Stop Peeing On Your Shoes- Avoiding the 7 Mistakes That Screw Up Your Job Search. Julie JD Bauke

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      First, you may wonder, why “Peeing on your Shoes?” Admittedly, it is a bit crude. The title comes from my ten years as a career consultant. I’ve watched my clients stumble out of the gate in their job searches floundering because of what they didn’t know. I used to say to them, “Now let’s see how much you’ve already peed on your shoes.” Hey, I know the visual isn’t pretty, but you know what I mean, right?

      After ten years of working with what seems like a zillion unemployed clients, I think I’ve seen it all. The crazy stuff, like the client whose interviewer fell asleep in the middle of the interview, the joy of seeing a client land a job better than they had dared to hope for, the heartbreak of seeing three potential job offers disappear in one afternoon, plus a whole bunch of “you’ll never believe what happened today…”

      It’s scary being unemployed. It’s a time of great fear, pain, and hope. It’s sometimes filled with great happiness. I’m thinking of the client who got the news that she’d been laid off. She sobbed uncontrollably, not because she was upset. She couldn’t believe her good fortune. I think her exact words were, “You mean I get to leave this hell hole AND get severance?”

      Going through the experience of looking for a job when you don’t have one is like nothing you’ve ever done before. I try to explain to clients what they could expect from themselves, from those around them and from potential employers. Not all of it is pretty. In fact, much of it is downright ugly. It is an emotional rollercoaster unlike any currently in operation at any theme park in the world. On some days, you will feel as if you’ve bought a season pass to Hell’s Amusement Park.

      But, there are other days when you will feel like you are not only going to be okay, you are going to be better than ever. In fact, my hope for you is that when your search is over, and you are getting ready to start your new job, you will be overcome with the desire to send a thank you note to your old company. Without them releasing you, you never would have gotten the opportunity to find this new job—one that is even better than your wildest dreams.

      Don’t laugh. I’d like to have a nickel for every time I had a client say that, in retrospect, they are glad to have been laid off because 1) they didn’t realize how miserable they were, or 2) they know that they never would have acted on their own.

      I’d have one huge jar of nickels.

      This book is the result of me saying one too many times, “If I could spend 15 minutes with a job seeker, I could easily tell them what they were doing wrong. In another 15 minutes, I could tell them how to correct their mistakes.” I don’t have time to meet with every job seeker. Think of this book as our consultation.

      Let’s shine a floodlight on your job search and see what’s really going on. Be honest with yourself. What can you do differently? What can you do better?

      We all deserve to use our gifts fully, and work is one expression of those gifts. Have the courage to dig deep and figure out what is unique about you, or as I like to put it:

      What do you “rock at” like no one else?

      Mistake #1

      Jumping into the Fire (Without your Fireproof Undies)

      

      Be This Guy…

      Dan called in a panic. He had just received the word that his job was being eliminated. Being an action-oriented guy, he called me right away. He already had a plan in place. He started to tell me all about what he was getting ready to do. He had compiled a list of contacts, and he was going to begin attacking that list. I was just a name on his list, but at least he had the foresight to start with me.

      I stopped him in his tracks when I asked him, “Why was your position eliminated, while your peers are still employed?” He stammered, “I don’t know. Maybe because I fell short of my goals this quarter?” He realized quickly that he should not call another contact until he could answer that question, as well as the other questions in this chapter.

      …Not This Guy

      Matt called me three months into his search. Things weren’t going well and he couldn’t figure out why. He had networked with dozens of people and was getting nowhere. In fact, most of his conversations didn’t even lead to introductions to new networking contacts. I asked him to tell me his story. After listening to him for ten minutes, the issues were obvious. He couldn’t even tell me in a coherent way who he was professionally.

      No wonder his networking contacts were less than helpful. They had no better idea as to how to help him after talking to him than they did before the conversation. Imagine Matt’s dilemma. He now had to craft his messages and try to convince his contacts to give him another chance.

      Oops.

      When you find out you’ve lost your job, the temptation to jump into action can be overwhelming. It might be impossible to resist. Regardless of the reason—layoff, plant closing, replacement of the entire leadership team, poor performance—it just doesn’t feel good to be told that your services are no longer required.

      When I worked as an outplacement consultant, I often contacted new clients to meet with them and help with the job search. Often, I would get some variation of, “Oh, I don’t think I need your services. I already have a lot of opportunities,” or “I already have a recruiter working for me.” (That second one was a big warning sign that they were clueless. Recruiters don’t work for you. You are not their client. (More on that later in the book) I would cringe when I heard either of these responses. I knew that there were probably a zillion things they were already doing, or were going to do, wrong as they began their search.

      And that’s what I call “peeing on your shoes.”

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