Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [102]
A gutsy girl has a gutsy career plan. She not only actively looks outside her present job for ways to facilitate that mission, but she also makes certain choices in her job to make sure the plan becomes a reality. She'll take advantage of opportunities to develop an expertise or specialty, raise her technology IQ, learn a foreign language, improve her public-speaking, and refine her leadership skills.
That's not to say you should have a rigid plan. Remember a few years ago when we were all supposed to have a response ready when an interviewer asked us, “Where do you see yourself in five years”? Maybe there are still a few moronic interviewers who would expect you to have an answer to that question, but you shouldn't have to know—nor should you want to.
I think what you need instead are a variety of possibilities—one of which is eventually having your own business. Think in broad strokes, but stay focused. Remember the trick of using three or four words to sum up your plan? That's what my friend Merrie Spaeth has done in plotting her career At fourteen she starred with Peter Sellers in The World of Henry Orient. She's been a newspaper columnist, TV host, magazine writer, businesswoman, political candidate, assistant to the head of the FBI, media adviser to President Reagan, and now she's the head of her own communications company (and that's only a partial list). At twenty-nine there's no way she could have told anyone what she would be doing in five years. But there are three terms, she says, that she considers as mission words for herself: “leadership, power, and high profitability.”
3. A Gutsy Girl Does Only What's Essential
Whenever a good-girl friend of mine is on a job quest and I ask her how she's doing, the reply I seem to get most often is, “I'm still working on my résumé.”
Just as a good, girl gets into the good-girl spin on the job, working harder than she has to and refusing to take shortcuts, so she approaches her job hunt. She spends weeks pulling together the “perfect” résumé, sends it to the “right” people, and dutifully waits to hear.
A gutsy girl knows, however, that she must cut through all the tape. Forget doing mounds of research on the organizational chart, trying to find out whom you should be talking to. Pick up the phone, call your friend whose cousin works there, and ask her. Forget composing a “perfect” résumé. Write a gutsy cover letter that tells exactly why you'd love to work at that company. Forget the human resources department. Go directly to the source.
A gutsy girl also knows that one of the best shortcuts is to do two things simultaneously. Whereas a good girl wrestles with the question, “Should I look for a new job or should I try to get more responsibility in this one?” a gutsy girl pursues both courses of action simultaneously and takes the first prize she gets.
4. A Gutsy Girl Doesn't Worry Whether People Like Her
A good girl's pleaser instincts can get in her way during her job hunt, just as they can in her work. You may be reluctant to pursue a new position because you don't want to leave your boss in the lurch during the budget process—or just after you've been given a nice new title and raise. You may feel guilty about leaving the people in your department, especially if you've hired them away from other companies. You may worry that people will be “mad” at you if you jump ship.
They probably will be mad, but they'll get over it.
Though there are certain circumstances in which you can't be worried about what people think, you must nonetheless be constantly building a network of people who will help you in your career pursuits. Stay in touch with former bosses and friendly colleagues. Do favors