For the last few months (yes, even before the eating season) my wife and I have been going to the YMCA down the road from us to exercise. She’s been more regular than me, but especially after the holidays I started back routinely 3-4 days a week.

For the first few weeks of this month there was a line some days to get on a treadmill or an elliptical. After only a few, there are always machines open.

It’s that new year thing, right? Look back; see areas of life we’re unhappy with; resolve; start. But don’t finish.

I have a book on losing weight that says that people who have a plan and go with someone are 70% more likely to stick with an exercise program than those who do not.

What about your job?

Tired of driving in? Tired of bumping your emotional elbows on the same darned issues (or people) year after year? Tired of telling yourself you have to devote “100%” to a company when you know (deep down inside) that the company no intentions of expressing the same devotion by helping you get where you want in life?

Let me tell you – a paycheck is a wonderful thing. And stability and contentment are to be desired.

But no one owns you.You have the responsibility to make sure the 10 hours a day you devote to working fills up your heart and hopes…not just your wallet.

And just like an exercise plan, having some goals and someone to go with you can be the difference between success and failure.

Got something for you along those lines if you hurry…

Here’s a simple example: a job seeker sees a job he thinks he’s a fit for out there in cyberspace. He follows a link from a job board to a company website, reads up about the company and job and decides to take the time to submit.

So he writes a nice cover letter and then creates an account on the company’s system, builds a profile, attaches or pastes in his well-crafted cover letter, and hits the button.

Then he thinks, “Hey…I wonder if they have some other jobs?” So he goes to the general career page and looks for other jobs in his field.

Lo and behold, there are other jobs that he could do, some of which are as good a fit as the initial job he applied for. So the job seeker clicks the buttons on those jobs…and uses the same cover letter to apply for the job.

Now, imagine the recruiter or HR person on the other side of that job system.

She logs in to the system over her first cup of coffee, looks at the incoming resumes for Job A and sees a resume and cover letter from our intrepid job seeker. The cover letter says, “OMG…I can’t believe ‘Job A’ exists – it’s perfect for me, exactly what I was hoping for. I’m so qualified you’d be a complete moron to hire anyone else for this job.”

Then our intrepid recruiter moves on and sees the same candidate has also applied for Jobs B and C…topped with the same cover letter. Which says, “OMG…I can’t believe ‘Job A’ exists – it’s perfect for me…” Yadda, yadda yadda.

What do you think that says to the recruiter?

Take your pick…I’m too lazy to rewrite this cover letter; I don’t know what I really want to do; my motive is a paycheck; please take pity on me and interview me.

And even if you’re a middle-aged cynic like me who’s been unemployed in a tough job market and understands that you probably CAN do 3 or 4 different jobs, guess what? If the recruiter eventually sends a link to your letter and resume in their system to the manager of Job B, that person will click on it and see your cover letter that says, “I’m all about Job A.”

And he’ll pass. Simple as that. The manager will believe what you said and in his mind a little voice will say, “This guy really wants to do A.”

If you think most managers are enlightened, flexible and talent-driven when it comes to translating resumes and making decisions about who to interview, you’re just not being realistic. They are out there, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Many of them may be top-20% in their areas of expertise or as managers in general, but VERY, VERY do hiring often enough to get really good at interpreting the value, credibility and accuracy of a piece of paper (which, cynically, isn’t often very good.) Companies don’t teach this and most are as worn out with the low-value, high-volume part of job hunting as you are from their side of the desk. And (on their behalf) most resumes don’t tell even a tiny fraction of the story…it’s just a bad medium.

Don’t scowl and waggle your finger at them either – it’s human nature to not be good at stuff you don’t do often (even if it IS really important) and probably true for you too! I know it is for me in areas of life I don’t touch on or need very often.

That, my job-seeking friend, is why I tell you that it’s really up to you to stop being lazy.

Some basic steps – if you see a job and follow the link to the company site:

1. Review ALL the jobs in your domain on their site, not just the first one. You honestly can’t expect them to take you seriously if you submit for 3 or 4 jobs…just doing it makes you look desperate.

   Take your shot at the BEST job for you. Then, if you get in and ace the interview but are wrong for that particular job, you’ll have inside supporters who can and might introduce you to other managers for other jobs.

2. Customize your resume and cover letter. If you haven’t gotten that from the millions of expert blogs on job hunting by now, you’re not just lazy, you’re asleep at the wheel of your own career. Focus on their needs and how your background matches. Stay away from generalized hot air blowing about how great you are. If it’s on point, use it. If it’s not, it really IS NOT helping you.
3. Go find other ways in besides the HR channel. I know one of the motives behind multiple submissions is that you think more than one recruiter may be managing the jobs, and you may convince one but not the other. That’s usually only true in the biggest of companies…usually one or two people are sifting the mountain of resumes. And they can see if you’ve submitted more than one regardless. So instead of being lazy and submitting online 3 or 4 times, go find OTHER PEOPLE outside HR to approach about the best job.

