Seeking Chutzpah

This morning, I was at a local doctor's office, waiting for my mother -- as she goes to a family doc, a blood doc, a heart doc, a lung doc, and an eye doc, that opportunity comes by fairly often. They were running late, but you wouldn't know it from their style -- no apologies, no calling people to tell them to delay their arrival, none of that. I have a feeling that the guy at Musings of a Distractible Mind would do that. These folks -- well, my mother says that she doesn't mind waiting, as it gives her a chance to relax and do some reading. My reaction that that attitude is you're letting them get away with it!, but, truthfully, I have to admit: does it really matter? Yeah, it does...but in the Grand Scheme of Things? I suppose not.

And this morning, as it happened, it gave me time to do some reading -- an article in the April issue of Fortune about job hunting. I'm not hunting, but it struck a chord, because I've never been good at it. My approach has always being staid, conventional -- cover letter, chronological resume, buzz phrases like seeking an opportunity to work with a dynamic... Yeah. Right. I even looked into getting one of those executive MBAs, where you give them a ton of money and they give you a degree. As it happens, the manager at EDS hadn't read the articles about how things like this are good for the employee, good for the company, and so he didn't feel the need to let me take Fridays off to go down to Philadelphia for the classes. I would have liked that, but it's just as well. I doubt the degree would have turned into anything useful.

So when I see articles like this, I almost always read them, wondering what it is that successful job seekers have that I don't.

In the current market, they certainly have a desperation that I never had, and I'm grateful for that. They've contemplated having to spend a long time searching for a job, thinking that there was a good possibility they'd have to take a position that they really didn't want just to get money, any money, coming in to pay the bills that still flow, employed or not. Some of the people in the article were just fortunate, but most of them came up with techniques that worked for them, and that, of course, is what sells the article, what sells the magazine. I remember when Fortune was more interested in the big picture of industries than the job searches of individuals. Not this time around, I guess.

So what were the techniques? Determination. Persistence. Communication. Organization. They called everyone they knew (and stretched the definition of knew to mean anyone they could reach), and they came armed with one recurring set of statements - Here's what I can do for you, here's how I will improve your operation on the first day, in the first thirty days, in the first sixty and ninety days. They focused on what the company of the moment did, who their competitors were. One guy said he would ask people what scared them most about their competition, and then he'd call the competition and say I hear that those guys are really scared by this thing you do....I can help -- want to meet for coffee? I'd call that chutzpah, but in this environment, it's called drive and commitment.

I think of when I worked for IBM, and for EDS. Did I ever have the feeling that I mattered to those companies? Did I ever have the feeling of here is what I do to make this place better, more effective, more profitable? Did I even have a clue about that?

I think that's important (he said, belatedly). If you don't feel bonded, important to, important in, an organization, if you can't quantify how what you do is worthwhile and valuable to them -- perhaps you need to focus on the question. For use in future job changes, if nothing else.