Instant Interviews_ 101 Ways to Get the Best Job of Your Life - Jeffrey G. Allen [6]
That’s why I wrote Instant Interviews. The law of the jungle didn’t change: Survival of the fittest. The law of hiring didn’t change either: No interview, no job.
Right now, you’re probably all dressed up in your jeweled jungle jacket with no place to go. Ready for a searchin’ safari. Mangled machete in one hand, rusty resume in the other. Thrashing around through the hidden job market looking for the career path. Mumblin’, stumblin’, and fumblin’. Passively missing everything below your binoculars. Living that old saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” Getting tired long before you get hired.
The best-kept secret among the natives is that the candidates are hiding, not the jobs! Every day, I watch the braver ones from my treehouseoffice, wandering around in the marshes blindfolded.
So, before we begin using techniques, let’s get rid of those subconscious spears.
Scan the Instant Interview titles (Dos) in the Contents (you will anyway). Then, take a piece of paper and a pen. Scribble down a list of the first 10 reasons that pop into your mind why you can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, or would get arrested for doing them. Nothing fancy, and do it fast. We want to catch those first (hence the word instant) excuses.
When you’re done, walk over to the first mirror you see. Then look at yourself tearing up the list. Throw it away and don’t even keep a copy. Tell nobody. Your secret’s safe with me.
It’s a jungle out there. A jobjungle.
So, straighten your imaginary pith helmet. Shoulders back, eyes forward (not the other way around). Smile on your face. Mangled machete in one hand, rusty resume in the other. (If the machete’s rusty and the resume’s mangled, just switch hands.)
The only spear to fear is fear itself.
That concludes your warmup exercise. Now, it’s “Forward march!”
I’m with you every step of the way.
Foreword . . . and Forward March!
Before we get down to business, I want to give you a gift that will change your life.
It’s a little exercise that’s as easy to do as it is not to do. But the difference between those who enjoy success and those who endure failure is found in substituting little exercises for big excuses.
There’s a natural tendency for you to simply scan the 101 Instant Interview techniques and think one of the 10 things that follow:
1. “It’ll never work.”
2. “If it worked, everyone would do it.”
3. “I tried it and it didn’t work.”
4. “It’s not something I can do.”
5. “I’ll embarrass myself if I try that.”
6. “I’m too (old, young, fat, skinny, pretty, ugly, important, unimportant, masculine, feminine, smart, dumb, professional, self-conscious, nervous, whatever) for that.”
7. “It’s just too (simple, hard, complicated, silly, crazy, whatever) for me.”
8. “Everyone’s doing it, so I don’t stand a chance.”
9. “I’ll try it later.”
10. “I’ll just do it my way.”
These cause jobseekers to become destroyed, not employed. They’re the 10 most common causes of instant interview inertia. Someone calls our office for help, and my assistant announces, “There’s an eight on the line.” I already know he didn’t do the exercises or he’d be calling me from his cell phone asking whether to accept the offer he just received.
There are an infinite number of excuses. They all work. You won’t, though. If your subconscious is creative enough, it can spear you to the ground before you ever reach the jobjungle. Behavioral psychologists call this overthinking. We call it underdoing. Unemployment underdoing.
So many people wait for the Sunday sunrise and listen for the thud. They’re up—physically and emotionally—kings of the jungle—trading that machete for a newspaper and fantasizing about gainful employment. Planning for the next job fair.
Then, Monday morning, it starts. They s-l-o-w-l-y descend into the quicksand. Gasping and grasping until the next Sunday thud. The Sunday