Читать книгу How to Find Work in the 21st Century - Ron McGowan - Страница 29

One of the main factors that distinguish people who are succeeding in today’s workplace from those who are struggling in it is how well they understand the need for self-promotion and how effective they are at doing it. Some people, especially professionals who are over forty and who have lost their jobs, are really challenged by this. Some of them don’t see why they should have to do it; after all, they are professionals, accountants, engineers, etc., and they achieved success in their careers before they lost their job. Surely, they reason, their qualifications and experience speak for themselves.

Another reason for being uncomfortable with self-promotion could be your upbringing or your cultural background. You may see the whole subject as unseemly. Blowing your own horn is something you were taught was undignified, and this attitude may have been reinforced by blowhards that you’ve come across in your life.

The first thing you need to do is to understand what self-promotion is, in the context of doing it to find work. If you have an aversion to loud, self-aggrandizing people, that’s good, because that’s the last thing you want to become. Employers are not bullied, schmoozed, or coerced into hiring people; they will be just as turned off by this behavior as you are. On the other hand, they’re not mind readers, so you can hardly expect them to determine for themselves what your strengths are and how they may be of value to the company.

You need to be aware of another shift that has occurred in the workplace. In yesterday’s world, often your experience and qualifications did speak for themselves, so you could still succeed in looking for work with a fairly passive approach. Also you were probably responding to a newspaper ad where the requirements for getting hired were clearly spelled out. Finally, you were probably applying to a large company with a personnel or human resources department which had the time to assess applications that were not as well prepared as they could be.

That’s all changed. Remember, most work opportunities today are generated by small companies who don’t have personnel or human resources departments. Often, this task is handled by someone whose expertise is in another area, and hiring is only one of several hats they wear.

You will often be applying to companies on speculation that they may need your skills rather than responding to a specific ad you saw in a newspaper or on the Internet. Under these circumstances, the applications that will get attention are those that are very focused, where the applicant has done some research on the company and his or her résumé is effectively designed to highlight personal strengths and how those can benefit the company.

Communication skills are far more important than they used to be, especially when looking for work. The workplace is a more fast-paced and busy environment than it used to be, and it is more difficult to get an employer’s attention. The focus of the communication must be clearly on what you can do for them and not the other way around, and it must be specific and geared to their needs and not be a general description of your past career.

If you are soliciting companies for contract work, maybe you should replace your résumé with a simple brochure, or one of the electronic marketing tools described in Chapter 3 of this book that, again, have as the main focus your strengths and how they can benefit the company.