Rules for the New Workplace

An early ad said, “It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Now, the Oldsmobile is no more as of the model year 2004. If that was the case, then it is certainly true that “It’s not your father’s Workplace!”

Here are the Old Rules:

• Get a good job with a solid company.
• Do what you are told.
• Take every promotion they offer you.
• Stay until they present you with the “Gold Watch.”
• Retire and get a hobby.

WRONG! I would respectfully suggest the following “Rules” for the New Workplace looming before us:

Be prepared for change at all times.

Only two things don’t change – God and change. As a company, stay flexible, forward thinking and open to adjustments for you, your industry and your personnel. As a worker, you need not fall in love with change, but you’d better learn how to handle it. Change happens.

Act as if you are self employed.

One of my favorite Twitter sites to follow is Careerrealism (http://www.careerealism.com), which touts the tagline “Because EVERY Job is Temporary.” Well, it is. As a company, don’t assume that you will be ordering gold watches with a volume discount. Help your employees see themselves as integral parts of the solution. As an employee, take action at work as if your paycheck is directly related to your performance (because, ultimately, it is!).

Never stop learning.

Employers should provide opportunities for employees to acquire new skills, knowledge and expertise that enhance them as individuals as well as enabling them to contribute at higher and higher levels. Employees should be seeking these opportunities continually, even if they must do it on their own. (See my earlier blog, “Play Me or Trade Me” for more insights – http://bdavismcdp.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/play-me-or-trade-me/ .)

Continually add value to your work.

“What have you done for me lately?” sounds very ungrateful, but it’s a Fact Of Work these days. The best way to stop advancing in your job is to simply do what is expected of you. Employers, create opportunities for the employee to contribute more to the position. Employees, never be completely satisfied with your performance. Always seek to improve.

Take charge of your attitude.

When my company is called in to work with employees, it is never on how to use a spreadsheet or fill out a time card. It’s to tech them how to “play well with others!”  Employers should seek to enhance the communication and teambuilding skills of staff through modeling the appropriate behavior as well as providing training and support in these areas. Employees should invest time and energy into enhancing their interpersonal skills.

Is it a New Workplace! You bet it is!

STOP USING THE OLD RULES.

Getting “Lucky” with Your Career

Let’s be honest. Looking for work isn’t much fun. For those of us who have firsthand experience in this adventure, this is a gross understatement. Mailing out resumes, poring over want ads, clicking on websites, earnestly looking for a decent opportunity is significantly more exhausting than going to work will ever be! Add to this the fact that, at some level, it appears to be nothing more than an incredibly cruel numbers game. Keep plugging away until all of the employment stars line up, the vocational Heavenly Bodies are in alignment, and you land that next position.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could engage “Lady Luck” in this process, perhaps reducing some of the wear and tear on our psyches and increasing the likelihood of success before we run out of severance, unemployment compensation, energy, or all three?! Well, I have some good news – A British psychologist, Dr. Richard Wiseman, did research on the luck phenomena and developed a program to “improve your luck,” as described in his excellent book The Luck Factor – Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life: Four Essential Principles. I reviewed this book on my LinkedIn Reading List and wanted to share some insights on how you can improve your “luck” – better represented as realized opportunity – in your job search. By the way, there are 12 corollaries to his four key traits that are very helpful as well, but you’ll have to get the book to learn about them!

Let’s consider the four key traits of “lucky” people, as defined by Dr. Richard Wiseman, with an eye towards how they can be applied to our employment search.

1.   Lucky people maximize the results of chance opportunities. As a matter of fact, they even create them.

Everywhere you are, everyone you meet, every situation you encounter has potential. Bumping into an old friend at the grocery store or chatting with an acquaintance in the dentist’s waiting room could be your introduction to a totally new networking of people and ideas. You can even “create” more of these opportunities by increasing your interaction with others at your place of worship, your neighborhood, yard sales, etc. Be sure to hone your networking skills, however, or you are more likely to create an island for yourself where all those around you give you a wide berth to avoid being harassed for job leads. Learn to ask questions and be honestly interested in their answers. Lucky people aren’t all that lucky. They just  create more opportunities for something to happen than most of us. Make those opportunities for yourself.

