However, much in life should be seen in sales terms. People are a gregarious species and, as such, strive to be accepted by individuals and groups. As children we constantly tried to sell ourselves to our peers and to our teachers to gain favor and acceptance. In our early adult years, we tried to gain acceptance into a particular college or university, or into a particular fraternity or sorority. As adults we try to sell ourselves to our love objects.
Consider the idea of obtaining a new position or a job with increased responsibility is trying to sell yourself to others any different from what you have been doing in the past? If a difference does exist, it is only one of degree. The stakes are high for most of us when we attempt to sell ourselves to prospective employers. Those stakes are power, money, status, and influence. Since most of us define ourselves in these terms, success or failure looms large in our minds.
It is important to understand that we are always salespersons. Through our actions we sell ourselves. But do you have enough knowledge about this product to sell it effectively? And, if so, how much consideration have you given to packaging this product?
You are selling a product-and that product is YOU.
Easy for Me, Difficult for You
People in certain job categories will have an easier time switching from one position to another. Accountants tend to be accountants no matter where they work. An accountant can change from one employer (Fortune 500 in size) to a much smaller company (fewer than 2, 100 employees), and the type of work performed won't change much. This is true of some other occupations, including computer fields, tax accounting, financial analysis, market research, engineering, and certain sales fields.
There are other categories where a switch entails a greater effort and may mean a transfer of fields. This is particularly true for a highly skilled person in a specific industry.
We can see how this problem affects the person attempting a major change by examining one field, the hospitals, a bit closer. There are many skilled persons in this field who are faced with substantial roadblocks when attempting to secure employment outside of their area. Many of these roadblocks are created by overspecialization of skills which are not readily transferable to other industries. Some examples include those needed to be a utilization review analyst, an EKG technician, an ultrasound technician, a respiratory therapist. Even people with job titles of a general management nature experience difficulty in achieving a successful switch. The reasons lie in the prejudices toward holders of certain jobs that exist within different sectors of our economy. Examples of two such persons are the medical department administrator and the hospital training director.
One of the authors of this book, Lloyd Feinstein, was formerly director of training and assistant personnel director for Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. He found himself confronted with the common prejudices held by many in private industry about hospital people. They believed that people working for public institutions did not meet their experience standards. Specifically they believed that employment in publicly supported jobs fosters sloppy work habits such as a spendthrift attitude, little or no concern about productivity, and no attention to making a profit. This type of widespread prejudice often works both ways. Hospital managers, when hiring, often prefer to hire candidates with past experience in the same, or similar, health care fields. For the person trying to break out of health care, the task can be difficult, though it's not impossible. It was done by Lloyd, using the techniques contained in this book, and it can also be done by you.
There is a familiar saying that the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. However, a third certainty of life exists: change. Everything is changing! The economics of our everyday living and our value systems are in a constant state of flux. In the world of work since the 2010s there has emerged the "new values worker," whose emphasis is in his or her lifestyle rather than job-centered activities. This trend is expected to continue and gather strength throughout the 21st century and its influence on the workplace will be profound.
In a real sense, this book's main objective is to give you the mental outlook, the skills, and the ability to cope with a constantly changing workplace. To handle this changing environment of the 2010s effectively, the alert job hunter must be willing to discard old ways and attitudes and explore instead all possible avenues of employment and career advancement. Readers of this book should be concerned with advancing their careers, not just getting a new job. The observation has been made that "the difference between a career and a job is about twenty hours per week." In the 2010s great emphasis will be on changes made to careers outside traditional channels.
"To illustrate, a national survey of entering first-year college students (conducted annually by the University of California at Los Angeles and the American Council on Education) indicated in its fall report that for every three men planning to enter so-called 'masculine' career fields, such as business, engineering, law and medicine, there is now one woman. Just ten years ago, the ratio was eight to one."
The problems associated with trying to switch jobs from nonprofit to profit can be seen clearly in the example of a medical department administrator named James Reachmann. The position he holds in the health-care field is characterized by:
Good salary: can be earned in this position. (However, in it men earn more than women.)
Relative autonomy: extensive in-person dealings with the main medical center and its two affiliated hospitals elsewhere in the city. (But will the job continue to have a fairly unstructured atmosphere?)
Lack of experience supervising people: medical department administrators typically have one clerical helper, who's shared. (Can he get a responsible job in his field without having been a people manager?)
Several reporting relationships: this position is supervised by an absentee Vice President and is often subject to political intrigues among the Department Directors whom the medical department administrator supports.
Strictly "staff" nature of this position: even though he prepares budgets and generates grant proposals, his position provides a service to only the "line" personnel (doctors and nurses) within the department, not to his superiors.
These limitations can make his change to industry difficult. The chart below illustrates how a personnel director of a large corporation might interpret Jim's resume, which describes his past and current job responsibilities as medical department administrator.
