You can interview, test, and reference check all you want in considering a potential employee, but experience shows that it’s only after working together for a period of time that either party knows if they are compatible. This is another argument in favor of both sides entering into a contract work arrangement before committing to a more permanent one.
Computer-based job simulation technology is becoming an increasingly popular way for companies to attract and assess potential employees. L’Oreal, for example, uses job simulation scenarios as part of the screening process. According to a 2005 study by Rocket-Hire of New Orleans, close to 20 percent of companies are using this tool, and that percentage is expected to grow.
Such technology also allows potential employees to try on a job to see if it is a right fit for them. Although it is an effective tool to use at the beginning of the hiring/screening process, applicants must still do well in interviews, where companies will assess their personalities and communication skills.
Vocation Vacations is a company in Portland, Oregon, that gives people the opportunity to “test drive” their dream jobs. They do this by pairing up an individual with a mentor for a couple of days, during which the person gets hands-on experience in the field in which he or she wants to work. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand to experience life as a race car driver, dog trainer, fashion designer, Broadway producer, or whatever. Vocation Vacations has placed hundreds of people in the US and Britain into these dream job simulations.
The Need For Self-Promotion
One of the main factors that distinguish people who are succeeding in today’s workplace from those who are struggling in it is how well they understand the need for self-promotion and how effective they are at doing it. Some people, especially professionals who are over forty and who have lost their jobs, are really challenged by this. Some of them don’t see why they should have to do it; after all, they are professionals, accountants, engineers, etc., and they achieved success in their careers before they lost their job. Surely, they reason, their qualifications and experience speak for themselves.
Another reason for being uncomfortable with self-promotion could be your upbringing or your cultural background. You may see the whole subject as unseemly. Blowing your own horn is something you were taught was undignified, and this attitude may have been reinforced by blowhards that you’ve come across in your life.
The first thing you need to do is to understand what self-promotion is, in the context of doing it to find work. If you have an aversion to loud, self-aggrandizing people, that’s good, because that’s the last thing you want to become. Employers are not bullied, schmoozed, or coerced into hiring people; they will be just as turned off by this behavior as you are. On the other hand, they’re not mind readers, so you can hardly expect them to determine for themselves what your strengths are and how they may be of value to the company.
You need to be aware of another shift that has occurred in the workplace. In yesterday’s world, often your experience and qualifications did speak for themselves, so you could still succeed in looking for work with a fairly passive approach. Also you were probably responding to a newspaper ad where the requirements for getting hired were clearly spelled out. Finally, you were probably applying to a large company with a personnel or human resources department which had the time to assess applications that were not as well prepared as they could be.
That’s all changed. Remember, most work opportunities today are generated by small companies who don’t have personnel or human resources departments. Often, this task is handled by someone whose expertise is in another area, and hiring is only one of several hats they wear.
You will often be applying to companies on speculation that they may need your skills rather than responding to a specific ad you saw in a newspaper or on the Internet. Under these circumstances, the applications that will get attention are those that are very focused, where the applicant has done some research on the company and his or her résumé is effectively designed to highlight personal strengths and how those can benefit the company.
Communication skills are far more important than they used to be, especially when looking for work. The workplace is a more fast-paced and busy environment than it used to be, and it is more difficult to get an employer’s attention. The focus of the communication must be clearly on what you can do for them and not the other way around, and it must be specific and geared to their needs and not be a general description of your past career.
If you are soliciting companies for contract work, maybe you should replace your résumé with a simple brochure, or one of the electronic marketing tools described in Chapter 3 of this book that, again, have as the main focus your strengths and how they can benefit the company.
Managing your own career
Here is another requirement for succeeding in today’s workplace to which people don’t pay enough attention. You need to be far more cognizant about who you are, what you’re good at, and what type of people and companies you want to work with. If you’re currently working on a contract, you should have a plan of action for finding your next contract. It’s always a juggling act for today’s contract worker.
Unless you’re one of the lucky ones who still has a stable job and works for a company that provides some help in mapping out a career strategy, you’ll have to take ownership of this issue yourself. Even if you’re in a stable job, you should have some kind of plan in place in case you lose it.
You are responsible for managing your own career, and the only security you have is tied directly to how marketable your skills are, how creative you are in finding work, how well you communicate, and how good you are at recognizing opportunities where you can apply your skills.
The first step in managing your own career is to be very clear on what skills you have to sell to potential employers. Most people are weak in this area. Chapter 2 will eliminate that weakness by getting you to go through a series of exercises to determine exactly what it is you have to sell to potential employers. This will set the stage for Chapter 3, which focuses on how to market yourself. You can’t sell yourself effectively unless you’re crystal clear on what you have to sell. The better the job you do in Chapter 2, the more comfortable you will be with marketing yourself.
Summary
The objective of this chapter was to make you aware of the changes that have occurred in the workplace. You won’t be successful in finding work unless you understand these changes and their impact on you. Most people don’t understand them and there are consequences if they lose their job, they feel lost, or if they decide to become a contract worker, and they don’t know how to go about it.
To be successful, you need to understand the workplace and the changes going on in it at a level far beyond that of the average person. If you don’t understand it, you’ll make the same mistakes that most people make; i.e., using an obsolete approach and set of tools to find work, and you’ll also be caught off guard when the changes occur. Here’s a recap of what has been covered:
• You need to understand the difference between looking for work and applying for a job. There’s a lot of work available today; it’s just not packaged in the form of a job, as most people understand the term.
• You need to understand that some of the tangible and non-tangible features that were part of a traditional job are often not included in contract work.
• You must understand that most of the work opportunities that exist today are found in small companies, and if you’ve spent your career in a large company, you’ll have to change your perception as to your role in the small company and what is expected of you.
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