Competitive world out there

Depressing news, isn’t it, when you read or hear about the number of good people being laid off? What it means is, by and large, that everyone who is looking for a job is up against stiff competition.

Those who choose to blank out this fact, those who don’t want to be in competition and act as if it doesn’t exist when they know it exists, and those who are unaware of it, all operate from a much weaker position than those who acknowledge it and plan to do something about it.

That’s my thesis for this particular posting.

Competition is often a “dirty word” to many job seekers. They don’t like it. It makes them feel uncomfortable. They’re not used to it. It’s somehow common, dirty, pitting one person against another. It isn’t win-win; it’s one person wins, the others lose. It’s not fair. It’s not nice. Deep, deep feelings arise when you discuss it openly.

You can easily tell when you’re not being competitive. The signs are very easy to read.

First is, when you send off your resume in response to a job, and you don’t get anything back; no invitation to an interview; no calls from the HR Department or recruiter that posted the job; dead silence, maybe a postcard thanking you and telling you someone else has been chosen.

Second is, if you do get a response and get interviewed (whether by phone or in person or both), you don’t get offered the job.

Can’t be plainer than that.

I am adamant about those very real signs meaning that you aren’t being competitive. If either of these two signs show up with any regularity, you need to take a hard look at what you’ve been doing and begin to do something differently. The old rule applies: If you’re not getting the results you want, repeating what you did isn’t going to get different results.

And, as the quote at the beginning of this month’s article demonstrates, it’s a very competitive world out there. That means that you have fewer chances to find the job you want, and it also means that you have to be better equipped, more desirable as a job candidate, than the majority of people.

You are pitted against a lot of other people, make no mistake about it.

Interestingly enough, because I read many resumes in the course of what I do, my observation is that most people don’t know enough to make themselves really stand out by writing a “Killer” resume. Therefore, the competition is great in terms of numbers; it’s great in terms of people with the experience to do jobs; but it’s not great in terms of smarts about presenting oneself. That is one difference in favor of the sophisticated job seeker.

The difference in winning athletes, I believe, is (1) they know what to do, (2) they train to do it as perfectly as possible, (3) and they have the determination to do it. (They often work with coaches, by the way, which is a shameless plug for what I do, because they realize they can’t do it all by themselves.)

Yet job seekers, who, for the most part, aren’t very disciplined, approach looking for a job with an off-hand attitude that is sometimes downright sloppy, if not inefficient. We all know that, for example, very few job seekers are able to use all the available time they have at their disposal in an organized, effective manner; certainly few job seekers can say they occupy a full forty hours’ worth of time each week in effectively pursuing jobs. It’s almost as if there is a belief that looking for a job is not the same as any worthwhile project, as if all the rules for achieving any purposeful objective didn’t apply.

Networking is rarely done by job-seekers; I’ve said too much on that subject. The Broadcast Letters I’ve seen coming from job-seekers are few and far between. These are just a few examples. You’d be amazed at how few people “position” themselves and their resumes vis-à-vis the jobs, who expect the potential employer to do all the work of fitting together the pieces to make some sense as to why this particular resume is being submitted in response to this particular job.

Most job seekers, because of the trauma involved, want to limit themselves to those few tasks that don’t involve being rejected too often and are afraid to develop the new skills that will, indeed, take them into new territory.

For example, “selling” oneself (with all that word implies) is considered kind of dirty. The idea that, in this competitive world, you have to show how you exceed the competition, is somehow repugnant. That’s like being polite in a race and stepping aside when someone crowds you, to let them through.

Watching some people go unprepared to an interview always surprises me. It’s like running a marathon without having done any training. Assuming that, because you’re you have a certain amount of experience and/or training, the potential employer is going to want to hire you after interviewing you is just plain silly. Not assuming that you have serious competition, and not showing why you’re the best (yes, the best) person for the job (as opposed to your being just another qualified person), also strikes me as amazingly short-sighted and downright silly. Yet job-seeker after job-seeker does it.

So what do I believe you can do to be more competitive?

• Recognize and acknowledge that a minimum of 300 resumes will be received for any job you apply for, that it’s a harsh competitive world out there now
• Recognize and acknowledge that networking is one way to avoid some of the competition, and get out there and start doing it
• Make certain you have a “Killer” resume that shows you as being the best in your respective area of expertise or field
• Position yourself and your resume correctly (anybody who doesn’t understand this can e-mail me and I’ll send you a copy of the November 2003 Newsletter covering this subject)
• Prepare massively for all interviews
• Show in the interview why you’re the best person for the job
• Act like an athlete in training and take good care of yourself to keep yourself in top condition
• Never let rejection get you down to decrease your performance and keep a positive outlook no matter how difficult it all gets
• Sharpen all of your job hunting skills so you become a consummate professional

And, once you do get the job, make sure you continue to network and keep trolling out there for the next, better position. You can delude yourself into thinking that, when you land a job, you’re in a safe place but in this topsy-turvy world that is not clear thinking and the next merger, the next layoff, will catch you just as unawares as the one that you recently experienced.

No, it’s not a pretty world. But, by following some of the paths I’ve laid out here, you can minimize the stresses and strains and actually feel some mastery over the direction you’re headed in.