   Or at least wait for a few days between submittals. If you get an electronic rejection or no word, politely email the HR person and say, “I realize I might not be at the top of your list for Job A…could we have a short conversation about Job B? I’ve done some great things in that area too.”

I know the systems are complex, difficult and mind-numbingly boring. But don’t let that lull you into a sleepy state that causes you to shoot yourself in the foot.

It’s your foot.

And honestly you are the one shooting the resume bullets.

Be careful.

THE primary lesson job seekers (or sellers of anything) need to learn if they want to break that invisible barrier and get a job offer…

Buying is emotional.

In fact, most of my ‘paper sales mentors’ say that the only true reason people buy is to eliminate pain. If there’s no pain, or if your product doesn’t obviously address that pain, or if you can’t get to the pain in your sales process, you’re out of luck.

You can talk, write, market, network, brand, educate, pitch or do any of a hundred different marketing activities until you collapse in a blue heap on the floor, but you ain’t gonna sell often or consistently.

The person who hires an employee is a buyer of professional services. Before hiring you, the manager you hope to work for MUST:

• Be experiencing: I’m surprised constantly how many companies and managers hire without identifying the core problems at hand, but they do. The easiest way to ‘sell yourself’ is to find someone who has a problem that causes them either pain, fear or the desire for some specific gain. If you’re selling to someone who has pain, they will be drastically more willing to engage in a discussion of a solution.
• And reveal: most job seekers and sales people have it all backward. During the course of the selling process, it’s not about YOU figuring the problem out, it’s about THEM feeling safe enough to share with you the issue they are trying to solve. Even if you’re 100% right about the problem, you miss a critical moment of willing movement toward you as a solution if you can’t get them to open up and tell you.
• A problem with potential personal risk: the way people express their personal attachments to a problem is by projecting the impact on themselves. If you can’t get them to talk about the needs behind the job so that you understand what’s personally at stake for them (good or bad), you haven’t connected yet. And yes, it’s ALWAYS personal. Even if they’re a manager or executive and the job is critical for the team or company, their decision will be based on their personal emotions and needs.

Once you connect with someone, then they’ll want to line up the facts rationally. In many cases, they line those rational facts up to support the emotional decision they’ve already made. But if you don’t connect emotionally, all the rational evidence in the world won’t help you market or sell more effectively.

Get to the problem. Stop being general about it and get focused and specific about the kinds of pain you can help solve. Then figure out how to sell in a way that gets the other person to ‘reveal’ that pain.

I see it work every day as a recruiter. I see job seekers who choose to stay rational and vanilla who are easily dismissed.

And I see job seekers who ask the right questions, sympathize with the answers, help the manager see and confirm the best facts that synch up with the emotional need.

The latter are the ones that get hired.

Here are my thoughts about this cover letter.

1. It’s not marketing. In the direct-marketing world, great marketing is focused squarely on the felt needs of the customer, NOT the features of the product. When I look at this letter one word stands out…the word “I” is in it 14 times, so it’s obviously about the candidate, not the hiring manager.

   Both Lynn and Sathana correctly spotted all the “I’s”, and Jeff really nailed it – nothing in there has tweaked curiosity and focused on ROI.

   Remember, as you write, that your major competitor isn’t other candidates, it’s the reader’s own need to rapidly come to a conclusion and move on to other work.

1. The approach is too strong. Basically this letter throws down a gauntlet. Hiring is a game full of skeptics and cynics (no, not just me)…if you say, “I know I meet and exceed all requirements” you’re forcing the hiring manager to choose on the spot to believe you.

   Given the number of candidates he’s going to get, that approach is practically guaranteed to have him open up a file in his head where he will list all the reasons you don’t meet or exceed his requirements.

   Remember that most of the critical requirements WON’T be on the job ad anyway, so to stake your credibility on his poorly written requirements is a cover letter no-no. A job seeker saying “I’m qualified” on a resume is like a prisoner saying, “I’m innocent” in the state pen. It may be true, but credible proof is what counts.

   Gold stars to Lynn and Susan for spotting this!

2. The words are from the job seeker handbook. Using phrases like, “…meet and exceed all of the attributes you have solicited…” sounds like something right out of a bad cover letter template. It screams, “I’m a job seeker and I demand to be recognized as competent.”