It's obvious from the above personnel director's view that Jim would experience problems in trying to switch to a job in industry. Yet it would not be impossible for him. It can be done. Typical effects of switching outside your normal field can be illustrated by observing specific occupational groups. To see how one of the authors accomplished a successful switch, turn to the chapter on resumes. But that is getting a little ahead of us. The immediate task is for you to analyze your strengths to determine the quality and depth of the "product" you will be marketing - YOU.
How to List Your Strengths
For most of us, trying to determine our strengths while job hunting have often been a frustrating and unsuccessful experience. But it is not difficult to understand why we have problems when we attempt to catalogue our good points and strengths. Many of us have bad job campaigns flounder on the rocks of self-evaluation for these reasons.
" You are too close to the subject. It's hard to be objective with yourself, (this closeness prevents you from asking critical questions.)
" You overlook the obvious and ignore the significant.
" The negative chorus you hear from your "superiors" (either at work or at home) puts blinder; on you.
" The job search requires more effort than you are willing to expend. This is particularly true if your previous results were less than satisfactory. Though many of you say you are serious about changing jobs, the total of your actions takes the form of complaining to friends or family. Doing this will not better your circumstances , you spent more time looking for work than all other unemployed persons; about 6 out of 10 of the married men indicated that they had looked for 21 hours or more, compared with 1 out of 3 of all other persons.
It should be noted that several factors determine the amount of time an unemployed person spends looking for work. Job seekers, who primarily use the telephone, write letters, or answer newspaper ads may exhaust most job possibilities after devoting only a few hours a week. Some job seekers in relatively small cities and towns may exhaust all currently available local job sources by looking only 2 to 3 hours a week. Only by expanding their search to other areas can they fruitfully spend more time in their job quest.
However, people who feel the strong financial pinch of unemployment or who have others to support may choose to spend a greater number of hours looking for work, regardless of local prospects.
Our experience shows that many so-called serious job hunters often spend more time and effort seeking new apartments or working on their cars than looking for new positions. This is an extremely common phenomenon called fooling oneself. This self-delusion will leave its practitioner in an old (or new) dead-end job.
Start here to create a do-it-at-home vocational guidance exercise. For those of you who know you're misplaced in your present position, general aptitude testing and counseling maybe a good idea. There are local sources that are usually reputable and inexpensive. Check to see if your local colleges or universities have vocational guidance clinics open to the general public. Another source may be your local YMCA or YWCA. If these efforts fail or if you are not living near a college or "YMCA/YWCA," then you may contact your state's professional employment service, listed in the white pages of your telephone directory.
Do you need professional career counseling? If any of the situations listed below is characteristic of your own working career, you may be a candidate for this type of counseling.
" Your interests are very general and need to be focused.
" Your interests are narrowly defined and your area offers little or no career advancement.
" Throughout your working career you've been a job hopper: that is, you have averaged less than two years in most or all positions.
" You have found yourself stuck in a dead-end job two or more times in a row in your working career and strongly suspect you're in another one now.
" You have difficulty defining and expressing your career interests verbally and in writing (via cover letters, resumes, and "action" letters).
" You have been "involuntarily terminated" (fired) from your last two positions because of "personality" conflicts.
" Jobs have always fallen in your lap, but have failed to provide you with emotional satisfaction or a sense of accomplishment.
" Your past jobs have often conflicted with your personal goals and desires.
" Your job expectations have never been realized.
NOTE- The nine criteria above will help you decide if you need a vocational guidance center to help you assess your talents. Before committing time and money to professional career counseling, however, try using the want-ad analysis technique to define your career interests. Testing centers usually test a wide range of intellectual and other types of skills. This type of testing service, however, has serious limitations when attempting to determine a person's ability to perform in actual job situations.
A most effective and highly desirable method of supplementing any testing or vocational counseling is to get into real work situations through volunteer work, summer work, part-time work, co-op work-study programs, apprenticeship, or internships.
Caveat Emptor: "Let the Buyer Beware!"
In recent years "vocational guidance counseling" services have become big business as many parts of the 2010s job market become more difficult to enter, we expect these serves will become even more widespread. These services are usually provided by "executive job counselors." Advertisements for job counseling often appear in the display ad section, just preceding the "Help Wanted" ads in major Sunday newspapers.
It is best to proceed with great caution. Check them out with your local Better Business Bureau before signing any contracts; also check with your attorney.
You should also think twice before going to any of the numerous resume preparation services that have become so popular lately. By using either guidance counselors or resume preparation specialists you are making a major error: you are allowing someone else to do your work. Doing so is a crutch that deprives you of the opportunity to learn how to explain fully your own work history. This neglect can be particularly harmful when you have to describe your work experience in a personal interview. If you haven't written or helped write your resume or action letter but were granted an interview on the basis of some outsider's writing expertise, you'll be a "different" person in the interview from the one in your resume.
You must learn to depend on yourself. Since nobody can go to an interview for you, allowing someone else to prepare your resume or cover letters is self-defeating. To sell yourself successfully, you must know the "product" and be actively, not passively, involved in all aspects of your switch. Again, remember that!
