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

3FE: Lock The Job - Is Your Resume Courageous?

This is a very simple question and it is a direct progression of the theme we have been following with regard to resumes.  The question is straightforward.  Pull out your resume.  Look at it.  Is it courageous?

Is your resume courageous? Is the answer yes?  Is the answer no?  Do you even know whether it is or isn’t courageous? 

I need you to pay particular attention.

I’m asking you if the document you have created to represent yourself to the outside world, the sum total of your work experience, if this document boldly represents you in such a fashion as to elicit admiration.  When people look at your resume do they say, “DAMN! THAT IS HOT!”

Let’s clarify for a moment.  Courageous by definition means not deterred by danger, that specific quality that allows a person to face difficulty, to launch oneself into clear and present danger with grit and fierce determination.  Okay we’re talking about resumes so this may sound a bit excessive … but I assure you it is not.

When we talk about each and every one of you out there using 3FE: Find, Focus, establish the Fundamentals, Execute, the critical thinking tool for motivational empowerment, and the core of the Lock The Job process, we’re talking about courage.  

When we talk about the 3FE: Red Resume process, using upwards of 4 different fonts in your resume with at least one differentiating color (like red), and perhaps a professional image of you in the top right corner, we are talking about courage.  Make no mistake we are talking about courage.

This is courageous because I have encountered many of you and to a person without fail you each wear a look of concern, trepidatiousness, fear at the prospect of doing something different to the document that looks just like the document everyone else is submitting for the job you covet.  Is that the way to win?  

Differentiation is absolutely key.  Positive differentiation that is accretive to the job seeking career building process is key.  Positive differentiation that makes you stand out in such a way as to put you head and shoulders above the competition is key.  We are talking about shifting the paradigm with regard to standard practices in the job search.  It’s the 21^st century, don’t you think it’s time for a change?

With due consideration you must go down the path you feel most comfortable pursuing.  If your job search leaves something to be desired but you don’t want to take any chances, then keep on doing what you’re doing.  Better safe then sorry, right?  That is of course unless, sorry you still don’t have a job is the preferred outcome.  And I’m quite certain all of you prefer to Lock The Job.  With that understanding I urge you to hedge your bets, and join me in the paradigm shift. 

Do what is necessary to differentiate your brand.  Stand out.  Be courageous.  Take a second look at your resume and make some changes.  Take a second look at yourself and how you build your network, how you make your connections, how you interview, how you do all that you do with regard to your career, and make some changes.  Don’t settle.  Be courageous.

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,

D.S. Brown

3FE: Lock The Job – Unemployment is 7.7% … So Now What?

Thursday’s unemployment number was a bombshell. It was a bombshell not in the sense that it was an outrageously surprising shock.  It was not a bombshell in that it was a cause to jump out of your seat and sing Happy Days Are Here Again.  No, it was a bombshell in a sense that it unleashed a torrent of prognosticators, pundits, and so-called economic experts. 

There were no shortage of interpreters and job geniuses lambasting or extolling the numbers.  And lest we forget there was also the loud and vociferous fringe that squawks about how the government is cooking the numbers, leaving this out, shoving this in, and just plain outright lying about the figures … you know, because Obama is in charge.

When the numbers came I tweeted them.  I posted them on LinkedIn and on Facebook.   I didn’t waste time listening to the parsers.  Why?  Simple, the number has a very real bearing on the emotional state of our economy, and I knew it would make people feel good, and thereby perhaps push up the stock market.  Well, it did that!  Those savvy enough to capitalize in the moment made money.  

Let’s be clear, and on this I brook no dissent, I don’t care how educated your are or how many degrees you have on economics, the truth is jobs are all about innovation and demand.  That’s all it’s about, innovation and demand, and nothing else.  Everything else operates as subsets of these to macro indicators. 

All the statistics you can quote and all the numbers you may write on the white board mean nothing when it comes down to the brass tacks of economics, and that’s how people feel.  Do employers feel confident that demand has increased sufficiently to hire more people?  Do consumers feel confident enough to go out and spend money on stuff to increase that demand the employer is seeking?  Has the demand generated enough revenue that the employer feels good enough to invest in R&D and innovate something new that may generate new demand and thereby an entirely new revenue stream. 

Understand the underlying truth about our economy, as well as the stock market.  It’s all about how people feel.  It’s all about emotion.  With sincere and critical understanding let’s go back to the 7.7% unemployment number and what it means for us everyday working people. 

No matter what people may say to the contrary the number bodes well for the regular working American.  Some demand may be off, but demand in some areas is most certainly seasonal.  Step outside your front door and see what’s happening.  Depending on where you are housing prices may be stabilizing or even going up.  Supplies may be shifting supporting increased demand, and higher prices along with it.  The need for people to do things in your area just may be increasing. 

So … what does that mean for you, now what?