   You ask, “Don’t you want to sound like a job seeker when you’re applying for a job?” NO! You want to slip past all those people who use that template and say things that are real, genuine, and honest.

   The second paragraph strings together: led…challenge…occasions…unified consensus…internal group leaders…external customers…commoditized product. These are all fifty-cent, Dilbert-terms generated words almost no one uses in real life. They immediately make the message sound fake, ‘processed’ if you will. It’s like a 9-year old standing there in his father’s suit as a little kid…nice suit, but it doesn’t fit.

   Lots of you got this – David, Roger, Lynn, Bill – almost all of you. Bill’s note is particularly good – no proofreading! Often we write and re-write until we’re like a sculptor that’s turned a reasonably good statue into a hideous beastly thing that doesn’t resemble what we started it out to be. Famous copywriter John Clayton advises his students to write as if there’s a gun to their head and only write absolutely what’s necessary to be clear and compel action.

3. NEVER admit to being a hybrid. While the job ad certainly asks for a marketer that understands and communicates with sales (and in this case, the candidate’s sales experience is helpful), saying, “I’m a hybrid” in a letter is not wise.

   Remember, employers love it when they end up with a multi-function person, virtually every hiring process and mind-set I’ve ever seen in 782 hires is about getting a specialist to solve one or two problems…not a generalist.

   Job seekers today rage on forums about how stupid employers are to not want someone with multiple skills in multiple areas…and remain unemployed because that’s just not how it is. Specialist. Not Generalist.

   No one got this, but it’s good advice…!

To fix this cover letter, start with the same advice I give when you’re writing a resume. Ask yourself: what do you think they’re trying to get accomplished with the work this person will do?

Next week I’ll show you what I would write, and announce the winners!

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(Original Post 10/26/10)

Welcome to the MPC “Over the Shoulder” Cover Letter Review and Contest!!

A client who bought my “Resume That Won’t Take No For an Answer” eBook reached out to me a few days ago and asked me to review a cover letter for a specific job.

Resume and cover letters continue to be a hot topic – mostly because there are so many opinions about whether they are required, useful, or ever read. Hot opinions, too!

This cover letter example is a great one because it shows several mistakes people make as they market themselves in general…good people, trying hard to get work, but killing themselves because they ignore solid marketing principles in their written (resume/cover letter/email/inmail) and verbal (elevator pitch/interview technique) self-marketing.

Next week I’ll reveal those mistakes, and give you a re-written example cover letter that you can adapt.

But first – CONTEST!

I decided to make this a contest just to have some fun and hear your thoughts about cover letters. All you have to do – read the cover letter below, and then tell me what you think the single most important mistake is.

Scott's eBook

The prize? The top 5 answers will get a free copy of my “Resume That Won’t Take No for an Answer” eBook, which sells for $27. The best answer will also get a $25 gift card to iTunes.

(I’ve recently rediscovered the power of music in my life as I do the solo-preneur thing…Steve Ray Vaughn and Boston make research and writing sooooo much more fun than listening to the space heater in the basement.)

So here’s the letter…leave comments below.

(Notes: NAME is VP of Marketing at COMPANY and has asked qualified candidates to reach out to him through a job ad on LinkedIn for a Product Manager…all company and personal names have been altered…and I’m using this gentleman’s cover letter with his permission.)

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Hi NAME,

I think we should have a talk, as I meet and exceed all of the attributes you have solicited for the Product Management Manager at COMPANY, and I’ll tell you why.

I’ve led the challenge on many occasions to bring a unified consensus among internal group leaders as well as external (customer) teams to bring a great product to market (as a commoditized product or as a customized product).  In the past I’ve found that a tremendous amount of time and human resources are wasted in the juggling, sifting and separating of noise v. content.

I’ve led and conceived product development in the technological (hardware and software) space by gathering, dissecting and interpreting data, authoring the business and marketing plans, and integrating conclusions into the road map development processes.  I’ve also successfully developed traction where there was none.

I take pride in my ability to determine who our customers are by speaking to them, by speaking to our FAEs, and by speaking to our top Sales people:  I’ve also used VOC and QFD skills to complement competitive intelligence and assessments of not only our products but competitor offerings.

As a Sales person in the highly competitive telecommunications arena, I over-achieved Chairman’s club quotas for 4 consecutive years; while at XYZ, I achieved PMI status (which I viewed as a project planning stepping stone).  So, I feel that I am a hybrid of sorts, having Sales, Project Planning, Product development and heavy Marketing skills.

I am committed to initiate and develop business opportunities.  I’m willing to reach out within my network, and will travel in order to bring business to COMPANY’S bottom line.

