Take a Chance on Me
As I wrote the title of this entry I started singing the ABBA tune. This is not about my love for someone though.
I am looking for a job. The best way to get a job is not to just complete online applications and send them into the bit bucket of some HR department. You will just end up in some dehumanizing database that nets down your life experience to some key words that can be searched on. Rather you need to make contact with people in the organization. Reach out, just like in sales, to people you know and make cold calls to some you do not know. I have been doing a fair bit of this and have come to a few conclusions.
1) Too busy. In my last job I received more than 100 emails a day. On top of all the other interruptions (phone calls, instant messaging, walk-ins) and my busy schedule of meetings (sometimes triple booked, often double booked) I rarely got to all of them on the day they came in.
2) There is a person at the other end. When an email comes from someone that they do not know, or makes a request that they feel will only take up time, many ignore it. I can honestly tell you that I at least looked at the subject lines of every email and that, within a few days, I had read them all and answered all the emails that did not come from some generic ID. Numerous times I received emails from people just wanting to find out more, or looking for a job. In some cases I thanked them for writing, in other cases I called them and sometimes I met them. But I answered all of them as I knew that they had made an effort and had some emotion packed into that email.
3) Risk aversion and laziness. If you don't fit the profile you don't get a chance. Many are so buried in their (or maybe more accurately their corporation's) ways that they do not look beyond the "things have always been done this way" way of doing things. They do not attempt to make connections between two seemingly different situations to see whether something even more creative and exciting can arise from a new connection. If you don't have those keywords in your history you are, in the eyes of these people, doomed. They would rather let a machine determine the best candidates to speak to. It is somewhat due to how busy they are but it also shows that they let themselves get overtaken and controlled by existing ways. My message to them would be "Don't forget how you got the job and the chance."
Luckily there are still some people who take the time to respond, be helpful and provide assistance and feedback. They are the ones who, in my view, will succeed. Not necessarily by making it to the top of the corporate ladder (especially not in an organization that does not value a human touch). Rather they will "make it" by having the widest circle of people they know, the greatest and most valuable interactions, the most mentors and friends and, consequently, the most knowledge. They are the ones that will receive the most help and who, in many cases nonetheless, will make it.....BIG.
So thanks to all of you who have taken the time.
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