2.   Lucky people listen to their intuition as well as to their logic.

The mind is not only a terrible thing to waste, it is also a terrible guide if you base your actions only on what “makes sense” to do. Wiseman found that lucky people were more open to hunches, more likely to listen to their “gut” as well as their reason. Be sure you don’t experience “paralysis by analysis” or make the “perfect the enemy of the good.” I have christened this my “Why Not?”(tm) rule. If you don’t have an iron-clad reason not to move ahead, take another step. The world is full of individuals who engaged their intuition as well as their intellect, moving into new and at times uncertain, if not terrifying, territory to discover exciting new opportunities. These actions, by the way, may not have been as much based on a logical analysis of the facts as they were founded on hunches. Lucky people will listen to their hunches, exposing themselves to opportunities that Mr. Spock would have never considered.

3.   Lucky people have an expectation that things will work out. They cultivate a positive attitude.

It can be quite sad but is inexorably true. You can get up in the morning and decide you’ll have an unproductive, frustrating, nothing-but-trouble-day and everything that comes your way will affirm your opinion. Interestingly enough, if you decide to have a better day, not perfect but productive and opportunistic, the very same situations can provide some alternatives, suggest options, create opportunities. Does this mean that all you have to do is be positive and magic takes place? Nope, not even close! It does, however, mean that cultivating a positive attitude (called “Learned Optimism” by Dr. Martin Seligman, from the book of the same name – and yes, I did review it on LinkedIn!) can allow you to see situations that Eeyore would never identify. Look for the best in things.

4.   Lucky people, when faced with negative situations, find ways to turn them into positive results.

Bad situations frequently have good alternatives hidden within them. The loss of a job may free you up to consider a career change. When you are not selected for a position, you can use the experience to be better prepared next time. Dr. Seligman claims that you can acquire this ability if (like many of us) you are not born with it. He says that, just as individuals can develop Learned Helplessness (in other words, there is no sense in doing anything, it will fail anyway) they can acquire Learned Optimism (seeing the opportunity in unfortunate events).

Finally, in investigating the personality traits of “lucky” people, Dr. Wiseman found these three constants: luckier people are more extraverted (they interact with others constantly), less neurotic (they don’t let things get to them) and more open (they allow themselves to think “outside of the box”). You may want to consider developing these traits. Then you can become one of the “lucky stiffs!”

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

In 1982, the British punk / alternative rock band The Clash released their album “Combat Rock” to mixed reviews, although a number of the songs, notably “Rock the Casbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” did experience some critical success. It’s not my typical listening fare, but one of the cuts from this album raises an excellent question for the job seeker: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

 

I know The Clash isn’t talking about employment, but the question is a fair one. As you consider vocational options for your next employment “gig,” one of the pressing alternatives is: 1) to stay in your present field, or 2) try something new.  I’d like to suggest that there are actually three potential choices in this vocational quandary:

• Stay – Stay
• Stay – Grow
• Go – Grow

Let’s take some time to review these in greater detail to get a sense of your alternatives.

Stay – Stay

This choice implies seeking a lateral move, a status quo / more-of-the-same decision that allows you to bring your experience and expertise to a new organization where you will be doing much the same type of thing as you did at your most recent employer. No significant changes exist here. Your commute will be different and your job title may be new, but by and large what you will be doing is what you have been doing.

There is nothing wrong with this option, particularly if you found significant satisfaction in your previous work. This is likely one of the easier directions to investigate. A standard resume format will work (listing your titles and experience in reverse chronological order). Responding to the interview question “Why are you interested in this position?” is rather straightforward, since you’ve done this type of work before and want to do it again.

Where this direction may come up short for you, however, is if you are uninspired in your present work. I have called this, “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.” If this applies, you may want to consider one of the other options.

Stay – Grow

This direction focuses on using your work and life experiences to take your employment adventures “to the next level” (sorry for the cliché), beyond what you have done to new challenges, experiences, projects, etc. As in the Stay – Stay model, you are continuing your focus along the lines of your present experience (e.g., supervision in a manufacturing setting), but are challenging yourself to find a situation that will require and allow you to build on your previous experience to move up and on in your career development.

How this may affect your search is that you will want to make the case that you are an “up and comer,” someone with demonstrated successes who is seeking new challenges and areas of responsibility. You will want to make the point (in your resume, interviews, networking, etc.) that you are a force to be reckoned with, seeking new horizons and opportunities to add value to your new organization as well as continuing to develop yourself personally and professionally.