I’ve attached a resume for review, and look forward to speaking with you about a future with COMPANY.

SIGNED

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That’s it – leave your comments below…no spam or ugliness please. Winners will be determined by yours truly…all decisions are final

And remember – I’m looking for what you think is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT mistake!

Scott

I talk with demoralized job seekers every day who just wish someone would help them out. Often, in this vulnerable stage in life, they think: if someone asked me for help, I’d do it!

No, you wouldn’t actually. Don’t be offended, it’s just that most people are safely ensconced in their world, and often helping people is inconvenient and upsets the balance of things. If that wasn’t true, more people would be getting helped all the time.

Very few people (think Mother Theresa) are actually altruistic: they do things for no other reason than to do good. Most people in their day-to-day lives aren’t altruistic. That’s not necessarily bad news (unless you really need help or think more people should be altruistic), it’s just the truth about human nature.

The good news…

People do like to help – it makes them feel worthy and good. But to get them to help you’re going to have to make it worth their time. Get this now (last really hard news in this email) – it’s not their problem you don’t have a job. It’s not the government’s problem. It’s really only your problem. Regardless of what might have happened, how you’ve been treated, or any other things…it’s YOUR responsibility.

People will help you, and will help in ever-higher numbers if you will do three little things:

• Make them feel good – you’d be shocked at how often someone asks me to help them while managing to make me feel small, mean and obligated. It’s like when my girls were younger and one of them would do something to hurt the other, and I’d make them apologize, and they’d say, “Sooorrrryyyy” in such a whiny way that I knew they didn’t mean it. People often ask for help and make the other person FEEL BAD. What on earth makes them think that method will actually get them help?If you obligate another person when they’re not really willing; if your entire conversation is about your need, never their situation; if you ask in a way that makes them feel guilty if they don’t help; if you make them feel bad because you feel bad; then you will rarely get people to act on your behalf.
• Make it risk free - people want me all the time to recommend them to managers I’m working with. And I will, but think about it…my obligations are numerous: to the manager, the company, other candidates in the process…heck, even my family is at risk if I recommend someone who can’t do the work.There IS risk in someone recommending you for a job in their company, or giving you information you can use to go around HR. That means you have to appreciate those risks and allow for them. Ignore or ridicule them and you’ll be asking but not getting. A lot.
• Make it easy – people without jobs often forget how busy life is when you’re putting in 8-10 hours a day. Honestly, I have clients who go back to work and are depressed after a few weeks on the job because it takes so MUCH out of them!

So if you want help from someone you better make it easy. YOU figure out what you most need and how to make it simple for someone. If you think there might be some objections, you’d better think about them up front and figure out how to deal with them. Then when you ask, be direct and make it quick.

People love to help as long as it doesn’t COST them very much…understanding that, mitigating the issues and really focusing on the problem (like we discussed last email) going in will make it simpler for them, and get you more help.

If you haven’t watched my new video on how to get help when you apply for a job – go now.

Really they are all the same – us fighting our internal demons and trying to grow our personal capacity so that our results grow too.

This note is for anyone who’s in a tough spot today.

Remember…it’s a journey…

What you know today will make you laugh at how naive you were 5 years from now…

Don’t stress because of where you aren’t. Every man-jack-one of us is NOT somewhere we’d like to be. Or as good as we’d like to be, or as committed…you aren’t the only one obsessing about the mistakes you’re beating yourself up over that you think are personal indicators of something awful inside you.

The people who make it in life are the ones who:

1. Love themselves right where they are.
2. Admit their weaknesses and learn to manage them.
3. Play to their strengths.
4. Learn to separate what’s productive from what makes them feel good.
5. Refuse to go to bed every night until they’ve made a little progress.

My coach has me think to myself, “I’m worthy, I’m capable and people need me.”

I know the same is true for you…you are worthy of success. You are capable. People CAN AND DO need what you have to offer.

Not everyone. Some of them…

• Will be past where you are -  and that’s OK.
• Will not be able to afford you – and that’s OK.
• Won’t get you – and that’s OK.

But some CAN AND DO need what you have to offer.

Your only job is to build a system of internal beliefs and external expressions of those beliefs that help you FIND those who need you as fast and inexpensively as possible.

Along the way, if you’re willing to try, fail, then get up and try again, you’ll become better at what you do.

And as you get better, even more people will need you.

But one of the things that regularly gets in people’s way is how the FEEL about themselves…they hate feeling inadequate, so they stop trying. Then they feel inadequate and guilty too…double your displeasure.

