How To Have 10 Competing Job Offers Without Sending An Application
Between July and September 2011, I received over 10 separate job offers ranging from Maine to Boston to Chicago to Canada, from elementary schools to high schools to professional organizations to television studios to churches and more.
Thing is, I never sent any of these people an application or a resume.
That's not to say I didn't send out applications (I did, over 30 of them) however, not ONE of the applications I sent out turned into a hard job offer (one turned into an interview, with no call back)
Imagine how happy you'd be next time you're job hunting to have dozens of jobs come to you and compete for you instead of begging and pleading
How would learning this process change your life?
The trick is a simple word gleaned from the sales world: Referrals
In sales there are 2 main kinds of clients, "cold clients" - the kind you call or find out of the blue, (usually you can sell to about 10% of these people) and "referrals" - the kind referred to you by someone they trust (percentages climb to upwards of 60%)
In the job market, cold clients are jobs you sought out, sent an application and resume to, maybe gave them a call one time, maybe you even got an interview, but you are a simple piece of paper to them, along with the 40 or 100 or 1000 other pieces of paper they got, good luck beating out every other one by being the smartest, best qualified, most awesome candidate.
Referrals on the other hand, happen when someone who knows you hears about a job from a friend or colleague, and says "hey, ____ would be great for that, here's their info".
This type of interaction holds so much more weight than you realize.
Organizations don't hire people.
Get that through your head.
Organizations. Don't. Hire. People.
People hire people.
The person who hires you will be a real person and needs to be thought of and treated as such, they are not just an extension of the place they work for.
Since people hire people, you need to think like people do, and people do nice things for their friends.
Here's a scenario: you were looking for piano lessons for your daughter, and your best friend said "hey my brother just moved to the area and he teaches piano, I think he'd be great for you, here's his card"
Are you more likely to go hunting through the yellow pages, or call your friend's brother?
Exactly.
So how do you do it?
1) Give before you expect to get - No one ever moved forward in this world by being selfish, in the world of referrals it comes back to haunt you. Start by looking at the people around you, those you care about and those you are just meeting, and seeing if you can help them in some way, if they tutor math maybe you can help connect them with a faculty member at a local college, if they need a mechanic maybe you can give them the number of yours and call him and ask him to give them a deal. The more you do for others, the more they will do for you.
2) Eliminate Humility - I'm not saying become and insufferable arrogant braggart (like me), but I am saying to make sure everyone you meet knows what you do and that you are good at it. You shouldn't have friends that are surprised to find out after 8 months that you are a computer programmer, you never know who has an uncle in HR looking for a new recruit. When the inevitable "what do you do?" conversation comes up with a person, feel free to express your passion and drive and skill in your area of expertise. On a similar note...
3) Let People (Subtly) Know You Are Searching - No one likes to be beaten over the head with requests for help and pleas of "why can't I find a joooooob?" However, people need to know you are looking, so find subtle ways of slipping "I'm in the market for a new position" or something similar into your conversations, particularly with people in positions of power in your industry.
4) Stay In Touch With Your Network - This cannot be emphasized too strongly. Over the years (particularly in college) you will meet dozens and eventually hundreds and thousands of people in your field. Those who become fond of you should be getting a visit or a phone call or at the very least an email from you every few months. Just a chance to catch up, say hi, see how things are, and update them on your life. This will keep you fresh in their mind when job offers and opportunities come about. If you think your college professor will still be recommending you for jobs 5 years after graduation when he's mentored another several dozen students that are younger and more recent in his mind, you're dreaming. Keep. In. Touch.
By using these simple steps, you can go from living in your parents basement to having 10 separate jobs competing to give you the best package, as I had.
Now, living in Boston and taking advantage of 4 of these opportunities and the added pay, flexibility, and benefits that come from them knowing I could walk away for other job offers, I realize (as my phone rings with another part time job opportunity) that I may never have to send out applications again.
Reframe your life with referrals.
Having trouble getting started? Have a referral success story? Share it in the comments!
How To Eat For Your Voice
Many singers and speakers fail to realize what a great impact their food choices have on their voices. Below find some helpful information and tips for keeping your voice at it's shiny best.
STAY HYDRATED. No seriously, if you don't have to pee right now, you aren't drinking enough water, go drink a gallon and come back to read the rest later.
Disclaimer: Your body will react differently to most foods, these are general rules. Your allergies, intolerances and body chemistry may vary.
Foods that affect your voice will generally fall into 2 categories:
Mucus-Inducing Foods: These include all dairy products, as well as most sugary processed foods and candies, as well as chocolate. They will tend to produce a coating of mucus (or "slime") on your vocal folds, generally making it more difficult to sing/speak, though sometimes desirable if you are feeling particularly dry/raw/horse.
Drying Foods: These include salt and foods that emphasize it (nuts, chips, etc.), citrus foods (oranges, lemons, limes) and spicy foods. They have the pleasant effect of relieving the intense mucus of the previous category (also caused by allergies and food intolerances). However if not properly hydrated (do you have to pee yet?) it's best to avoid these foods near performance time.