The Stay – Grow option could be problematic if you are disenchanted with your present career path and are hoping that more responsibility or a higher level of accountability will reinvigorate your flagging career attitude. It may, or it may just satisfy you for a short amount of time until you realize that all you’ve done is changed your parking space in the lot of a career that no longer excites you. If this is the case, you may want to consider the option behind “Door Number 3” –

Go – Grow

This final option says it’s time for something new. You don’t want more of the same anymore (Stay – Stay), and moving up in the same field will only postpone your inevitable employment ennui (Stay – Grow), so it’s

time for a change. This could be seeking to bring your experience into a new industry or business (from banking to hospitality, for example), or it may mean making a radical change into a dramatically new and different field.

This kind of change is exciting but also quite challenging. In her excellent book Working Identity, Herminia Ibarra says that our earlier work experience can bind us and blind us to new alternatives. If you choose to move in this direction, be sure to invest time in learning more about I call “your best stuff” (key interests, values and skills) and how they may be met in work and life settings. You will need to create a skill-based resume to focus on what you bring to the game more than where you have been employed, and your networking will be more dynamic, seeking insights and alternatives beyond where you have been and what you have done. The best answers to these questions are out in the world. Get out there and start asking them.

Well there you are – Should you stay or should you go? It’s your call. Let me know if I can help you work through your options.

Run Through the Finishing Line!

As any of you who have been involved in a job search (or LIFE, if you’re really paying attention) know, the experience is more like a long distance race than a sprint! My chosen fitness pastime, running, has borne out this fact for over 30 of my years. I can still recall my first marathon experience: the gun went off, we all bolted out of the gate, and I took off like my singlet was on fire. I vividly remember bragging to my cohorts along the course, even as far along as the 15^th mile of the 26.2, that “this race is MINE!”

Then I met, for my first time, my now bosom buddy The Wall. Somewhere around mile 18-22, most runners reach a point where the body wants to be done but the finish line still beckons. For my first marathon, this meant that last 6.2 miles would be excruciatingly slow. I had not learned the cardinal rule of distance running: PACING. My credo now for marathons is one I borrowed from a T-shirt I read on one of my many 26.2 adventures – “Start out slow, then taper off.”

I have also gleaned one other pearl of wisdom, the title of this blog: Run through the finishing line. As the picture demonstrates, my weary figure has managed to finish ahead of a number of individuals, but NOT because I found another gear, my carbo-loading kicked in, or I reached down deep to burst past my fellow runners in a blaze of glory. I finished ahead of them because they slowed down. They saw the finish line and started to back off, since they were almost there. I simply determined to keep my pace, not slowing down until the finish line was behind me.

I think you see my metaphor. As you the job seeker are, at present, seeking the result of a new position, there is no way to know if the present opportunity before you is the finishing line, or if the real result is around the next bend. My years of running have taught me that, whenever I slow down to jog through the finishing line, I am almost always passed by someone who has not done so. To be sure, there have been times when my running through the finishing line still caused me to be passed by someone with more talent than me (there are a lot of them out there!), but at least by maintaining my pace I create the opportunity for the best results.

The morale of this blog: if you think you will get your dream job offer by Friday, don’t stop looking on Wednesday. You may end up being passed with the finish line in sight.

Technology is not coming to get you . . . It’s HERE!

Technology is upon us and we are all being led into the future by it – some of us with excitement and enthusiasm, others kicking and screaming. The big question is this: How can we integrate technology into our systems and procedures without being overtaken by the one-eyed monster on our desk? Consider the following points in applying technology in your daily life and career development.

Track your processes.

There are reasons why paper and pencil, manila folders, 3×5 cards and file cabinets were used for so long – they all worked pretty well! Technology should be applied to streamline and fine-tune processes, not necessarily replace them. Before a single computer, modem, mouse or printer is committed to a task, you should have a clearly defined picture of the flow of processes, information, resources, etc. When you have this information nailed down, then you can start to apply technology efficiently.

Consider it as a tool.