Please – if you’re prone to self-flagellation…

Take some cues with lessons from my journey:

Stop expecting perfection. Laugh at yourself a lot. Try big, risky things that will make people think you’re nuts. Fail with pride in what you’re learning. Think differently than you ever have. Keep your eyes, heart and hands open.

Realize that a lot of the things you’re trying to get past by emoting guilt or

But most of all just keep moving.

If you’ve never heard that phrase, it’s an old legal one. In some statutes, it’s still one of the criteria used to distinguish manslaughter from outright murder.

Yes, this is your bi-weekly job hunter’s blog, and no, I’m not starting a crime novel here.

But I have been reading some, one of which reminded me of that phrase. I like the way it rolls off the tongue…and I really like what it implies. It occurred to me how useful it might be for job seekers

Whoever acted with “malice aforethought” literally spent time in contemplation of some bad thing they were going to do. They thought about it, planned it, and then acted according to said plan.

Malice – evil, bad to another; a particular and emotionally charged goal.

Aforethought – with intention, premeditation before the act is committed.

They didn’t stumble into wrongfulness in the heat of drunken passion, or because they were messing around at the wrong place in the wrong time. No sir, they did what they did with thought and a desire to get a specific result.

What’s this got to do with getting a job?

I took two clients through mock interviews last week. Won’t name them here, certainly don’t want to embarrass them and I’ve already give them some ‘thick skin’ coaching. The problem is that both of them took the interview like it was practice and so they didn’t prepare.  They sucked. No harm in that as they are learning. But…

People play like they practice. For job seekers sucking in practice is a mistake, because I know that without thinking, planning and practice, people will also bomb in live interviews. I interview 1-5 people per day regularly, so trust me when I say many of those are not good.

Despite mountains of advice, job seekers LOSE in interviews because they aren’t prepared specifically enough. Oh sure they read up a lot on what you’re supposed to say for certain questions. They look at the job ad. They obsess over how badly they need to succeed.

Certainly people think they are ready, but there is no real malice aforethought.

Aforethought…

My buddy Reg Gupton (a real estate coach in Boulder) was the first one to ever really ask me, “What’s your intention?” And he meant it. I was in a mastermind group with him for years, and when I’d bring an idea to the group, or talk about some marketing thing I was going to do, he’d ask me, “What is your intention?”

That’s the ‘aforethought’ part…the intention to do something. The time I remember him first asking it was when I talked about doing some free classes to get clients. He said, “What’s your intention?” “To get clients,” says I.

“How many? What kind? For what product or service? Through what mechanism? What are you going to say? What will you hand out?”

Silly me. I figured if I showed up, had something intelligent to say, was presentable and convincing, that people would just naturally want to hire me as their coach. It was a turning point in my business! If he hadn’t asked me that question, I’m not sure how far I would have gotten.

After three miserable classes with almost no attendance, with people scurrying for the door at the end, I finally decided I needed the answers to those questions.

• Being good at marketing and recruiting wasn’t enough for me to get clients…
• Being good at what you do won’t be enough for you to get hired…

I needed to develop my intention well enough for it to become small steps I could act toward that would help me move people from leery first-timers to people who trusted me enough to hand me their money.

In an interview, you need to have intermediate goals that you can work toward so you can turn leery first-timers into people who trust you enough to hand you the keys to their business.

You have to earn trust, discover what the real issues are, uncover objections, and reveal (if it’s applicable) why you’re ideally suited for the job. All in a 30-60 minute timeframe. If you’re winging it or focused on the wrong things, you really have no intentions about what you’re trying to produce.

That’s one reason you don’t succeed.

And now for the malice…

I like the word malice…it’s specific and memorable. Emotionally tangy.

The person who intends malice isn’t entertaining some vague hope that someone he doesn’t like will fall down a well. The person who takes on malice sharpens his anger or hurt into a specific weapon, and turns it on someone.

There are no unfocused, internal generalities in someone committed to true malice, only a specific, externally-focused commitment to hurt somebody.

To put it in a nicer context, when an NFL lineman goes into the line of scrimmage for a specific play, he’s not just thinking, “By I hope I block good on this one.” He’s got a very specific plan, for a very specific reason, related to that specific play.

He’s not thinking, “Head up; hands up; push hard now…” He’s thinking about how he needs to blow past the defensive tackle and knock some linebacker’s head off as that poor soul trawls down the line toward the halfback.

He doesn’t go after things half-heartedly – he’s got a focused, emotional goal in his heart.

What is it that you want when you go in to interview?

You say you want a job?

The problem with that desire is that it’s focused on YOU. I know you’re hurting. I know you need work and income. But that internal need HAS to be channeled onto an external target if you’re going to succeed.