It means that you must be ready and wary.  I can tell you now for a fact that I am constantly in contact with people who are not only looking for a job, but are LOCKING THE JOB!  Let me make that very plain, especially for you doom and gloom people out there, THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO ARE LOOKING FOR A JOB, DEMANDING TERMS AND ARE GETTING WHAT THEY WANT ON THEIR TERMS! 

Pause … go back and read that last sentence again. 

The job market is changing, and it is changing for the better.  Are you ready for it?  I will continue to push this message because deep down in my heart I want to see all of you succeed.  I want to see all of you gainfully employed.  I want you all to achieve Critical Success.  And what is Critical Success? 

Critical Success is the planned achievement of something urgent and essential utilizing careful planning and judgment for the express purpose of attaining personal prosperity.

In the 21^st century job environment there will be those who can make demands and lock the job again and again. No matter what happens their skills will serve them well.  In the IT field there is a shortage of skilled workers.  However, competition for some jobs will be stiff.  If you’re a .NET or JAVA developer you’re in the proverbial catbird seat and many of you know it.  However, if you’re a Project Manager you just might feel like a generic brand on the shelf.  I ask the question again, are you ready?

No matter your field of expertise, no matter what job you’re seeking, the 7.7% unemployment number is in line with what just might be happening all around you in your town.  Innovation is on the rise and demand is increasing.  This means the employers will need workers.  This means hiring will increase.  This means competition will increase.  This means you must be ready to compete well before you even walk through the door.

That 7.7% number is good news for you, and very timely, if you’re ready.  If you’re not ready, then you are behind.  Stick with us at this blog as we continue the journey of Locking The Job.  We will use 3FE: Find, Focus, establish the Fundamentals, Execute, The Tool For Motivational Empowerment in order to utilize critical thinking skills in our quest for the right job for the right person in the right time.  Together, we will capitalize on the job numbers, and the changing economic environment.  We will help each other.  And my sincere prayer through this dialogue is that we will all achieve Critical Success. 

7.7% my friends and fluctuating.  Be ready.

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,

D.S. Brown

3FE: Lock The Job – Why Your Resume Doesn’t Work

You resume will not get you the job.  In fact, it will just barely get you through the door.

Truthfully, your resume either just barely works, or doesn’t work at all.  You may think you have put together the ideal document.  You may think you have laid it out in a fashion that attracts attention.  You may think with your references, and your job experiences listed you have satisfied the requirements necessary in order to lock the job. 

You are wrong.

Please bear with me and allow me to explain.  Your resume is a black and white document on varying grades of paper.  You are using one font, maybe two, some bold and italics, and maybe some bullets.  You are using catchphrases and clichés to describe yourself.  You have actually been told to put industry watch-words in your resume, you know, so you can look like you know what you’re talking about.  You’ve listed multiple certifications, awards, and accolades, on top of where you went to school.  You’ve given your pedigree.  You’ve laid it all out.  You think you’ve encapsulated yourself quite nicely, with contact information so a prospective employer can know how to reach you.  You’ve got it all together.

You’re boring.

What you’ve actually done is the exact same thing 99.9% of your competition is doing.  That is the mind-numbing, eye tearing, soul-blasting truth.  You are boring.  You are mundane.  You are just like every other person putting a resume together, submitting it online, dropping it off at career-fairs, putting it in the hands of friends and acquaintances, hoping that it will get noticed.  Hoping that you will be selected, hoping that your resume will stand out.

The point of critical consideration is how to stand out in a positive fashion.  You hope you will stand out and be considered for the job.  However, your chances of doing this are drastically reduced when you look just like every other candidate on paper.  This is the fundamental truth, and this is why your resume does not work.

If you want to stand out, then stand out.  Differentiate yourself in a manner that highlights not only what you bring to the table, but the imagination and innovation you bring to the concept of the resume.  Yes, you can make your resume stand out in a positive manner by doing the things most resume experts and job recruiters will tell you NOT to do. 

Here’s the deal, you’ve tried it their way, now try it my way.  After all, it can’t hurt.  If anything go ahead and submit both resumes.  Yes, I’m being radical here, but 9 times out of ten then won’t even know you’ve submitted two resumes.  THEY SAY THEY WILL BUT THEY WON’T! 

What you want to do in order to Lock The Job is submit to what I call the 3FE: Red Resume treatment. The Red Resume treatment requires that you take a wholistic look at yourself, your skills, your story, and then redefine how you want to market your brand in your resume.  One of the first things I tell people to do is put some color in it.  Yes, that’s right, put some color in your resume.  Red for Red Resume treatment, highlight the hot skills, Red for what you do well, or Red for when the company was losing money just before you swooped in and played captain save ‘em, or Red for those watch words that everyone likes to see. 

Put some green on there for where you made a profit, gained some efficiency, or lowered cost.  Put some blue on there in the area where you tell the story of you.  Yes, that’s right, tell your story.  Add a paragraph in your resume and truly regale the prospective employer with the story of you, and why you are so very special. 