Many people find technology frightening and dehumanizing, detaching us from personal contact. Although this can be a result of computerization, intelligent application of technology can actually enhance our interaction with others, making us more efficient and effective. For example, using computerized data can make information more secure, more complete, more legible and more easily accessed. Connecting with people who share your interests and passions can promote real serendipity. Sounds like a worthwhile investment, doesn’t it?

Expose yourself.

Computers are pretty hardy pieces of equipment. Apart from picking one up and throwing it through a window, there is little you can do that will cause irreparable damage. Take a touch typing course. Try playing Solitaire or Minesweeper to improve your mouse skills. Consider taking a class at a community college or through a private training company. Leaf through books at the library or the bookstore. Use the Internet to hone your Social Networking skills. Remember that every time you post something anywhere on the Web you are branding yourself.

Be prepared to be less efficient… at first.

Anyone who tells you that your return on technology investment will be realized in the blink of an eye is related to a snake-oil salesman; it just ain’t so. You’ll expend time and energy during the transition to technological advancements that may cause you to wonder if you made a really big mistake. Be assured, however, that effective and intelligent application of technology to your processes and procedures will provide exceptional goals for you. It just won’t happen right away.

Seek advice.

Take the time to research and plan your decision. Search out other people with similar needs and requirements to learn how they made the transition. Did they seek out assistance? Be sure you are working with people who understand your processes and way of working. The best guidance may not come from “techies” but from people who understand what you do and how you do it. Few people have the resources to apply technology effectively without advice.

As Dilbert^TM once said, “Technology… it’s not for wimps.”

‘Tis the Season . . . To Keep Looking

As the holiday season bears down on us all, the pressing questions for the job hunter are: Should I take a break? Is anything really going to happen in the job market before the New Year? Don’t I deserve to take a bit of a respite from this brutal search and relax by the fire with eggnog?

Well, yes and no. To be sure, taking some time during the holidays to enjoy the delights of the season and appreciate those around you is an excellent idea. This is certainly NOT the time to pull out the plastic and run up a tab with the retail industry, but having a sensible, enjoyable holiday time with family and friends is something you DO deserve.

That being said, please allow me to make a case for maintaining a certain level of job search activity between now and the din of the noisemakers on the first day of the New Year.

1. This is a great time to meet people.

The holidays represent an extraordinary number of opportunities to see and be seen by family, friends and folks from all over. It would be foolish not to consider all of this “face time” as a resource to increase your “Positive Visibility.” Please understand the importance of your attitude and approach, however. Nothing can put the damper on a festive gathering more quickly than someone who is pumping the crowd for job leads, or who has the “deer in the headlights” look of someone who needs work! Be sure to focus your contact with others in a positive manner, seeking information, advice and referral to investigate and consider alternatives. Remember that most individuals truly would like to help, but are at a loss on how to be of assistance. Allow them the luxury of simply giving advice rather than 1) feeling pressed to deliver that killer lead for you or 2) staring through you to someone, anyone at the other side of the room. My experience has been that, in such cases, most people will choose Door Number 2!

An additional word of warning: be sure that your solicitation of “next step” options and advice is not the first question on your list, nor is it the only item of conversation. Ease into these topics. Ask how they are doing, what is new in their lives. Show honest interest and concern for them as people, not as networking contacts. Also, help them realize that you are in the investigation mode, not desperate for a pay stub.

2. Many decision makers are at home, not on the road.

One of the challenges of the job search process is navigating through the maze of individuals who need to participate in the hiring decision. In mid-August, for example, it is often difficult to get the right people in the same room (or even in the same state) long enough to give their opinions, since Smitty is at Myrtle Beach and Ms. Jones just left for New England. This is not as true during the holidays!

Many people will be staying nearer to home, traveling less and becoming more accessible to give feedback on your candidacy. Although the hiring process may not be at the top of the holiday list, there are still decisions being made, perhaps even more quickly due to the availability of decision-makers. In addition, the end of the year is often the time when budgets are being reviewed and finalized, and hiring plans are starting to take shape. Remember: The best time to look for work is always the present!

3. Your competition may be reduced.

This is one of my personal favorites! Many of your fellow seekers may decide that this is simply not the time to pursue employment leads (for all of the reasons we recounted earlier) and mothball their interview outfits until the New Year. As a result, there is high potential that your competition for employment opportunities will dwindle. Why not take advantage of this “thinning of the field” of candidates to forge ahead? As they decide not to check up on an application until early next year, your well-placed voicemail, LinkedIn update, tweet or short e-mail may improve your standing in the candidate pool. After all, in the wild and woolly world of employment search, you need to work every opportunity to your advantage!