Why? Because if your interview answers are really about you, your true motive undercuts everything you say. When you sit across from a hiring manager, if your answers are about you, you’re done. If your answers are targeted toward helping the other person to some specific outcome, you’ll succeed more often.

And if you’re willing to put in enough energy and thought to really get focused and specific about what you can do for them, you’ll win regularly.

If you’re not a client of mine yet, let me offer YOU a “Thick Skin Coaching Moment:”

If you have a skill set that is in high demand, or you have so many interviews you can afford to just stumble around and hope it all works out, then you are excused from this harangue.

The rest of you, listen up:

You’re going to stay unemployed unless you get specific and emotional about what you intend to do for someone else, how you will do it and get committed to interviewing to convince the other person, without the shadow of a doubt, that you are going to do what you say.

The interview is not about you. It’s about them.

When you turn your vague internal anguish into malice aforethought, you’ll succeed.

I want to understand it better to become a better recruiter, and so that I can give better advice to job seekers. But I’m not sure I can completely understand it because I’m not sure it’s rational.

If it was a movie it would be like something from Alfred Hitchcock: the job seeker is sitting at the dining room table, nervously pretending to work their home computer, awkwardly wearing clothes they’d never normally wear on a Tuesday or Wednesday. As they work, they realize the house is abnormally quiet. Suddenly they start to notice things they’ve never seen at home that time of the day.

Then it gets surreal – a pea-soup-thick fog rolls in…every sound is magnified, every swirl in the fog briefly takes the shape of something potentially ominous. They sit in the fog and scan the internet for job postings, and when they see something that looks vaguely familiar and safe, they instinctively move toward it.

They scroll down and let their eye linger on the few words and phrases they recognize, and a warm, safe thought comes over them: “I bet I could do that…it says, ‘Build good rapport with executives’ and I’m great at rapport building.”

It’s the only line that matches for them, but they see a tiny sliver of hope and fire off that resume.

I know – it’s not funny, and fog doesn’t normally roll into people’s dining rooms. But it seems like some kind of mysterious unemployment fog seeps into people’s brains, tricking them into applying for things they have no business applying for – vague shapes and ethereal possibilities that aren’t real.

They pull up their resume, tweak a few things, go through the online application ‘hoop-jumping’ process they hate, then carefully log their submission in a spreadsheet. They store up a little hope in their heart and wait to hear something back.

Maybe it’s like whistling as you walk through the fog…a familiar, safe tune for the ear that tries to compensate for strange things happening to the eyes. A normal, controlled noise that tells you you’re not losing your mind. A lonely little whistle of hope that there’s nothing sinister or abnormal out there in the job hunting fog.

There are a heck of a lot of people on social media sites bemoaning how awful it is that no one in the job hunting world will sympathize and give you a chance. I feel for you…and I want you to get back to work. But I’m not going to coddle you.

Because on the other side of that Ethernet connection is someone who lives in the harsh light of day – who has obligations to managers and employees and themselves. On that world, there’s no ‘hoping,’ only hard, cold facts. That manager, who will get one shot at hiring someone to get the work done, doesn’t respond to the bravery of your halting whistle – to him it looks like you’re stumbling around with your eyes closed.

So let me offer you a stone cold, hard-as-life little secret from the professional marketing world in a way that I hope is clear…

You can’t dress up a pumpkin and convince someone it’s a date to the prom.

If someone wants to hire a prom date, and you’re a pumpkin, there’s no sense applying for the job and hoping something miraculous happens. Miraculous things happen in the movies, but frankly that kind of hope is wasted here in real life. Hope might be the best of things (a line from a great movie), bu only properly applied. Ignorantly applied hope wears you down over time. It’s of no more use than whistling in the fog hoping it will help you see better.

It doesn’t mean I care for you less because I’m telling you this.

There’s a little old saying from the good book – “Better bruises from a friend than kisses from an enemy.” No matter how bad it hurts, let me be your friend for a minute.

If you’re a pumpkin looking for work, you’re better off spending 100% of your time finding the market for pumpkins and selling your stuff to pumpkin buyers. If there’s not a market for pumpkins (and you know who you are), you’re better off spending 100% of your time reinventing yourself to be what the market needs.

Like a former client, David A., who spent over a year getting new technical certifications (on his own dime), finding opportunities for entry level programmers, and working to convince companies that there are dozens of reasons to hire a 20-year guy  into an entry level position. He even came up with a “Baker’s Dozen Reasons NOT to Hire a Kid for an Entry Level Job.”

He worked his butt off to find a market and become what it needed. And he got himself back to work.

