Message #488
Friday, November 30, 2001
"There is one quality more important than 'know-how' ... This is 'know-what' by which we determine not only how to accomplish our purposes, but what our purposes are to be."
Norbert Wiener (The Human Use of Human Beings, 1954)
SUMMARY OF TODAY'S MESSAGE:
When you are shopping for a new job (whether you want to or have to), you must treat the job search like a full-time job. Here are some suggestions on how to use your time wisely.
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Yesterday (in Message #487), we talked about your career. I suggested that if you want to go faster and farther, you should not only be doing good work at your present job but also be actively pursuing a better one.
This is a process that should be ongoing. It should begin the day you start working on one job and continue until the day you get accepted at the next. If you put that kind of upward pressure on your career trajectory, it's bound to skyrocket.
Your "better job" may well be with another company -- even in another industry -- but more often than not, it will be the next best job with your current employer.
If you prepare yourself for a better job by working harder and smarter, chances are (ironically) you won't have to go out and get one. Your current employer will be happy to keep you and promote you -- and he'll meet your growing capabilities with increasing compensation.
But if you do find yourself unemployed, you will have to go after your next job with the target-marketing approach I described earlier this week -- treating yourself both as a salesperson and as a sales product.
And you must work -- just as hard as you work doing anything that's worthwhile.
That means putting in at least 50 hours a week. If you currently work fewer hours than that -- well, you are probably in trouble. Here's are some suggestions (some from Jeffrey Fox's book "Don't Send a Resume") on how to maximize the hours you work getting a job.
1. Work every day getting contacts, appointments, interviews, and commitments. You might even have fun with this system by assigning each event a point value. For example, a lead would be worth one point, an appointment would be two points, an interview would merit three points, and a commitment would give you four points. A good daily goal to aim for would be five points, made up of any combination of these point/event values.
2. Maintain your goal and task lists. Most of the tasks on your daily "to-do" list should be aimed at getting a good job. Achieving a daily point goal (see above) would certainly be one of the tasks that would get highlighted.
3. Develop criteria for the job you want. These should include location, company size, the type of work involved, flexibility, etc.
4. Review newspapers, magazines, online sites, and trade journals -- but research only "prospects" that meet your criteria.
5. Narrow down each day's possibilities to a handful of genuine opportunities.
6. Research each of these opportunities by reading, visiting the business, examining its products, speaking to current employees, going for "informational" interviews, etc.
7. Write targeted letters to potential bosses (bypassing their personnel departments).
8. Send thank-you notes to all those who respond to you, even if negatively.
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READER FEEDBACK: MORE ON THE QUESTION OF "SCHEDULING" SLACK TIME
In response to Message #462 about Tom Demarco's book ("Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency"), RH has this to say:
"I believe you may have missed his point. The issue is not, as I understand it, to 'schedule' slack time, it is just for there to be some. If there is no slack time, people are constantly running behind schedule and there is no time available to respond to today's issues today. The time-management courses I have taken have all emphasized that you really cannot schedule all of your work hours to be filled with tasks, because then, if the telephone rings, it puts you behind your schedule automatically.
"Demarco also makes the point that one of the values of having slack in an assistant's day is that when you need the assistant to do something NOW, it can get done and not disrupt that assistant's ability to get the rest of the day's work done.
"The fact that slack time also increases the ability to bring creative new ideas to fruition is another advantage.
"But face it. Say you work 10 hours a day trying to get your eight hours of work done, and you leave work every day exhausted and a little further behind. Even if you do have a wonderful idea while taking a shower, you don't have any time or energy left over to do anything about it. The point of slack, I think, is to be sure no one who is in a position to be creative is so exhausted and so behind schedule as to preclude doing something with a creative idea when one comes."
MMF's response to RH: I completely disagree.
The idea I criticized was the suggestion that slack time should be scheduled specifically to allow people to spend the time dreaming.
Anybody who has done any kind of scheduling allows time for unexpected things, but only the person who does not control his time has trouble scheduling that.
In my opinion, the impulse to schedule slack time is an impulse to make the day easier. I'm sympathetic, but I don't believe that's how you become successful. It's OK to dream about it, but if you actually do it? Forget it.
And forget working a mere 50 hours a week. If you want to achieve greatness, work those 10 hours and go home and work three or four more. Work beyond exhaustion.
IT'S GOOD TO KNOW: ABOUT THE BIBLE
The 10 Plagues
I'm embarrassed to admit that I'd always thought there were only three or four plagues. I'm talking about the Old Testament story about Egypt and the Israelites. I now know, however, that to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelis go to their "promised land," God plagued the Egyptians not just three or four, but 10 times.
The plagues were (1) water turned into blood, (2) frogs, (3) lice, (4) flies, (5) pestilence, (6) boils, (7) hail, (8) locusts, (9) darkness, and (10) the death of the first-born.
I think the order is interesting. If you are talking about terror, it seems to be a near-perfect escalation from the scary to the loathsome to the truly horrible.
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"Avowal" (ah-VOW-ul) is a word that can be used frequently in business and personal conversation. An avowal is an open admission or acknowledgement. You make, for example, an avowal of a new love or an old sin.
MMF
Copyright Early to Rise, 2001
* What the world needs now (and always) -- how to make any business need you
* It's Good to Be Reminded: About Time Management -- Testing yourself
* Living Rich: Enjoying cigars -- the skinny on Cubans
* Living Rich: Fake It Till You Make It -- Ordering wine in restaurants
* Word to the Wise: Dilatory
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