Ask Sonali
Sonali says….
Crap has the same nutritional value as shit. As a professional you have to avoid it.
When it comes to job hunting, most of us are ruled by our phobias. Phobias are the mental crap that makes us fearful and clouds our perceptions. It paralysis our judgment and stunts our capacity for new learning. Worse it makes us smell bad to others.
But phobias have to have to be handled with respect. They serve as a thermometer for sensing our environment and give us the indicators on what medicine is needed.
For starters…
First, we need to admit to ourselves that if we are not able to find or get the job we want, blame is not going to cure the situation.
But that is what most of us tend to do – Pin the blame. Do you think it was because I lost it to the better guy? Was it because of weak English? He paid a bribe to that government hiring officer? My father is a village farmer? I am 35? I am not as pretty as the other girl? They preferred boys for the job? …… No end to the blame list.
Once we fix the blame we look at it as the cause of the problem. We start believing that it has a basis in reality, rather than a basis in our imagination.
Then we proceed to cure the problem
“Should I use the blaster services of websites to send my resume everywhere – maybe the problem is the volume game?”
“My resume is lousily written – should I get a professional to write a snazzy one?”
“My interviewer had an American accent – should I join that English course to learn to talk with a foreign accent?”
“Should I forget about jobs and join that most popular computer course?”
All this will not help very much. What is most important is to examine that crap in our heads. Maybe an unpleasant task but it needs to be done.
The craps are listed below.
The salary level crap.
Most of us have no idea on what salary we can actually demand from the job market, but to have a rigid posture is disastrous.
Freshers tend to go by what they hear or what they are told to expect as the correct salary level by the placement counselors in their educational institutions – The more expensive the education the higher the salary expectations.
Similarly experienced professionals also go by what they know or hear about, without really doing much analysis.
What every jobseeker needs to do is to first sort out their ego problem – to realize that the issue here is about differentiating between – What I am getting, what I deserve and what I want. All this may not have a correlation to – what I can get.
Because what I can get is about availability and timing of a job offer. Rarely about having a basketful of job offers to choose from.
I have seen freshers idling at home for months rather than take up jobs that they believe are lowly in status or in salary. I have seen experienced professionals do it too – and worse — I have seen senior / top level professionals do the same. The reasons may be stated as protecting one’s market value but the ego problem is identical.
There are these aspects of salary that are important;
*Different companies may have different salary packages to offer but all jobs have to be also considered in relation to job satisfaction, growth and career enhancement.
*Job compromises are preferable to unemployment. At least they serve the purpose of providing some income and become a stepping stone to the next one. Or at least it can serve the important purpose of forcing you into introspection and self analysis.
*A job has to be also viewed in terms of its value as an investment in the job market. You may decide to take up a job purely for what new learning and experience it offers while compromising on every thing else.
If you decide that salary compromises are a strict No-No, you may get lucky and get away with it. But if you are practical it is always advisable to take into account that careers, like life, are subject to the storms and winds of change.
As an IT professional you can get hit by the visa policy of a country, for example. Or, as a medical transcriptionist you find that the job market prospects are shrinking. Or now, all those companies that you are applying in for senior positions are considering people younger than you. Did you top your college? Well, too bad; now they are looking for higher marks from a college that is currently ranking higher than yours.
Sure, salaries are very important, but jobs are not just about earning a good salary. They are a lifetime process that you need to navigate most carefully and to your advantage. If you cannot adapt to change effectively, your survival and growth suffers. Flexibility, be it in the form of compromise or a new learning or a change in career expectations, all count as much.
The status crap.
The status crap goes hand in hand with the ego problem about salary.
Designation is the most cherished aspiration. We all can clearly visualize our dream designation .Sometimes we even compromise on salary or the company to get that stamp on our resume.
If you are wise you will not confuse designation with status. If you get wiser you will find that designation, status and salary does not count in relation to job content.
I started my career as a sales representative for an organization. For years I used to dream about being the top boss, sitting on a swivel chair and ordering people around. Guess what, now I am the top boss of my organization, sitting on a swivel chair and ordering people around. But my job is still sales representative for my organization.
Job satisfaction is defined as the feeling you get when you have to get up in the morning and do your work.
Be always responsive to that feeling and use it as your most valuable a career guide.
Seniority Crap
As people get older and older, most tend to accumulate a lot of fuss about themselves. They actually begin to think that the wisdom and experience they have earned should automatically command special attention, and superior salary. The problem is not about the expectations but about how you go about getting what you want.
As we get older we also become more conscious about age vulnerably as a factor in the job market.
Fears abound …
“My friend at 38 is already vice president, I can’t catch up for at least a couple of years, and not unless I get a lucky break.”
