Winning - Jack Welch [94]
While you’re telling your true story, act like your true self. If you are generally outspoken and funny, don’t act stiff and serious during your interviews. If you are a nerd, don’t try to act slick. The company should know what it’s getting, and you should show them, so you see how they react. I know of an MBA who tripped over a doorjamb on her way into an interview with three executives at a prestigious consulting firm. After scrambling back to her feet, she shook hands with her interviewers, saying, “And I’m Grace, the ballet teacher.”
None of them cracked a smile, nor did they try to put her at ease after what was obviously an embarrassing moment. She ended up being offered the job; she declined.
“They saw the real me, and I saw the real them,” she recalls.
My main point is, when going after your first job, live in your own skin and be comfortable there. Authenticity may be the best selling point you’ve got.
The second special job situation is when you are stuck in a position and see no way out. There are a slew of ways to get stuck in a job. There is nowhere to move up, since your boss isn’t going anywhere, and he has no interest in pushing you for a job in another division. You’ve been passed over for a promotion, and you’ve been told you are fine where you are, but you’re not moving on anytime soon. Your company promotes people only after a certain period of time—which is a long way off. You love your job but the money is bad, or the money is great but your job is lousy.
This list alone could make you want to scream.
And that’s the problem with being stuck. Frustration builds and builds until people generally do something stupid—they quit.
Don’t do that. It is much, much easier to get a job from a job. I would even go further and say, not only should you stay put, you should work harder. Nothing will get you a new job faster than terrific performance in your old one.
Gerry Roche, senior chairman of Heidrick & Struggles, and one of the most respected headhunters in the United States, says that even if you feel stuck, if you are performing well, two outside observers are likely to know—headhunters and competitors.
“Great performers are like the masts of the tall ships,” Gerry said to me recently. “We can see them over the horizon, and we are always trying to bring them in—to our port.”
By contrast, the worst kind of job seekers are those Gerry called “perennials.”
“These types are never moving up fast enough or they can’t stand their jobs, so they are always out there with their résumés and their phone calls, hounding us or hounding companies to hire them,” he said. “These people pretty quickly get themselves labeled.”
Obviously, if you’re stuck, you need to put feelers out there to let people know you are thinking of moving. Just don’t make it your purpose in life, or you’ll undermine your effort, and worse, you’ll take your eye off your best hope for getting unstuck—your performance.
The third special case is finding a job after you’ve been let go. Last year, I had lunch with a former GE executive (let’s call him Charlie) who had once worked for me in a staff position before moving into operations. After several promotions, he landed in a job where he struggled for a couple of years to meet his numbers. Finally, in his early fifties, he was let go.
Charlie’s career, however, hardly ended. After a few months, he became a partner at a high-technology company, starting part-time and quickly being drawn into a full-time role. From there, he was asked to join several corporate boards, and he also started teaching at a well-known business school.
Five years after being let go, he told me, his work was more fulfilling than ever.
I asked him how he’d come back so strong.
“Listen, I screwed up,” he said. “My boss and I had agreed to clear-cut objectives, and I missed them. I waited too long to let go of two direct reports