As we embark on the holiday season, remember that this is a great time to focus on your job search since you will be meeting a lot of prospective employers at holiday gatherings. Remember when you are discussing potential employment opportunities, employers wants to share in your gain, not your pain.
Consider the man who walks into a party with a beautiful woman on his arm. If you’re the woman, perhaps you engaged in grueling workouts during the six weeks leading up to the event and did a juice cleanse in order to squeeze into that dress. If you’re the man, while you may appreciate all the hard work your partner did to achieve that look, you probably don’t want to hear about it. You’d rather just bask in the moment (and watch the others gaze at you with envy) because your partner looks so fabulous.
Along the same lines, employers today want to enjoy the benefits of your hard work. They don’t want to hear about the struggles you overcame to get to where you are (because that has nothing to do with them). Nor do they care about your plans for the future (unless they happen to be in sync with their plans).
Perspective is everything. If you struggled to put yourself through law school while working three part-time jobs and raising three kids on your own, you probably see yourself as a driven candidate who will let nothing stop you from success. Say that in a job interview, however, and some employers may see your family life as a distraction from your work. Potentially just as damaging, other employers may see you as someone who, given your ambition, expects a fast promotional track within the company, rather than a steady slow-paced climb up the corporate ladder. Similarly, if you tell a prospective employer that you’re behind on the mortgage, you might think that would make you a valuable member of the sales team because you’re going to be aggressive. But a hiring manager might take that to mean that you’re willing to close a deal at any cost in order to earn a commission, regardless of whether that deal is good for the company.
The point is that in the loyalty-free workplace, employers are mostly concerned with finding the perfect fit for any given position. By sharing details about your life that don’t relate to your ability to perform the task at hand or to the company’s long-term plans, you are providing unnecessary information that could prevent you from landing the job.
Best of luck with your job search, I know you can do it!
Lori
P.S. To learn more about how to navigate the loyalty-free workplace, pick up a copy of my book The Perpetual Paycheck: 5 Secrets to Getting a Job, Keeping a Job, and Earning Income for Life in the Loyalty-Free Workplace. The Perpetual Paycheck has been an Amazon #1 best-seller in 3 job-search categories, awarded the Silver Medal by Readers’ Favorites in the nonfiction/business category, and featured on CNBC’s The Power Lunch, on nextavenue.org, Forbes.com, AARP.org and in many other prominent publications. The book is currently available in paperback and as an Ebook—and the audio book is coming soon.