“I am now sure that I will retire at the colonel rank only.”
“That kid is going to become my boss.”
“May be I am not going to get an extension.”
“I will be retiring in May, but I am sure there is plenty of demand for experienced people like me.(I hope).”
What is frequently visible in senior people is a pomposity behind which lurks the fear of not being in demand. After years of hard battling in the job market, one simply cannot accept being sidelined.
The ego protection mechanisms get hardened like strong armor.
Rather than face rejection, one avoids going into the battlefield and risk getting hurt. Instead of changing the strategies of job hunting, one continues with old tried and tested methods and, when it fails, we simply add it to our grudge list.
Also, the fear of experimenting and failing is strong. One simply refuses to compromise.
“I will not compromise on salary and position at my senior level.” But – Hey , what about the time at 28 you did just that when you get booted out of that job in the U.S.A.?
“I am a senior guy in Marketing, I will not get shunted into a new line like Retail which my company is forcing me to do. I would rather resign.” Why can’t old dogs learn new tricks? Or maybe the new sales targets look scarily unfamiliar and – higher? )
I deserve special treatment crap
This one borders on the comical.
Freshers are confused about the job hunting process. They get hypnotized by the marketing campaigns of educational institutions, especially those that seduce you by saying 100% placement guaranteed. Or those that say A school. Or those that say IMFE Just as heady as IMFL, but you get down to swigging it you discover that it is only Indian made foreign education.
The institutes are also quite dedicated to placing their students. Normally the exalted position of placement officer is given to some kid who is either a student or an ex student there. Or maybe to some grey haired teacher, or even a hot shot counselor. Then the process of inviting big names to your premises begins with great gusto. A few companies turn up. Some polite activity takes place. Some students get jobs. The institute offers some more jobs to their students to become teachers to the new freshers that safely can be counted to know less then their teachers ( the utterly foolproof formula adopted by all educational institutions from kindergarten to …)
While all this may make you feel like it did when mama lovingly baked your favorite birthday cake, one discovers that however special you are, or however great your educational degree, no one comes panting for you.
Most freshers have no education on how to find a job.
The reality is that job hunting is not about campus recruitment, mass mailing, applying to a few ads and then getting down to blaming it all on world recession.
But the surprising thing is that we don’t expect the wheel to turn around.
By the time we label ourselves as Senior or very Senior we sometimes also brainwash ourselves to believing that we are VVIPs. Then we think that everyone should now also agree with our opinions about ourselves.
Of course it is like being a fresher again, but now we know what not to do. But why do we do the same?
“I can’t go to all and sundry placement firms. Only reputed ones — who understand and deserve me.
“I will not go to placement Firms. If I am so great they will headhunt me if they happen to be worthy of it.”
“I refuse to follow any recruitment process. I will attack a company directly, even at the expense of being impolite to the Receptionist or the Personnel Assistant.”
“I shall use the resume mass mailing system of some reputed international placement firm. Or post my resume for all to see in a famous job website that claims that all companies visit there.”
Maybe there exists the perfect fairy tale? Maybe that is the only thing that is not crap? Or maybe it is just a point of view?
How will it be for us?
Will I get a good Job? Will I get job satisfaction? Will I get money, status, designation? Will companies find me indispensable? Will I be proud of my career achievements? Will the people who matter to me admire my work?
Nobody knows. Careers are about journeys .Ultimately only your perception or even justification counts. Reality of life demands that you face your realities with honesty.
This one comes close to qualifying as a fairy tale.
I want to tell you this real story about this cousin of mine. Like many others at that time he was forced to do engineering by his family. After first year in college he dropped out and went to try his luck abroad. He lived in Berlin with his cousin, tried his hand at several trades then decided to give up and come home. In the passage of four years in Berlin he managed to pick up the German language. After settling in Guntoor in his ancestral home he discovered that the tables had turned. Parents still wanted their sons to go for Engineering, but now they wanted them to go for engineering abroad. The German universities were wooing Indian students to provide them an education and the banks were wooing them to provide educational loans. All the kids needed was to learn German. “Rajulu’s School of German” became the best place to go for those who only knew Telugu since birth.
Telegu – medium German education became the in – thing
Rajulu today is rich and successful, but I don’t know what happens to his students, but this is not about them, but him.
But according to Rajulu’s grandmother, every thing has worked out like a fairy tale. He was a college dropout who played his cards well because he was intelligent and knew how to take opportunities to rectify his career choices. She says that there is no right career path, only what you do with your opportunities.
That’s philosophy.
(She also says that she recently went to Berlin and thanks to her grandson, now everyone there speaks in Telugu ! )
Wow !
Regards
SONALI