4. Pace yourself!

Now that I’ve made my unassailable arguments for burning up the snow-covered pavement with your employment search, I want to introduce the other side of the issue – it IS the Holidays! Be sure to take time to care for you and yours, to be thankful for what you do have, to count your blessings. And perhaps, even sip a flagon of eggnog at least once in front of a crackling fire!

Happy Holidays and best wishes to you and yours!

“A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush”… or is it?

Well, it’s finally happened.  Perhaps your hard work of pounding the pavement has yielded results.  Or, some kind soul has relented.  Or, you just “got lucky.”

At any rate, you now have a job offer. Being employed is a good thing, and this is not a bad position.  To be brutally honest, you could do worse… MUCH worse!  But, continuing to be honest, this is NOT the job of your dreams.  In better economic times, you would probably respond “Thanks, but no thanks” to their offer.

However, these are NOT better times and you’ve gotten used to eating regularly, having insurance and a roof over your head.  Although not idea, this position can assist in these areas.  So, what do you do?  To quote Jack Nicholson from a recent movie, “What if this is as good as it gets?” Maybe the job of your dreams, or even a more attractive opportunity is just not coming.  In these challenging times, thinking about career development may be a pipe dream.  Be happy that someone wants you! After all, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the busy,” right?

Maybe, maybe not. Let’s take some time to think through this situation.  If you’re truly “sitting on” an offer right now, be smart enough to ask for some time to review it, talk to those you trust, etc., before you make a commitment.  If you have other job searches in process, be sure to advise any potential employer that you’ve just been offered a position but you are still interested in them.  Can they give you a sense of your chances?  This may encourage them to take action, or at least let you know where you stand.  I like to use language like, “Help me make the best decision here.  Do you see me as a serious candidate?  When will you make your hiring decision?” If they have no real answer, then it’s clearly time to move on.

Regarding the position “in the hand,” does it meet the criteria for what Barbara Sher calls a “Good Enough Job?” That’s a position that allows you, at least, to make ends meet, to keep your options open, perhaps to continue your search, to feed your better self with hobbies, other activities, etc.

I have three rules for such a position.

Rule One: can you just go do it, without a lot of additional training or investment?

Rule Two: will it allow you the time to work on activities that can create opportunities for a better position, or allow you to invest in building up skills, knowledge and experience to make you more marketable?

Rule Three may be the most important:  can you enjoy it at all? Even if the job isn’t part of your long-term career goals, will the duties bring some level of satisfaction?  If not, you’re likely to find yourself bogged down physically, emotionally and spiritually, to the point that you better not interview for The Job of Your Dreams, because your performance as a candidate will place you in the Reject Pile.

Take the time to work through all of the pluses and minuses of the offer at hand.  Seek to negotiate for a better offer, if you can.  Seek to evaluate the offer in a comprehensive manner, talk to trusted individuals, then make your decision.

OK, let’s say you take the position.  What’s next?  Give them 110%? Eat, sleep and breathe the company slogan?  Get a tattoo of the corporate logo?  Commit your everlasting soul to the company mission statement? Oh, please!

Certainly, do a great job, learn all you can, forge positive working relationships. Demonstrate integrity, honesty and the good old Protestant Work Ethic.

And, one more thing:  KEEP LOOKING! Yes, you read that right.  Do the best job you can, but keep your eyes and ears open for other opportunities.  This position may work out for you, but there are certainly no guarantees these days. To quote the credo of the excellent site http://www.careerrealism.com, “Because EVERY Job is Temporary.”

I once read that the web portal YAHOO is an acronym for “You Always Have Other Options.” I truly believe that these days we all need to keep our eyes and ears open, continue networking, looking for the “two in the bush” even when we do have the “bird in the hand.”  This is not to be disloyal to your new position (which I am SURE you would never do), but to keep your ear to the ground just in case.

Then, if things don’t work out with this situation, you have OO (Other Options).

 

Job Fairs and Business Expos – Are they great for career development or just a resource for free pens and coffee mugs?!

