When you send a resume in for a new job with a medium to large company, what do you think the HR department do with it?
Do you think they read it carefully, meticulously study the depth of your suitability and levels of experience? Compare carefully your career path against other applicants before deciding on whom to interview?
I suppose some may, but no HR department I have ever dealt with actually does.
As the ranks of the unemployed swell, applicants are out stripping vacancies at an alarming rate. To a certain extent this has always been the case, even when the word downsize had people staring blankly at you before asking you what the hell you’re talking about? But now stories of vacancies receiving over 5,000 applications are becoming common place.
So what do HR departments do to deal with such a deluge?
They do the same as judges on American Idol do. They do the same as people do when first looking at a menu in a restaurant. And they do the same as people buying a new home do.
They rule stuff out.
They look at the pile of applicants and try to make it manageable by deciding who isn’t suitable. This is not necessarily a method designed to get the best person for the job. It’s a method intended to lighten the load and reduce the risk of employing the wrong person for the job.
That is the nightmare scenario for them. Employing somebody that looked like a high risk or reward candidate and then seeing the former coming to realization. It’s a surefire recipe for being on the other end of the equation very quickly for any HR manager.
Shortly after moving to the US I had a crisis of confidence. Starting a coaching business from scratch is tough enough and I’d already been through that process in the UK. Starting from scratch in a new country with no support network was a lot tougher.
I was even pondering going back into sales. Whilst trawling Monster one day I stumbled across a job description that I presumed had been written exclusively for me. The position was as a sales manager working for Expedia the Internet based Travel Company.
Here are some of the prerequisites for the job:
- Documented sales experience at a B2B level within blue chip companies. – Check
- Well-traveled and good knowledge of Europe – Check
- Live in central Florida – Check
- Prepared to think outside the box – Check
- Good team player – Check
- Able to coach and mentor others – Check
- Good communication skills – Check
- Permanent resident green card – Check
This job was a gimme; it was in the bag if I wanted it. However, I still wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to move out of coaching, even if only temporarily. Furthermore it didn’t feel right selling out on my dreams. But what the hell, it was surely worth checking out, right? After all, I could turn it down if I didn’t want it.
I never even got an interview.
I honestly don’t know the reason why, but I can take a good guess. The fact is I didn’t meet one of the criteria off a list of about 25. You see, I don’t have a degree.
The person (or more likely computer) sifting the applications would have noted that and I was on the ‘Send nice letter wishing best of luck’ pile in the blink of an over-worked eye.
I’m not sure in that instance if there was anything I could have done other than told a tissue of lies. Most of the time however, there is stuff people can do to stack the deck in their favor and I’m not just talking about job seekers.
This post was inspired (if inspired is the right word) after reading a recent comment on my rather tongue-in-cheek ‘How To Be A Life Coach’ post. Somebody had suggested training isn’t necessary, but having a great general knowledge is.
Leaving aside the fact that contrary to popular opinion coaching isn’t about imposing what you know on clients. I’m unsure of the value of knowing what the capital of Kazakhstan is, the collective noun for squirrels or the name of the only man to hop solo across the Sahara desert dressed only in a Kimono. Especially if you’re trying to understand a clients value set or do some form of intervention.
On the other hand, knowing how to shift somebody’s state in a split second, understanding the difference between the Meta Model and the Milton Model of language and realizing that a particular client won’t respond to rah-rah tactics, can come in handy from time to time.
Would you prefer to go to the dentist that qualified 25 years ago and hasn’t done any further training, or the one that regularly updates his or her knowledge by attending refreshers? Would you take your vehicle to the mechanic that thinks diagnostic tools are a waste of money, or the one that can drop a computer onto your car and know instantly what’s wrong with it? Would you hire an SEO company to promote your website that has an Alexa ranking 5 million places lower than your own, or the one that has cracked the top 50,000?
There are plenty of people, businesses and organizations that don’t stack the deck in their favor and do ok when times are good. How many Realtors relied on business coming to them 2 or 3 years ago and neglected looking for clients, building up a referral network and working on their sales skills? Where are they now?
I remember reading an interview with Will Smith and he was talking about working with a marriage counselor. “What? The perfect Mr. Smith navigating a rocky phase in his marriage?” You may be thinking.
No, not at all, he was trying to avoid a rocky phase. He was being pro-active by stacking the deck in his favor.
For me ongoing training is stacking the deck. Leaving aside the obvious benefits of making me a better life coach, it is one less reason for a potential client to rule me out because they’ll always have plenty of alternatives.