VERY, VERY seldom does someone at a company see a resume completely unrelated to the job at hand and decide to take a chance on a person who hasn’t already done the primary elements of the job. When they do, it’s usually a friend or a relative, and there’s a high probability it will turn out badly.

So you’re thinking, “Well what’s the harm, maybe something miraculous will happen.” Which proves that you might be one of the people I wrote this for

The harm is that are undermining the time and strength you have to fix what you’re doing wrong with the subtle dishonesty of sending in a resume (a positive action) for a job you’re not qualified for (which will not produce a result.)

See, in any system that’s designed to produce a specific result, there are certain bits of information floating around. That information can be used to help you tell you whether you’re on the right track or not.

For example, the thermostat in your home measures and reports so that you know if the cooling system is producing the desired result, so you don’t toss and turn all night in the sweltering heat of July. The information in this closed system is reliable and allows the system to work normally. But if you ignore the information presented and don’t turn on the air, you can cuss the heat and the system all night long, but you’re still not getting any sleep.

One of the primary reasons systems fail is that people are afraid, and I know how true that is for a job seeker (I’ve been one for LONG periods of time too). People who are afraid don’t want to be (or do not know how to be) accountable for their actions when they’re not sure what the outcome will be. So they purposefully avoid measurement and accountability in what they do, hoping to avoid ‘failure…’ which of course, engineers failure right into the system.

I know too many job seekers who are not listening to the market, or aren’t willing to hear like David did!

Whistling in the fog is a primary daily task for these people.

Screwing up your courage (a phrase I’ve used too many times but really like), committing yourself to not sleeping until you totally, absolutely penetrate the pumpkin buying world, is your best bet. Every second you waste hoping to get asked to the prom is literally killing time, energy, hope and and the opportunity to hone your ability to deliver a message to the right buyers to generate positive responses from your actions.

Marketing guru’s call it ‘blind archery.’ That’s where you blindfold yourself, guess where the target is and fire away.

Applying for jobs where you’re ‘hoping’ is blind archery.

You can fix it. You can change it for today, and gain skills you can use for the rest of your career to make sure you are always in the market where great jobs happen.

It takes courage. It’s painful. But when you stop whistling and act on the information the market’s giving you, you will eventually figure out how to reinvent your marketing or yourself to get on with life.

All of flying is tough…especially in a military environment. There’s a daily ‘stand up’ when the instructor pilots fire questions at you that you have to answer just to be able to get into the plane!

There are so many things to learn that are critical to successfully slipping the surly bonds of earth and living to tell about it: checking the plane out, starting it up, taxiing to the runway, ‘running’ the plane up to make sure the engine is going to take the stress of taking off. All that just to get onto the runway and into the air!

And after that, there are dozens of things to learn to fly safely and competently. Then you still have to land the plane without killing yourself.

Your first few times, landing contradicts all your natural self-preservation instincts – you purposefully cut the power and point the nose of the plane at the ground at an angle that seems a tad suicidal. Then at the last second, you pull back and skim along the ground until the wheels touch down.

Too hard or too steep an angle and you’ll bounce off and hurt the plane. Too slow and you’ll land short of the runway, in a big smoking hole of your own manufacture.

(Navy pilots who land on aircraft carriers actually refer to their landings as ‘controlled crashes’…nice!)

Keeping the plane level, adjusting the power, finding all the right angles and then waiting for the feel of the wheels touching down are about as nerve-wracking as it gets, and it never goes away no matter how long you’re a pilot.

Flyers have an old saying – any landing you can walk away from is a good one. After all, landing is one of the two times where you’re closest to the ground, which is the one major object you have to ‘hit’ every flight; and you want to hit it correctly.

After a pilot gets more experience, the goal isn’t just to walk away, but to ‘grease’ every landing – make that transition from flying to rolling so smooth you can’t even feel it, no matter what the weather or wind is doing.

In hiring the landing is the hardest too. Of all the things you’ve got to learn to do well whether you’re a candidate or an employer (analysis, marketing, screening,and interviewing) landing is where it’s easy to make the biggest mistakes.

3 parallels from landing for companies and candidates

1. Too fast – going too fast is dangerous. Hiring managers and candidates both often think it’s wonderful that they got everything over with quickly, but often the worst mistakes in hiring happen when you go too fast.

Bad personality fits, wrong goals, skills that aren’t adequate, needs that won’t be met…I’ve seen all of those accidents happen, and none of them are worth ‘landing’ faster. Especially if the front end of the process (analyzing the job and what results you want) wasn’t done well by the employer, a fast hire can doom everyone to hurt feelings and a bad experience.