Do your research in advance

Get the most current list of attendees and spend time on LinkedIn, Google, Twitter, Facebook, their websites, et al, to be as informed as possible in advance of meeting them. Take note of information regarding their industry, products or services, guiding principles, mission statements, careers, etc. In this day and age, there is simply no excuse for going into these events without significant business intelligence regarding the occupants of each booth.

Assemble your “package”

Have adequate professional copies of your resume. Consider having business cards (you can get some free at www.visaprint.com, or print your own with card stock) to trade with contacts. Use a briefcase or portfolio to carry your career “paperwork.” If appropriate, have samples of your work to share, letters of recommendation, perhaps even a list of references. Be sure you have adequate materials to take notes and record impressions. Also, dress and comport yourself conservatively and professionally. If you do so, you are likely to stand out from the crowd. Treat each interaction with every individual as an opportunity to impress them. Don’t be aggressive, however, just be polished.

Plan your attack

Based on the list of companies or organizations you have gathered, identify your key targets for making contact. Upon arrival, note any changes or additions to the attendees and adjust your activity accordingly. Plans are useful, but be open for a serendipitous meeting as well. I have a client who secured very useful information on a company not from their representative (no one was there at the time) but from a former co-worker who was packing up the company display in a nearby booth and happened to know someone who had worked at the target company. Now THAT’s serendipity!

Make a great first impression all day

You are constantly making a first impression, even as you round the corner to saunter down the next aisle. Don’t forget it. Always make eye contact, offer a firm handshake, ask intelligent questions, etc. Every person you meet, pass by, network or interview with is getting an impression of you as a employee, a peer, a customer, or a resource. Make sure it’s a good one.

Follow up

Tap into that wealth of information you have gleaned from the business cards you’ve gathered and the copious notes you’ve taken to send a personalized follow up email or handwritten note to everyone you meet. The best time for them think of you again is within 24 hours of when they first met you. If you’re on LinkedIn, seek them out and request a connection. If you aren’t on LinkedIn, get on LinkedIn! If they are online themselves, investigate their groups and connections to expand your personal network. Be sure your follow up to them references your interaction in a professional yet personal way (after all, that’s why you took notes, right?!).

Finally, continue to nurture build on these new contacts to increase your visibility and create opportunities for success.

“Fuzzy Job Hunting” – Are You TOO Focused?!

First of all, WHAT is it?

Fuzzy Job Hunting is a term I’ve coined, based upon the computer process known as Fuzzy Logic. Fuzzy logic is an approach to computing based on “degrees of truth” rather than the usual “true or false” (1 or 0, on or off) Boolean logic on which the modern computer is based. It was first advanced by Dr. Lotfi Zadeh of the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960’s as he was working on the problem of computer’s understanding natural language. Computers are literal – they always do what we ask, not what we mean – while human beings are a bit “Fuzzier” in our ways of communicating and interacting.

Fuzzy Job Hunting implies that there is No One Distinct, Guaranteed, Always Successful Method for achieving meaningful employment. Employment search is a moving target, requiring continuous action, adjustment, revision, sometimes even radical change in what you do and how you do it! This “Fuzzy” approach may relate to your vocational targets, your actions, your thought processes – everything involved in the career development and job-search process.

Let’s take a look at WHY you should employ Fuzzy Job Hunting.

1.   It will increase activity.

That old saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” is quite true. There is however, another phrase: “paralysis by analysis.” In a desire to have your act completely together, your resume absolutely perfect, your career target razor sharp, your employment search plan mapped out in 15-minute increments, you may never get started. Fuzzy Job Hunting encourages you to get an inkling of what and where and start moving. Laser-guided job search can create strategic and efficient action, if you ever come up with The Target! In the meantime, you are mired in the morass of planning the best course of action and end up going nowhere.

I like to think of this as selecting a basic direction for movement – Northernly, for example. As you move ahead, keep your eyes open. Maybe you’ll end up going Northeast or North / Northwest, but at least you’ll be moving in a direction that is generally correct! If you never strike out in a direction, you’ll never see any sights at all!

2.   It will create opportunities.

I once heard that “If you aim at nothing, you will surely hit the mark.” Well said! As noted above, pick a direction and start moving. Fuzzy Job Hunting creates the potential for Serendipity, “the faculty of making fortunate and unexpected discoveries by accident” (The American Heritage Dictionary). Things happen when you are in action.