Put your picture on the resume!  This is the age of diversity and no matter how many people lament it history is clearly moving in the right direction.  You have nothing to fear from putting your picture on the resume.  Remember, if the place you’re considering doesn’t like Asians, or discriminates in age or weight, then is it really some place you want to work, even if you’re desperate?  Consider it.

Just make sure the picture you put on your resume is the very best professional picture you have.  Some of you definitely need to clean up before taking the shot.  Present your best self.  And don’t spend ten pages telling me about your last ten jobs. When confronted with a ten page resume the very first thing I will do is sigh.  Yes, I will sigh, and exhale deeply!  You don’t want your resume to be the one to make me sigh, or if you do it better be one hell of a damn resume. 

In truth, the most relevant information around your skillset will be comprised of the last two years.  You can make all the relevant information fit in under four pages, two to three years of employment history will suffice.  In truth it takes just about that long to gain a strong foothold and perhaps become expert in whatever it is you’re doing.  If the job you’re applying for is in the same field, then that is where I want you to concentrate your resume effort.  That’s what I’m interested in reading.  Some of your earlier jobs, I don’t need to see them.  Understand, I don’t need you to tell me about your entire job history from high school when you worked at the hot dog stand all the way up to now.  Don’t worry, I’ll do a background check on you anyway. 

These are but a few of the things you need to do in order to truly Lock The Job, be it for your next promotion, or your new position at that brand new hot IT organization.  The point is you need to truly think critically about the phrase positive differentiation, and your personal brand.  You begin to do this, and follow through, then you’ll get there.  You will Lock The Job.

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,

D.S. Brown

3FE: Lock The Job - Your Resume Is Boring

Last week we talked about how your resume will not get you the job. This week let’s talk briefly about why your resume is boring.  Yes, I called your resume boring.  If you would take a moment to pull out your resume and look at it, ask yourself the critical question.  Is it boring?  Does it stoke your flames?  Do you feel excited when you look at the pages you’ve put together to describe your career up to this point?  For the majority of you the answer is clear.  No.

Your resume is boring.

I’ve mentioned the need for differentiation.  In today’s highly competitive market I’ve mentioned the need for you to brand yourself appropriately.  Your resume is the initial introduction to who you are and what you bring to an employer.  You may have followed all the rules, included all the key words, set it up to pass the recruiter’s filters, done the same thing all the other potential candidates would do to make it over the initial hurdles, and considered for a possible interview.  However, that does not lock the job for you.

Let me be plain.  People who read resumes are people just like you.  They get bored.  They may have an urgent need but they become very frustrated with the interminable stack of papers that show name, address, skill set, professional experience, education and references.  The majority of resumes that managers receive all look the same.  I know this from personal experience.  Take my word for it.

Now, to be sure there are those managers who want to stick to the old tried and true and don’t like differentiation.  They don’t like effective self-branding.  They don’t want you to do anything to your piece of paper that would make it stand out.  They may even enjoy bringing you in on the strength of your eight page resume and put you through five rounds of interviews.  Let’s be clear, you don’t want to work for this person.  That’s a tragedy in the making.

Today’s competitive environment requires clarity, swiftness, effective communication, appropriate brevity, innovation, the creation of demand, and the maximization of the brand.  Not only does the description describe the successful company, but it describes the people who make that company successful.  If you would join them you would need to make sure that you exhibit these qualities.

We start with your resume.  We make sure it’s not boring.   You should strive for the appropriate use of color, font, size, and placement.  You should consider a picture on your resume.  The times are changing and the inclusion of a very professional image breaks your resume out of the mold, and definitely presents you as being bold. 

Besides, understand quite clearly that as you are vetted for a position the employer will scour LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and everything else in order to determine just what kind of person they might be considering.  Your face will not be a surprise by the time you arrive for the interview … if you’re chosen.

The most important thing I want you to consider in order to break up the monotony of the resume is tell a story.  That’s right.  Write a powerful communicative introductory paragraph about you.  Tell me why I should hire you.  Tell me about your experience.  Tell me where you have done the things that have made you successful and why.  Be brief, but exciting.  Be clear and compelling.  Be motivating.  Make me stoked at the possibility of bringing you in for an interview. 

This brief paragraph should be located in the top third of the first page of your resume.  Make sure all the other important elements are included in your resume.  Just the color alone breaks up the painful monotony.  However, by adding the other elements you have effectively branded yourself radically away from the crowd.  By doing this at first glance your resume will move from the trash pile to the second-glance pile. 

Now, a moment of honesty, some managers will frown on your differentiation.  However, I will say to you now as I have said to others, you can hedge your risk.  First, have no fear of submitting two different resumes.  Second, if you’ve been doing it the plain old boring way and have not met with success, why not try something different?  The point that you must consider critically is if you wish to be competitive and lock the job in an ever changing 21^st century job market, then you must be willing to be different, to stand out from the crowd, prove the case for choosing you, branding yourself appropriately.  It’s entirely up to you.  Consider it critically.     

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,
D.S. Brown

3FE: Lock The Job – Don’t Quit Your Job Search

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,

D.S. Brown