I have no idea what stacking the deck is for you. It may be hiring a job coach if you are out of work (by the way, I am not a job coach per se, so that isn’t a cheap plug!). It may mean not buying that new car on credit. It may mean reading a book that will give you an edge somewhere down the road. It may be making a few more sales calls. It may even mean just chilling and disengaging from the world for a while so your mind can recover.
I do know many of us seldom stop and ask ourselves what can we do to move the odds of success more in our favor? We get so wrapped up in firefighting and just coping with life we barely have time to look up and see where it is we’re going and even if we’re moving in the right direction.
Take time out at least once a week to sit and just think.
It doesn’t have to be for longer than 20 or 30 minutes. Think about what you can do over the next 7 days to stack the deck in your favor and then do it. It’s not particularly profound advice and I doubt you’ll be reaching for your PayPal password to send me some cash as way of thanks. But it may be the difference that makes the difference for you at some point in the future and that is what really matters.
Write for The Discomfort Zone: I’ve had a number of people contact me about submitting guest posts. As I often do I have changed my mind and I’m leaning toward making this a weekly thing, starting this Friday. If you want to strut your literary stuff in front of the the discerning and wonderful readers of The Discomfort Zone, drop me an e-mail to tim at adaringadventure dot com
Tim,
Another great post. I am currently less than web savvy, so I am stacking the deck by learning web basics, and the tinkering with the use of a web editor.
I too hope to be blogger extraordinaire, and possibly do some business online before this whole airline gig goes Tango Uniform! (teets up)
On a side note, I am absolutely aghast at the fact that I blabbed my entire value structure to a Coach with no degree though. Dear God, oops, we can’t say God out here can we? What is this world coming to when we have trained professionals with no degree. My minor in Vietnam War History makes me qualified on sooooooo many levels to do………….
Cheers!
That’s really great advice, Tim. I do find myself amazed at how many people just coast along, although if I’m honest, I do the same. It’s a good question to ask myself, although I’m not sure what the answer is right now.
I know in parenting, I try to do my best to raise my children so that they’ll have as many options as possible in life. Of course, there isn’t the time or money to do every possible enriching activity, so we make the choices we think we’ll give them the best chances in life. We should be more proactive about making choices for ourselves, too.
Thanks for giving me food for thought!
Tracys last blog post..Shangri-La Diet Week 1 Recap
I think John Lennon once said something like:
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”
That is so true.
You just need to take a step back, take stock and then go again.
The problem with thinking is that you have to do it! It takes effort to do and people do not like effort!
So set yourself some thinking time.
I power walk every morning for 60 minutes and that’s when I do my “thinking”. It really sets me up for a great day.
Sean McPheat
Sean McPheat – The Sales Jedis last blog post..Microsoft Office Labs Vision For 2019
thanks to you, tim, I now know that there is not a word for a group of squirrels. They are solitary-here I was all excited to be able to impress my friends-”hey, did you see that conglomerate/gang/murder of squirrels?”…
@ Mike – Sorry mate, I did go to the University of Life. I am thinking of buying a degree online, but I’m not sure what to go for. I’m leaning towards Chemistry so I can start making my own drugs to give clients. What could possibly go wrong?
@ Tracy – I think the important thing is you recognize you’re doing your best. You’ll make mistakes bringing kids up and as long as you learn from them and it doesn’t end up with them joining a traveling circus, you’ll be fine.
@ Sean – Yeh, I love that quote! I actually do a lot of my best thinking at the gym. I think the 2 are linked. By exercising we are generating oxygenated blood that helps the brain think more clearly. I sometimes bounce out of the gym with a great idea and by the time I come to write it I’m like “Meh” – LOL
@ Bill – Au contraire there most certainly is. They may indeed by solitary, but what if I went rounding up squirrels for you and threw them in a room together? Then we went out and you asked:
“Where did you put that bunch of squirrels Tim I need to start skinning them for my new coat this evening?” I’d be able to reply
“A bunch of squirrels? I have no idea what you mean”
“You know that room full of furry gray things with twitchy noses?”
“Eh?”
That DRAY of squirrels Tim, where the hell are they?”
“Oh right, why didn’t you say that. I left them in the store room of that bar with all electric cables and bags of peanuts. They’ll be fine.
