowering each and every last one of you.  To do what I can to help you clarify the task, achieve the objective, and lock the job.  Remember, if you are looking for a job, the job search is your job … and if you conduct the search with the right frame of mind, you will indeed Lock The Job.  This, I promise you.   

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,

D.S. Brown