New is no longer new

Don’t get a job. Make a job!

Dear curious reader,

80% of jobs are not advertised… (more on that story later).

Welcome. I would very much like to discuss with you common mindsets of people when approaching the job market. To begin let us make some observations about how most jobs come to be.

Observation 1: Jobs do not come from businesses, jobs come from decision makers within businesses.

The business is then committed to hunt for the kind of employee that matches the planned work. Logically, the final choice will be based on skills or how well the candidate ‘fits the slot’.

Observation 2: The decision to recruit often follows the decision that there is not enought human resource in the business because:

(i) new projects have been taken on and the business simply has more to do

(ii) staff have left meaning then business simply has less people to do stuff

This is a reactive decision. The demand for extra human resources is infact a derived demand of the human resource gap. The business is not looking for people as much as it is looking to fill a short fall.

So what of the effect on the mindsets of jobseekers?

Well… job seekers feel the need to seek out the gaps. Remember, these ‘gaps’ exist only because of the opinions of the decision maker so at some point there has to be a communication starting with the decision maker and ending at the job seeker. A numbers game then begins, this will take the majoirty of people to the internet. Job seekers sift through as many positions as they can find, filtering the jobs based on ‘ease of discovery’, ‘what they want to do’ and ‘what they perceive to be acheivable.’

But why do these trends occur and what are there effects?

The internet makes it very easy for us to discover vacancies, but remember the internet is a mass market - typically we will search for jobs using catagories such as industry, salary and location. The effect of this is that finding the right job is then dependent upon the combined browsing skills of the job advertiser and the job seeker in disocvering eachother. There is only so much we can tell the internet in terms of simple search and it cannot accurately cage key working style immeasurables such as passion or alertness etc.

Again, the internet is a reactive tool - we can only utilise it as far as our own understanding allows us so whilst we can search for things that we know we want, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to receive suggestions about what we do not know about, but may indeed want more!

Additionally, we cannot accurately gage the level of support we will receive to personally develop ourselves to become more effective. Imagine, an employer is looking for someone with your exact profile, you read the job requirements and perceive it to be too challenging and not worth your time. The danger of generic job ads is that there is no blunt  honesty or trust. Because of the mass market nature of such positions the job requirements are less a description of what is needed as much as an advert to at least attract interest.

These are but a few of the fundamental problems that can arise when employers and jobseekers are reactive.

Dear disparing reader - DO NOT PANIC!

I beleive there is another way.

This part of my section is for people who profoundly care about what they spend their time working on. Who have opinions about the sort of people they would like to work with. Who have a clear picture of the sort of lifestlye they would like to lead, and the significant impact of their job herein.

If you have won the numbers game, quickly grabbed a job and are content - I challenge you… LOOK DEEPER.

If you are in and out of jobs, cannot find focus or are too influenced by those around you… GET TO KNOW YOURSELF.

If your confidence has been knocked, you fear the enormity of the jobs market and you are unsure where to start… START HERE.

Make a job for yourself!

Let’s go back to the start. Job opportunities appear, out of the blue as it were, when humans in positions of authority make decision. Today I remind you that people’s decisions can be influenced!

You have a unique perspective of a business. You may see a problem with this business or an area that needs improvement. If you can convince the decision maker to agree with you here and you can propose a solution then it may occur to the leadership of the business to take your project on. This is how things start. We are familiar with the cliche that the customer knows best - so if you spot a genuine area of development from the outside of the business, in other words the customer facing side, then you already have a great case!

Another approach is that you can simply sells your skills. Whilst business leader’s decision are influenced by what the market requires it is also influence by what they have at their disposal. If you impress an employer enough that you will be effective in a certain area, they may be willing to deviate from their main areas of development and take you on to be incharge of your own side-project. Perhaps if you didn’t open your mouth and sell yourself, it would never have occured to the business that you could have been of any value at all!

What is perhaps most relevant is to sell your potential. If you are not where you need to be in order to attain the job you want don’t forget that it is possible to get there! If you can convince employers that you can get there then they will be willing to give you a try. This is particularly endeering because you are stating that you will progress yourself especially to meet the requirements of their business.

I for one really beleive in being able to sell yourself. It is not blagging. It is not cheating. It shows understanding of how jobs happen and projects a proactive mind.

I repeat, 80% of jobs are not advertised. This is essentially why:

In summary, how can we be confident that we can make jobs for ourselves.

Observation 1: Decision makers can be influenced by you.

Observation 2: The decision to recruit, like any business decision, can be based on opportunity e.g.

(i) the opportunity to work with you

(ii) to use your skills

(iii) to use your value (ideas, connections etc)

You may think that you need to be a confident person to go through this process. I beg to differ. You are not selling confidence. You are selling yourself.

Take confidence from the fact that you can influence people. Take confidence in the fact that you yourself have a good understanding of your skills and working habits, and are therefore well placed to input heavily into your job description.

Most of all take confidence from the fact that businesses invest in people. If you back yourself, then other people, employers, are likely to back you too.

All the remains is for me to thank you for opening your mind and to wish you all the best in your journey.

~jab

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CARBON ROD