Important Note: To the best of my knowledge Bill does not skin squirrels the story was for demonstration purposes only and no Sciuridae were hurt in the making of this post.
great reminder, tim.
when i do ’stack the deck in my favor’ it always helps.
for me, that includes taking very good care of my physical being to reduce stress and create a sense of wellbeing. getting vigorous cardio, yoga and eating clean all do that. when taking care of myself this way, my creativity flows more freely and i am motivated to work on my projects.
plus, a smile and laugh more readily and that can only help.
off to shuffle and stack that deck now!
melissa
melissa@yummygoodss last blog post..306: retail therapy
at what point does ’stacking the deck’ become obsessing or controlling, needing to know enough about something not to seem stupid. If I need a plumber or mechanic, should I stack the deck by reading a book/taking a course in order to understand what they are doing so I don’t get ripped off?
That’s not me I am talking about …honestly..
guys last blog post..Easy Sugar Virgins or how to make £10,000,000,000,000,000,000
This is true in every field. I went out and “bought” a degree online and assumed I was done. I went into accounting expeciting it to be like the classes I ace’d. Nope! Not even close. Accounting changes all the time and if you do not keep up, you fall behind. I personally did not care enough about accounting to hurt my noodle anymore so I escaped- but the same is true with blogging, writing, and dream analysis of which are my new medium. Vigilance is key- however following the heart makes this easy because you want to be the best you can so vigilance is a side effect. Is Will Smith the perfect person or what – counsling to avoid pitfalls that do not exist- he is barf bag good. :-)
Thanks for the love Tim!
Jays last blog post..The Sunday Ponder
@ Melissa – The health think is kinda weird to me because it seems that many people don’t consider it until ill health hits them Of course millions of people work out and eat healthily, but a lot more don’t. And what percentage take the time to work on their mental health with things like meditation. 1% maybe?
@ That’s a great question mate and I honestly can’t give you an answer. I guess it’s down to the individual. I think when we hire other people it’s a matter of doing due diligence on those people and not trying to be better than them! IOW, ask for testimonials, check their credentials etc and then let them get on with it.
@ Jay – Barf bag good, wow, now that’s what I call good!
reading my previous comment, the tradesmen thought was not an appropriate analogy more a metaphor.I was trying to make the point that sometimes one can try to stack the decks too much trying to stay one step ahead of the oppostion/competition. For someone plagued with self-doubt this can lead to anxiety.
I am probably reading my own interpretation of this post, but well…
Anyway have been reading the site for a while Tim and really enjoy your work, hope you are not missing blighty too much…
//guy
Guys last blog post..Easy Sugar Virgins or how to make £10,000,000,000,000,000,000
@ Guy – That is exactly why I LOVE comments. You make an excellent point that I hadn’t thought of!
My advice may be complete crap to perfectionists and people with anxiety issues. It may tip them over the edge by telling them they need to do more.
Thanks a lot for bringing that to my attention! Now should I add a caveat or hope people read the comments?
BTW, like what you’re doing at your blog, very interesting.
So much depends on the training doesn’t it? Those who are successful aren’t necessarily any good at teaching.
Much of the qualification industry is just a con in my opinion.
I’d like to see some discussion of how things haven’t changed. Eg. the idea of having something of value to a big enough group of customers. I guess there are all sorts of new application of this in the blogosphere, but maybe if I understood the principle deeply it would be much quicker to learn the new applications to the blogosphere.
Evans last blog post..One Hundred Years – and counting
@ Evan – I think some training is a con, definitely. I’m not sure as I’d go as far as to say much of it is. Although I have no direct experience in the majority of it, so I’m guessing really.
Not sure how many different courses I have a attended, but it’s a lot. I can think of one course that was a rip-off and another that wasn’t really up to scratch. The rest were great. Maybe I just got lucky.
Hi Tim,
The following is my way of assessing training.
How much did you change as a result of the courses? How much of the material in them contributed to this change? All of it? 90% 10%?
It depends what you mean by “great”. Some people mean they had a good time (training as a kind of entertainment).
Hope this makes sense.
Evans last blog post..One Hundred Years – and counting
@ Evan – The best ROI was my NLP training. I use NLP with almost every client and I’m not sure how I’d manage to coach without it. In that respect it is priceless to me.
The life coaching training gave me the basics and an understanding of coaching. Without it I wouldn’t have become a coach.
The various other trainings including hypnotherapy have been useful in different ways offering incremental improvements and different tools and techniques. As in sales we may learn something that we never use in 6 months, but then a process or technique allows us to move a client positively that wasn’t responding to the usual approach.
I also enjoyed a lot of my training, but that’s not why I did it and it’s not why I’d encourage anybody else to do it.