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Hope and 4 other attributes necessary for a successful job search

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Job-search advice is available to job seekers from pundits, friends, family, and other well-wishers; but the most important factor to success in the job search is the internal fortitude that keeps job seekers going.

hope

Without this inner strength, advice about résumés, interviews, networking, LinkedIn, etc., doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.

To achieve success, one must understand the importance of never giving up, to not admit to defeat.

Hope

I’ve often preached the need for hope in the job search. When clients tell me of the multiple interviews they’ve attended and how they’re making it to the last round but lose out to another candidate, I don’t see that as failures. Rather I look upon those setbacks as opportunities that will eventually come to fruition.

You’re almost there I will tell them. Don’t give up hope. Now it’s time to practice your interview skills, I add.

Hope is one of four attributes job seekers must maintain throughout the job search; the other three are optimism, persistence, and enthusiasm. In combination, one will prevail in whatever challenges present themselves.

optimismOptimism

Those who are optimistic encourage optimism in others around them. It shows on their countenance and is noticeable to everyone involved in their job search. This includes people with whom they network.

One of my favorite clients was out of work for almost a year, until a week came when she had three job possibilities leading to one offer. She remained optimistic in her job search, sometimes lapsing into self-doubt, but saw the potential of success.

Persistence

biking 2

 

This personality trait is something great athletes have. Like a baseball player who is in a slump batting .200 in May, a job seeker goes six months, nine months, or a year without landing a job, but never gives up. He bounces back from rounds of interviews with no job offers, finally landing a job before his unemployment ends. Similarly, the baseball player gets out of his slump to bat .300 in October.

This was the case for one of my customers who was out of work for more than a year. Although he had interviews almost every week, he came up short. His persistence coupled with a positive attitude was apparent in the e-mails he sent to update me on his progress. He is now gainfully employed as a director of human resources and offers help to my customers.

To learn more about persistence, read: 6 reasons why you must be persistent in your job search. 

Enthusiasm

enthusiasm

Job seekers who are enthusiastic walk into a room and light it up. I can tell a job seeker will shortly find work by the way she embraces the job search, rather than surrender to defeat. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophesy. I will conquer this challenge, they say, and so they do.

One of my clients who has a physical disability is enthusiastic and confident in her ability to return to management in her prior industry. I recently met with her to critique her résumé. Prior to the critique she had attended an interview. After the critique she was scheduled for a phone interview. The last I heard, she was granted a second interview for both positions.

Emotional Intelligence

happy-jobseekerBetter known as EQ, this is the ability to understand one’s feelings, as well as the feelings of others; and to act accordingly. For example, if a fellow job seeker is bringing down the group during a Buddy Group meeting, a person with EQ will bring that person aside after the meeting and tactfully explain that negativity is not helping the groups mission.

Some of the traits job seekers with strong EQ demonstrate are:

  1. They understand the job search is stressful. 
  2. They let go of their anger. 
  3. They’re empathetic and are willing to help others. 
  4. They also ask for help.
  5. They know their strengths and weaknesses. 
  6. They don’t blame others.

To read more about EQ, read 12 ways to show emotional intelligence in your job search.

Having hope is one of the four aforementioned traits, optimism, persistence, and enthusiasm. Together, these positive traits contribute to psychological capital, which guides us through the challenges in life. Psychological capital isn’t something that can be purchased, but it is something that can be developed through a positive attitude. Many times we’ve been told to be positive. Never has a greater truth been told.

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Self-promotion is necessary in childhood and adulthood

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kidz playing basketballI’m not worried about my son.

My son is in his second year of playing basketball. He’s quite good, for someone who just started playing, and talks a lot of trash. He’s usually the shortest kid on the court, but he’s fast and dives on the ground like Larry Bird used to.

All the parents get a kick out of watching him play. (One parent once asked me before a game how many times I thought he’d fall to the floor.)

The thing that makes going to his games fun for me is the conversations he and I have driving to and from the games. “Dad,” he’ll say, “how many buckets do you think I’ll get?”

“Four,” I’ll pick a number out of the air.

“How many steals and assists?”

“Four each.”

Wouldn’t you know it, he scores 10 points; steals a ton of balls from the slower, less interested kids; and passes the ball to four of his teammates who don’t know what to do with the a basketball.

I’m worried about my daughter.

My daughter is an excellent soccer player. She plays in the backfield and loves stripping the soccer ball from oncoming forwards. And she’ll take out anyone who comes near her, despite her rail-thin body type. I’ve witnessed her lay a tackle on girls twice her size, the collisions reminiscent of a train wreck.

The conversation she and I will have before a game is quiet like two hummingbirds. Occasionally she’ll ask me after a game what I thought of her performance, and I’ll use the old sandwich technique—compliment her on a crushing tackle, criticize her for letting a girl slip behind her, and finish by telling her she passed the ball well. These are great conversations between a dad and his daughter.

My daughter has been reserved and humble since she first started playing soccer. When she first stepped on the field, she was about the age my son is now, so I can gauge the differences between the two fairly accurately. It’s fair to say that my son promotes his skills more than my daughter does. Now, I didn’t say better. I said more.

It would be shallow of me to worry about who is the better athlete, my son or my daughter—and I’d be a fool to declare whom I think holds the title. No, I’m worried about my daughter’s ability to promote her accomplishments, particularly later in life when it really matters.

I also worry about my customers.

In the job search it’s all about marketing yourself—on your résumé and in your cover letter, while you’re networking, on the phone, and at the interview. It’s all about accomplishments and it’s all about using them in context. The written and verbal communications skills have to be in place—one is not exclusive of the other.

Recently a customer related a story at one of my Personal Commercial workshops about how she had mobilized nearly a whole city to promote the arrival of a professional wrestler. She had no budget with which to work, yet she was able to barter with a marble sign company to create a welcome sign for Cold Stone Austin; and she persuaded the city to rename a street for “Cold Stone.”

The event, as she described it, was a smashing success. Her enthusiasm in describing the event was similar to how my son talks about his basketball prowess; not how my daughter reluctantly talks about her soccer game.

My customer succeeded on the verbal front but not in her written campaign. Following the workshop, she asked me to review her revised résumé. I expected to read about her coordination, management, persuasion, creativity, and a whole slew of other skills that made the Steve Austin event an outstanding accomplishment.

While the story she told at my workshop was captivating and her enthusiasm was contagious, her résumé didn’t hint to any of her strong skills. She was unable to tie her strong verbal and written communications skills into the full package necessary to market herself effectively.

I would tell you about the time my customer had to coordinate the flushing of an entire sports center’s toilets, but that would be too long a story.

Will my daughter be able to promote herself in her written and verbal communications, or will she wait for someone to drag all of her strong accomplishments out of her? Will she express her accomplishments, or fail to express her accomplishments, in the whole package? Perhaps I worry too much.