Category job search

Why aren’t we asking about the value of work?

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

We seem to have ‘consumerized’ every decision from buying a car to choosing a college. But when it comes to the workplace, where we spent the majority of our days, we don’t take the time to consider the value of the experience or fully assess the impact on our professional portfolio.

David Brooks wrote a ‘letter’ to employers in 2014. “Dear Employers, You may not realize it, but you have a powerful impact on the culture and the moral ecology of our era. If your human resources bosses decide they want to hire a certain sort of person, then young people begin turning themselves into that sort of person.”

Google consistently ranks at the top of surveys of best employers. Recent reports indicate that their hiring process is more selective than the admissions process in top ivy league schools.

Yesterday, Laszlo Bock,  the Senior Vice President of People Resources at Google published a new book that fundamentally describes how to get hired at Google. Even as I write, I imagine potential candidates reworking their job search strategy to meet the standards described in the book.

This is the most recent illustration of how candidates are encouraged to alter expectations in order to perform the magic required to obtain an offer.

What happens after you accept the offer?

Reading the Wall Street Journal review of the book we learn that “…Google spends more than most on recruiting, it spends far less on training. Top people need less training. And the lesson for talent is watch how you’re recruited: it’s an indication of the company’s mind-set and the talent you’ll be working with.”

Similar to our most elite academic institutions, Google has created a process to attract the best and the brightest; generalists who know when to lead and when to step back, can learn and solve problems and do so with ‘intellectual humility’. The ‘hook’ is the promise of a workplace where your colleagues will mirror your talents and learning will spontaneously combust.

In some ways it sounds like graduate school. You take from the work experience what you put into it. In other words, we set the table, provide the kitchen but you cook the meal. There will be no gourmet flourishes, because attracting you to the feast is more important than the meal itself.

When you leave Google are you transformed by the experience or are you pretty much who you were on your first day of work?

You will have Google on your resume and future employers will be mesmerized by your fortune, but who will you be after a few years at Google?

These are universal questions. When you go to work for any employer, over any period of time, will the work transform you? Will others remark on your growth? Will a spectacular failure result in termination or be viewed as a critical learning tool?

The process of being courted for a position whether it takes a few weeks or a few years is intoxicating in its’ flattery. Remember that it’s a conversation about your future as well as your contribution to an organization.

What is the value of the promised work experience? When you invest your energy and ideas solving problems for others, do you also fill a void in your portfolio?

Choose a challenge instead of a competence

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

I think we have created a bumper sticker approach to career choice; serious decisions truncated into platitudes designed to market books and sell tee shirts: ‘Lean In’, ‘Thrive’, ‘Do what you love, love what you do’.

It’s not that simple. Having a dream and executing it are two very different things.

And it’s very easy to be distracted from the very beginning.

In 2011 Marina Keegan, an undergraduate at Yale wrote a short piece in The New York Times, “Another View: The Science and Strategy of College Recruiting”.

“When I arrived at Yale as an eager 18 year old, I had never even heard of consulting or I-banking. And to be honest, I still didn’t totally understand the function of a hedge fund. But what I do understand is that students here have passion. Passion for public service and education policy and painting and engineering and entrepreneurialism. Standing outside a freshman dorm, I couldn’t find a single student aspiring to be a banker – but at commencement this May, there’s a 50 percent chance I’ll be sitting next to one. This strikes me as incredibly sad.”

It’s hard to sustain the ‘semi-fictional’ goals in personal statements written to gain admission to college. It takes a significant degree of courage to withstand the influence of corporate recruiters, family, peers and looming financial obligations to become an artist, writer, teacher or entrepreneur.

David Halberstam, speaking to the University of Southern California Class of 2002 reflected on a visit back to Harvard and the campus newspaper where he had been managing editor as an undergraduate. He talked with a few of the graduating editors who had wanted to be reporters. On the way to graduation they were offered three times an average journalists’ salary and had decided to become consultants.

He challenged their choice.“Did it ever occur to you that the salary you are being offered reflects the fact that this is a choice that you might not make were it not for the size of the salary? And that in some way that you do not yet entirely comprehend, you are being manipulated.”

Finding your ‘work place’ is hard work. It’s a process of discovery that will only occur when you take the lead. It’s a process that involves ongoing conversations with those who have gone before and healthy skepticism for those who might persuade you to change course.

Your first choice of work is not your last. If you are one of those students Marina or David described, you have time to change and become the artist or journalist you imagined yourself to be.

We learn from the wisdom of others and sometimes we have to look back 54 years to capture that guidance. Former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt expressed her thoughts and perhaps added a phrase to the ‘bumper sticker’ canon when she wrote an article in the April 1961 issue of The Atlantic.

“Perhaps the older generation is often to blame with its cautious warning: “Take a job that will give you security, not adventure.’ Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, and imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.”

Choose a challenge instead of a competence.

Bracketology for the job search procrastinator

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

It’s that time of year, ‘March Madness’, when everyone, including the President is selecting who they believe will advance to the final four in the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball championships. With a little imagination and humor, you can apply the bracket concept as a way to narrow down your career interests and begin to identify potential employers.

Let’s say you are totally confused and quickly losing your confidence in the process. Everyone you know seems to have this ‘career thing’ mastered while you’re still floundering.  Where do you begin? Try categorizing your interests using the bracket system. Instead of four regions, fill in four career fields that might interest you. Identify sixteen possible employers in each field. Go to each organization’s website and get a sense of how they describe what they do and the culture that enables their employees to succeed. Utilize social networking sites to identify folks you may know who are employees in your selected organizations or have contacts that could be of help.

Your goal in this first phase is to access a basic level of information for comparison.

As you progress with your research, you will begin to eliminate some organizations in favor of others. Once you get to your ‘elite eight’, schedule your information interviews. As you talk to people you will begin to establish a realistic assessment of your chances for success in an organization.

This ‘elite eight’ forms your target list. By the time you have narrowed your selection to eight, you should feel comfortable that each employer presents a realistic next step in your career.

As with any selection process, you don’t have complete control of the outcome. The employer extends the offer and you have the choice to accept or continue to explore other options.

The NCAA tournament lasts three weeks. If you start filling in your career fields now, you will advance the exploration process at a pace to be ready for interviews by ‘tip-off’ in the championship game.