In general avoid eating within an hour of performance to avoid losing the ability to properly support your tone from your core. If you aren't "peeing pale" then you aren't drinking enough water. And try to get your 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day, it will leave you feeling refreshed and energetic and give you the stamina to approach the major roles. Professional singers and speakers are athletes, and need to respect their bodies.
How have you noticed particular foods affecting your voice? Tell me in the comments.
3 Steps to Avoiding "False Success"
"What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?"
This classic Bible reference leads us to a discussion of what truly constitutes success.
It is our definitions that decide what we can accomplish in this world.
Ask yourself: "Is it true that, without knowing what the word 'success' means to me, I will never be able to know whether or not I have it?"
The first step of true success is knowing what success means. "Success" to the starving man in the Congo looks very different from the "Success" of the struggling actor/waiter in LA, which also looks quite different from the "Success" of the five year old trying to convince his parents he's not a child anymore.
But the discussion of how to find your "Success" is better left for another day, I want to give you a framework for using once you have started to hone in on your true purpose, to avoid one of the most painful experiences possible in life:
False Success
The definition: when we get everything we thought we ever wanted, and feel hollow inside. When "Success" isn't all it's cracked up to be and we end up feeling worse than we did before.
Here are three tools I've discovered for avoiding False Success
1) Your Success MUST be your own. Much of the False Success in the world is the result of people fulfilling goals forced on them by parents, friends, colleagues, teachers or lovers.
2) Your Success MUST be good for others. False Success is common when it comes at the expense of others. You may think you can live with the guilt of all those you stepped on in getting to the top, but at the end of the day you will sleep more soundly at night knowing your Success is truly helping people.
3) Your Success MUST have an extension to the future. Ah, my favorite point. This is where I have experienced False Success most painfully. There's a story that when the first astronauts returned from the moon, they faced massive depression and psychological problems. The loss of the goal had shattered them, even though they'd achieved it. Astronauts now are immediately given new projects of great import as soon as they return, so they have a new idea to focus on. You must have a plan ready for the 'next step' after you achieve, and always move it a little further away.
Join me in a future post to work through your definition of Success, and remember, when you think you have it, to make sure it is true to YOU, that it HELPS others, and that it GOES ON after you've achieved it.
Think there are more types of False Success? Let me know in the commends
How to Improve Anything by Failing Brilliantly
I want to become a better writer.
In today's world, written expression is becoming more and more important each day. From resumes to professional emails to essays to proposals to online dating profiles, society is demanding you learn how to write well. Unfortunately we live in a culture obsessed with instant perfection and highly critical of any first fledgling attempts at skill building.
"I wasn't born with it"
"I just don't have that talent"
"I don't have a knack for it"
"I'm not lucky to have a natural flair like you"
We've all heard these sayings a million times, whether it's about writing, starting a business, singing, teaching, sports, or any other field where excellence is rewarded (hint: every field)
This is categorically UNTRUE
In reality, no one became amazing at what they do overnight, and no one has done it without hard work and practice and (here's the shocker) PLENTY of the F word.
No, not that, this F word is much more scary: Failure.
Even the stereotypical example: Mozart, the born prodigy, the child genius, put in thousands of hours of hard work and practice before writing his first real lasting work. His early compositions are mostly transcriptions and arrangements of other composers works, and in fact, his first well known composition wasn't written until his early 20's. Considering how often he practiced (his father enforced this strictly) and that he was writing music from such a young age, it actually took him far LONGER to become a success than most composers!
So what does this have to do with you, and how can you improve your skills?
Do it. Every day. And fail brilliantly.
When I last sent out a round of job applications I didn't do so with the goal of getting a job. Odd, yes? My goal was to get rejections. I can hear you now: "who WANTS to get rejected?" Allow me to explain.
When my goal was to 'get a job' I spent days crafting the perfect resume, writing and rewriting and editing and changing templates. At the end of two weeks of "job hunting" I had sent out one application. One BEAUTIFUL application, mind you, though not beautiful enough for them to fire the guy they hired 4 days prior and give me an interview.
So why the goal of getting rejections (specifically, 10 rejections in one week)?
It's harder than you think to achieve.
I had to put out at least 10 applications, and I had to do it quick. Once i found a lot of places weren't responding at all, I had to put out even more applications, and call back, and email, and show up in person, until I had a solid rejection. I had 6 or 7 solid rejections pretty quickly, but then an amazing thing started to happen, I got interviews. And I got second interviews.
And I got job offers.
Over half a dozen of them in a span of 2 weeks. The SAME amount of time it had taken to send out ONE application and receive ONE rejection when the goal was "get a job".
In the end I failed BRILLIANTLY. I have a label in my gmail inbox called "Failures" and as of this check, there are over 30 rejection notices from that round of applications, not counting the phone and in person rejections. While you can choose to focus on the pain of those rejections, I choose to focus on the beauty of having my pick of several fantastic competing offers in different areas of the world.
So how do I intend to improve my writing?
Do It. Every Day. And Fail Brilliantly.
Think this post was a brilliant failure? Let me know in the comments below: