Job-hunting? Look out - the Bogeyman's after you!
Thursday July 31 2003
IT IS my considered opinion that job-hunting is for dummies and that smart people career-hunt. You would never undertake a journey in your car without a destination in mind - you would just panic at the first junction - and yet that is exactly what the majority of people do with their careers. They identify a direction in their late teens on the basis of scholastic aptitude and then follow the path of least resistance in that occupation.
I advocate a simple, structured approach to career management which is mindful of the realities (and horrors) of the marketplace. Unless you were born with the figurative silver spoon in your mouth, you will have to face and be prepared for:
* Enforced job-hunts.
* The bogeyman.
* Fanatics.
Data from the US shows that the upshot of all the mergers and hostile takeovers of recent years is that you can expect to have to change job up to seven times in your life.
Seven times ploughing through the appointments section of your newspaper with a red crayon in your hand. Seven times rattling every bush in your network to find out when a job is coming up in a company you could just about tolerate working for.
So, fair reader, irrespective of your profession, education and brilliance at your chosen job, acknowledge and respect the fact that you need to get good at this thing we call Career Management. If you are reasonably proficient, you will succeed at one out of every four interviews. Rounding up, that means if you face the worst-case scenario of seven enforced changes, you're going to have to get to, and sit through, around 30 interviews in your career. Get good at this!
Career Management is not an innate talent - you have to learn how. Nor is it a frivolous luxury - it has become a necessity. Nor is it a one-off investment of time, effort and money.
The Bogeyman is the person who is better prepared than you to compete for the job that you so desperately want (or need). The Bogeyman is the person who has wanted this job (not just any old job, but this job) for the past five years. He has been networking, training, educating himself, reading and researching every day. He doesn't have friends - he has contacts. He doesn't have a family - just a circle of influence. He doesn't have a social life - just more entries in his little black book. His CV would make you weep.
And why does he do all this? Just so he can beat you hands-down for his dream job. He has what my mother used to refer to as "naughty thoughts" about his dream job. Do you? Wouldn't it be lovely to walk into an interview with a high degree of certitude? To know that there is nothing that they can ask you that you haven't anticipated and prepared for. Bogeymen have that surety and the result is that they are out there, raising the bar and setting the standard for all of us.
Fortunately, Bogeymen are rare; I hope you never come up against one. More to the point - I hope that, as a result of refining your approach to managing your career and any job-hunts you may need (or want) to undertake, you become the Bogeyman.
The Fanatics that I am talking about are the guys and gals in the very good suits on the other side of the table. Some of them used to be Bogeymen. But now they have made it. And they hold your life in their hands. The CEOs and CFOs of publicly-quoted companies have to present to the financial community and shareholders anything from one to four times a year. The content of these presentations tends to be fairly dry and repetitive but the delivery has to be razor sharp. Every time.
Now, just suppose you're going for an interview as Vice-President-in-Charge-of-Whatever in that company. Just how well-prepared do you think the CEO expects you to be? I have conducted interviews with this Fanatic and let me tell you, he fires slipshod, badly-primed candidates out of the building using a CANNON! He's a Fanatic and proud of it. And guess what? He surrounds himself with like-minded people.
So, maybe you aren't quite ready for the VP job just yet. Maybe you are going for a position three or four rungs down the ladder. Chances are that you are being interviewed by a Junior Fanatic.
So learn how to manage your career. It's usually quiet in the jobs market in the summer - use the time and spend the effort now and improve the choices that you make for later. It's better than having those choices made for you at a time that may not suit you.
"Chance favours the prepared mind" (Louis Pasteur)
Rowan Manahan is managing director of Fortify Services, a Dublin-based outplacement and career management firm.