As Barbara Sher said in I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was, “The amount of good luck that comes your way depends on your willingness to act.” When your job hunt is “Fuzzy,” you tend to move more, get more visible, interact with more people, create more networking opportunities. Oh, sure, some of this may appear to be a waste of time, but how do you decide where the best contacts should be made? Many of my clients have found the most productive contacts they ever made came from the most unlikely of sources. Fuzzy Job Hunting gives you the chance to discover and be discovered.

3.   It will introduce new perspectives.

As open-minded as you are, there is no way to have much of a viewpoint on reality other than your own. As you employ your Fuzzy Tactics, you will get introduced to new ideas, new alternatives and other ways to look at things. Do you remember the story of the four blind men and the elephant? They each approached the animal from a different vantage point. One touched the elephant’s side and declared, “An elephant is like a wall.” The second reached out to the animal’s leg and said, “No, an elephant is like a tree.” The third tugged on the elephant’s tail and stated, “You are both wrong. An elephant is like a rope.” Finally, the forth reached out and touched the beast’s trunk, declaring, “None of you knows what you are talking about! An elephant is exactly like a snake!”

Who was right? They all were, each from their distinct perspective. The Fuzzy Job Hunt works much the same way by allowing you to benefit from the views of others. Each person you meet will have a slightly different slant, evaluating things from another side. Take advantage of their perspective.

4.   It will provide results.

Fuzzy Job Hunting increases activity, visibility and alternatives. I’ve said it before and will say it again: the traditional approach to the job market is chaotic and ineffective. It does not work particularly well, either for employers or for job seekers. The vast majority of job-search success (at least 85%) is through “nontraditional” methods, such as research, networking, social media, volunteering, etc. There is no better way to tap into the “hidden job market” than by thinking and acting “Fuzzily.”

“Mystery Gardening” – A Job Search Parable

I’ve recently had conversations (OK, several conversations!) with clients about the seeming lack of progress they were experiencing in their job search. In talking through this ever present phenomenon, I realized that thinking about the search in gardening terms may help with this conundrum.

Allow me to start by suggesting you are planting a garden. Basically, here is how it works:

You go to the local garden store to buy some packets of seed for planting. On the shelf you discover some discounted containers. The packets are very inexpensive, primarily because they’re old and the labels fell off a long time ago. Oh well, the price is right, so you decide to give them a try. You have very little to lose, after all!

When you arrive home, you dig a furrow in the ground, guessing how deep to go and how far apart to place each seed (you have no clear instructions, remember?). You then cover them up and give them some water (guessing again).

You follow this procedure for each of the packets of “mystery plants” that you have purchased.

So, what do you have? You don’t really know! Here is what I can say so far about your Mystery Garden:

• You don’t know if anything will come up at all.
• You don’t know how long it will take if something does manage to push its way up towards the sunlight.
• You are unsure if anything you planted will turn into something you will like.
• It’s likely that some of the seeds are completely dead, providing no results at all.
• Some have a longer germination period and may appear to be dead but are just working their way towards the surface under their own time frame (which is probably not yours!).
• Some of them will produce plants that hold no interest to you.
• And, some of them may actually give you excellent results!

I’m not really much of a gardener myself, but here is something else I know: if you simply dump the seeds on the ground and walk away, you’re virtually guaranteeing little or no success. Yet, if you take the time to care for these “mystery seeds” by planting, weeding, cultivating and watering, sooner or later something will show up!

In a real sense, your employment search is quite similar to Mystery Gardening. As you start to plant the “seeds” of search through your various techniques (want ads, agencies, Internet, research, social networking, kibitzing, etc.), you have little or no idea WHAT is going to happen, IF it is going to happen or WHEN it may happen!

All you really know is 1) you’re “planting seeds” of opportunity and 2) these “seeds” need to be cultivated.

Oh, there is one more thing you should be aware of: if you fail to “cultivate” these “seeds” through continued networking and research, follow-up, even continuing to add “seeds” to your Mystery Garden, your chance of being able to “pick” the best plant from your vocational harvest is significantly reduced.

The moral of this little parable: Start planting, keep planting, watering and cultivating and don’t stop until you have the “harvest” you want.