When Being Open Closes Doors
When the market is tight I often have job seekers tell me that they are very open to any kind of opportunity. Open to move for the right position, open to take a pay cut and open to ‘just about anything”.
The hope of course is that openness will help land a job more quickly on the assumption that being picky is just plain stupid when bills need to be paid.
Sure, when the market is as tight as it has been, it is important to take a realistic assessment of your options. There was a time when people who worked in the slide rule industry knew their days were numbered at the advent of the pocket calculator. Know when your profession or your industry is truly dead and that it is time to move on to greener pastures.
The problem is that there is a point when being open actually closes doors and extends a search longer than if you stayed more focused and discriminating. Look for these signs that your search is so open that it hurts more than helps:
Applying for on-line long-shots. You see a job and think, “I could do that job.” And you are probably right that as a reasonably smart person, you might be able to do a reasonably smart effort at doing the job well. The problem is that you are competing with others that have already demonstrated doing the job well. On-line job postings are widely available and generate a lot of applications. If you have 70% or more of the requirements, go for it. If it is less, skip it. If you really want to break into a new field, shift your focus to the hidden job market where the competition is less and the approach is more personal than an on-line application.
Unable to tell people clearly what type of job you want. When you say, “Well at this point I am open for anything”, you might as well say, “I am beyond help”. People need to know what kind of employer would most value your skills. Sharpen up your message. The types of employers, the functional area and even the possible titles of the person who might be your future boss are essential pieces of your message to help people understand your objective. For example, “I am a software engineer. The right employer for me would design and produce small electronics. I need to be talking to software engineering managers, program managers, product managers or project team leaders”. Then give them a list of employers you have identified and ask them if they know of anyone who might know about them. Help them help you. If you are vague, you will get a vague response.
Assuming you have to be open to a significant pay cut before you get an offer (or even start the search). This not only weakens your negotiating position it also hurts your search. It is depressing to look for a job assuming your next position will pay a lot less. Use this time to gather actual data about pay in your profession and industry. Ask questions, gather facts. Be an expert on what people with your background and experience get paid in the marketplace.
Applying to positions you couldn’t or wouldn’t accept even if you did get an offer. You live in Seattle and the job is in Cincinnati and your spouse has their own business that cannot be moved. What are you thinking? What’s worse is how bad you will feel when you get rejected by jobs you weren’t interested in the first place. (“The market is so bad I couldn’t even get a job I didn’t want.”) This is a waste of time and can become an emotional death spiral.
Stay focused on a clear objective with no more than three possible target positions assuming that some jobs may also have a number of different titles. In this market, a sharp laser like focus combined with a shift of effort to the unpublished or hidden job market will improves your chances to find the next perfect job as quickly as possible. Being too open to possibilities and applying to the easy to find positions increases the competition and the chance you will never find a job you like.
Tags: evaluating job offers, job search, Over-qualified, Transferable Skills, unemployment
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, job market, job search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I’ve had so many people tell me that I should apply to ‘anything out there’ – and that I shouldn’t expect to receive the same pay that I enjoyed before I was laid off. You’re telling me basically the opposite. I don’t want to reinvent myself at this stage in my life and I feel that I am worth what I was making. I’ve networked and applied for positions online that I have experience in. I’m already experiencing what I feel is age discrimination – I get an interview based on my resume but I can tell in the body language of the interviewer that once they realized that I am older than what they thought….I’ve been discounted.
AnitaB -
“Anything out there” is a disorienting trap in a job search. A focused search will reap results. Age and pay issues have a lot to do with the marketplace. There are some careers where age could be an issue (fashion modeling for example) but they should be exceptions. If you had a job where the industry had high pay but has collapsed or you came from a large corporation or public agency where pay was tied in large part to tenure, then yes it can be a factor…but not always. Do not assume pay is in the way.
If you get interviews, but don’t get asked back, look hard at your presentation including dress, style, body language and your story. But also know this: there are jerks out there who make judgements about candidate qualifications based on age, race, gender, beauty, type of car you drive, what part of town you live, whether you have a wedding ring on, surname, your hobbies, and what they THINK they can conclude from a 30 second glance at you. This is because they are incapable of constructing a decent reliable interview to determine if you and your talents can do a great job. Hang in there. You may need to go through more than your fair share of duds.