Sunday, September 30, 2007

Your Hardest Task in Looking for a Job is Dealing With "The Question"

Imagine this scene.

You're at a gathering with family at some holiday or at a get-together with friends when someone tries to make conversation with you by asking "The Question."

Or maybe "The Question" is asked by someone out of the blue who calls you.

What's "The Question?"

"The Question" is, "how is your job search going?"

Or maybe it's "How did that interview turn out?"

We all have questions like that in life. Mine is, "How is your book coming along? It used to turn my stomach because it is asked by people who want to see me fail and have no real interest in me succeeding. Maybe your circumstances are different but those are mine.

So the hardest task you have in looking for is managing your own emotions throughout the process. Even when an interview is internal to your organization, the impact of an interview failure can be emotionally disastrous.

A friend (who i hope remains a friend after reading this) had a disastrous internal interview that would have involved a transfer. His failure was humiliating and took several months to recover from.

You cannot afford several months of recovery time after coming in second.

More than a decade ago, I ran and finished the New York Marathon and from that experience, I learned that much of life is more like a running a marathon, instead of a sprint. You need to be prepared to go longer and further than you ever have, instead of just running for 9 or 10 seconds.

This is another of those cases where patience is a virtue.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com/.

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