2. Too slow – everyone (especially candidates) are like high-schoolers after a first date once the end of the interview process is in sight. Slow communication, a poor process, a salary amount that gets fiddled with at the last second…all these can ruin the chances of a solid connection, even if it’s ultimately a good one.

Remember, landing isn’t like other parts of the process – it’s more nerve-wracking, difficult and important. Employers – DO NOT stall this close to the ground. Candidates – chill…a slow process doesn’t necessarily MEAN anything bad is happening, so try not to let you imagination create all sorts of myths about what’s happening and why.

3. Wrong angle – there’s a perfect angle (or “glide path” in aero-speak) for landing based on the plane, the weather and the airport. The best way to ensure a good landing is to get on that angle early and STAY on it the whole way to the ground.

See-sawing up and down is a sure recipe for disaster. So both parties need to know what they want before they get too far in the process – money, opportunity, management style, relationships: the works. If companies and candidates will clearly define (and stick to) their guns, landing the right person will be a lot easier.

Of course my job (as a recruiter and a job coach) is to help my clients get smooth landings, along with all the other parts of the process. I’m up to 730 these days…and landing doesn’t get easier, but I can spot the potential for trouble a lot sooner than many.

Hiring is still a kick for me when the right person gets to be part of the right team. So I hope your landings are good ones – call me if you want some help figuring it out!

She’s phenomenal at what she does! When someone retains her, really does great. She has a unique perspective, incredible experience and personal habits that make her the ideal choice for companies that are experiencing the kinds of problems she can solve.

Now imagine she won’t talk about it.

First of all, she’s like a cook who doesn’t use recipes, she can’t remember most of the details about how she gets the right end result. Then she’s uncomfortable talking about what she does remember…says she doesn’t want to “toot her own horn.”

What do you think will happen to her business?

One thing is for sure – she’ll never grow. She might survive, but she will never be able to drive consistency or predictability into her business, and she’ll always be dependent on luck or other people’s good graces for her next paying gig.

Why?

She lacks the story to bring power to her business development.

1. No one will know why she’s different. Unless they know her as well as you do, they will have virtually no way (short of digging it out of her in person) of knowing why they should even consider her, much less choose her instead of some other service provider.

Any competitor with a better story will get initial consideration and closed deals faster.

2. She’ll have no one out evangelizing for her. If she doesn’t know her own story, and can’t or won’t relate it, she’ll never have anyone that will carry her message to their sphere of influence because people don’t tell stories they don’t understand!

Any competitor with a better story will get more word-of-mouth leads.

3. In the mosh pit of competition for open needs, she’ll have no basis (other than price and availability) to compete. If she doesn’t see the opportunities, gets there too late, or there are other providers with even a tiny bit more to offer, she’ll lose available opportunities and probably never even know why.

Any competitor with a better story will be able to compete on values-based grounds while she’s forced to lower her price or take unfavorable circumstances to win deals.

4. She can only market at the ‘point of sale.’ She’s literally not useful to people unless they are precisely at the buying point and looking for something she can provide.

Any competitor with a better story has a wealth of opportunities to connect with her potential clients before and after the selling point; next time they will win facing much less competition.

In short, every single business that wants to get and keep customers had better be in the business of knowing, refining and telling their story so that their customers, the market and their staff are all aware WHY they are a top choice.

If your friend doesn’t do that, she’ll be out of business in no time.

She’ll probably have to give up her dreams of business ownership and go get a job. Only guess what – today she may not be able to. Because (as you probably know by now) getting a job ain’t what it used to be.

After all, (as one of my mentors, Perry Marshall, says) it’s not how good you are that matters. It’s how well you communicate how good you are.

What about you Mr. or Mrs. Job Seeker?

How’s your story?

Most of my clients have NO IDEA what their story is. They can’t remember the details of what they did, haven’t figured out what makes them unique, can’t write down what they’ve accomplished, can’t talk about themselves in clear, compelling ways without feeling like a bad used car salesman.

They don’t know how to create long-term value or credibility, or how to get people to know and like them or communicate with them before the actual moment a job opens up…

In short, they’re VERY MUCH LIKE THE BAD BUSINESS MARKETER ABOVE.

Only they can’t just bag it and go do something else!!

I mean, my average client makes $82,000 per year…you can’t replace that by giving up and getting a job at Starbucks or Walmart. If that’s you too, then you don’t have a lot of choices.

Sorting out, refining and learning how and when to tell your story isn’t optional. You either do it, or wait around for someone to discover you by accident.

The good news is that even though it can take a while, the process is pretty predictable. I have the tools, the success rate and the marketing know-how to help you.

Ready?