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Seven Lies That Can Sabotage Your Job Search

This article is more than 9 years old.

On a job search you need all the power you can muster. It isn't easy out there pounding the pavement, or staying at home and filling out endless job application forms. It's hard to get through a job search without a moderate-to-severe mojo drop. You wonder why it's taking so long, and rage against whoever invented keyword-searching algorithms. A job search is isolating, and causes you to doubt yourself. You need all the resources you can gather!

That's why it's  important to pay attention to the messages you're taking in during your job search. For years now, since the beginning of the recession, we've heard that it's a buyer's market for talent and that job-seekers have to grovel and beg to get hired. We've heard a lot of other garbage, too, like these often-repeated beliefs:

  • People over 50 don't have a chance in the new-millennium job market, and will have to accept whatever they can get.
  • The only way to get a job is to lob resumes into Black Hole recruiting portals, then wait for a response from an automated bureaucrat known as an Applicant Tracking System.
  • A job-seeker who walks away from a job opportunity is squandering something valuable.

All of this is nonsense, of course. Job-seekers of any age have power in the hiring equation, but only if they're aware of it. Plenty of people in the mix, from recruiters and HR folks to your very own loving parents and spouse will tell you that you can't be yourself, can't follow your heart and most of all, can't break the rules on a job search.

If you believe the conventional wisdom, no one would ever negotiate a job offer or opt out of a recruiting pipeline that was obviously going nowhere. Only people with self-esteem make choices like that, and if you pay attention, you notice that those are the people who prosper. They take a chance, and say "Well, surely God or the universe doesn't want me in THIS hellish job situation!" They don't always know what's next, but they listen to their heart and their sturdy instinct. That is what wise and forthright people have always done.

Here are the seven lies that, given room in your brain, will sabotage your job search and keep you in Please, Your Majesty, May Your Humble Servant Approach Thy Throne? Land when you should be stepping into What You See Is What You Get territory on your job search. As we tell job-seekers, Only the people who get you, deserve you. Want to find those deserving people faster? Get these seven lies out of your brain at the first opportunity.

You Are Your Job Titles and Degrees, Period

Many people have unknowingly and unwillingly sucked down toxic lemonade that has them convinced their worth is in their past job titles, degrees and certifications. If you ask them about their life and career, that's what they'll tell you: that they went to this university and worked for that brand-name employer, as though these are the most significant elements in their lives.

On a job search today you've got to know more about yourself than the job titles you held and the tasks and duties you carried out at each one. In the end, no one cares about that stuff - they care what YOU care about, and what you think about and what you stand for. If you're spending your job search time chasing recruiters and managers whose only interest in you is your pedigrees, look elsewhere. The more fearful the person, the more trophies will matter to him or her, and the less you'll be able to grow your flame working with him or her.

You Can't Do It Your Way

You might think about branding yourself like a human being in your LinkedIn profile or your resume, and in my experience that's the best thing you can do. If you want to step outside the velvet ropes that way, get ready to hear the chorus of horrified shrieks from people who'll tell you "No, you can't do that!" I still meet people who say "You can't use the word I in a resume," as though if you did that, employers would come to your house and slash your tires in the driveway. Of course you can do your job search your way. The people who like your  brand of jazz will be delighted to meet you. The rest of them won't, and they are welcome to take a refreshing dive into the nearest lake.

The Rules Are The Rules

"Don't contact the hiring manager directly," say the job ads, but since when are you responsible for reading job ads? You don't have any obligation to do that, nor do you have time. Send a Pain Letter to anyone you want -- as my children love to tell me, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves.

Give The Employer Everything S/he Asks For

A client of ours went on six interviews and  didn't get the offer. Finally they asked her to make a presentation to their leadership team. She got the distinct feeling as she made that PowerPoint presentation that the people in the audience were looking at her less as a potential colleague and more as a source of free consulting. At the end of her talk, one of the lowlifes in the room said "Please leave the flash drive on the table -- the one with your presentation in it." They wanted her intellectual property, on top of her free advice! She walked out the door with her flash drive and never talked to those turkeys again.

You don't have to hand over your salary history, or show anybody your proof of past-job earnings. Those are insulting requests. You don't have to give up  your job references until late in the process, either. If anybody pushes you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, take a hike. The universe is signalling you that you're in danger of casting your pearls before swine.

Your Job Is to Wait, and Wait Some More

Everybody's busy. You don't expect to go on a job interview and have a job offer waiting in your email inbox when you get home. It is reasonable for a hiring manager to contact you within three or four business days after an interview, especially if you're still a contender for the job. Pay attention to the cues that more and less human workplaces will send you. If they keep you waiting in radio silence for weeks, it's time to flee. Don't believe the lie that says you have to cool your heels while they talk to every candidate they can scare up, just in case there's someone around with your brilliance at half your pay.

Take the Offer, No Matter What !

If you get a job offer and you like it, take it - that goes without saying. If you have concerns, express them, because your employer will never love you more than they do when they're trying to recruit you. If you feel nervous about asking for something reasonable -- more than two weeks vacation, for instance -- trust your gut and ask anyway. If your prospective boss is a weenie, you're better off knowing that sooner rather than later.

You Are Nothing -- The Employer Is Everything

The biggest lie is the one that tells you that only the employer has an important decision to make in the hiring process. You have an important life to decision to make, too, and anyone who doesn't value you, your time, your expertise and your outside-of-work priorities is not someone you can learn from or collaborate with to make great things happen. The sooner you show unworthy employers the back side of your briefcase, the sooner the right ones will come in.