Your Vocation Calling

Build Relationships with an Information Interview

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Job Interview, Interview

The job interview!

Your resume makes it through the piled jungle of resumes in the hiring manager’s office. You get THE CALL, and you feel elated! Finally! An interview! The big day arrives, but you’re so nervous you find it hard to express yourself! Ever happen to you?

“…people often wrote to her about how frustrated they felt after job interviews. In most cases, they weren’t upset about not getting the job — rather, they were upset that “I didn’t show them who I am.” -Shana Lebowitz ( A Harvard psychologist says there’s one factor that defines success in a job interview )

I can identify with that feeling of ‘not showing them who I really am.’ It’s frustrating to walk out of an interview knowing that the real you, for one reason or another, didn’t get a chance to come out.

Lebowitz shares a few tips to help prevent and deal with ‘not showing up’ during interviews – realizing you’re not the only one who struggles in this way, to focus on your core values – something that makes you, YOU, and to change your body language – hint: carry yourself as if you’re fearless, even if you don’t feel that way.

Connect with the Interviewers Before Your Meeting.

Two words: Information Interview. Can you find a way to connect with the people directly involved in the hiring process? Take them out for a coffee – one on one. Ask them about the job. Ask them about what it’s like working in the company. You need to ask about the company culture, and about the educational needs of the position you’re interested in. Learn about the challenges and rewards of the role, and what they need in a candidate for the position.

You’re not asking for the job here. You’re just asking about what it’s like to do that job, and to work in that organization.

Again: don’t ask for the job. This is an information interview. You’re gathering information, and making strategic connections in the company where you want to work.

In my case, I was able to meet several members of the interviewing committee that I interviewed with. By getting to know them before, I felt more relaxed during the actual interview.

Building relationships matter! It’s much easier to ‘show up’ with people you know, than with those you don’t.

Great Job Interview Questions: A Double Edged Sword

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Secret of my success? Hire people smarter than me. Oleg Vishnepolsky

Oleg raises some valuable points in his post. I liked his challenge to those hiring to look for people who ask questions you don’t know the answer to.

Then Oleg’s next statement: “Hire people who raise questions you do not even know you need to raise.”

Those points hold power and risk.

Powerful: They give some great advice if you are seeking employment or a better job: how can you become the one who asks those kinds of questions?

What are you reading these days? If your budget is hurting, you can still invest in yourself! The more you read the right books, the more your thoughts will expand, and the better questions you’ll be able to ask.

I know, I know. You’re thinking that a book won’t pay your mortgage bill, will it? It won’t put food on your table, or keep your lights on.

Maybe not directly in the way you’re thinking right now. But I’ve seen the power of reading in my own life. My recent Spring/Summer reading focus helped me transition into an amazing job where I am employed currently. I totally love what I’m doing now, and I know a big part of that move came from what I was reading.

Specifically, I was able to find courage to move. Belief that I could. And deeper insight into the kind of work I needed to be doing.

All from a few books.

Risky: Asking great questions, especially ones that leaders don’t know the answers to, or ones that they didn’t even know they needed to be asking, can backfire. If you’re in the wrong work culture, you could very easily find yourself blocked by an insecure leader. Your questions could be seen as a threat…and if that’s the case, you likely don’t want to be there anyway.

 

Finding Purpose By Focusing On Others

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At it’s core, finding your purpose means learning more about yourself and then developing your strengths and interests. And engaging in conversation — even when the discussion is primarily focused on someone else — hits on several tenants necessary for adult learning and development. As adults, we learn best by actively exploring topics, pulling from our life experiences, and collaborating with others. When asking questions, we can’t help but reflect on someone’s responses and try them on for size in our own life. Further, providing insight, guidance, and direction create an ideal environment for personal growth and discovery. Giving advice to somebody else is frequently the best way to convince yourself to take that advice, too.

Asking someone else questions about what they’re good at or enjoy doing causes us to reflect on how we’d answer the same questions. Even if you don’t say a word about yourself, you leave these conversations with greater clarity about your own purpose. – Robin Camarote The Unexpected Answer to Finding a Purpose In Your Career.

Find Purpose By Knowing Yourself: The more you know about how you work, what you like to do, what you hate doing, what seems to come naturally to you vs. what you have to force yourself into, the better. How can you move your work and career into a space where you’re doing things that come naturally to you, where what you do each day fills you with energy instead of drains you physically, mentally and spiritually, and where you’re doing work you actually love!

Find Purpose In Serving Others: Purpose grows when you serve others in meaningful ways. See a need, fill a need. How are you serving today? Maybe the work you love has you behind a desk, or chopping onions in a hot kitchen. Your purpose, regardless of where you do your work, is still connected in some way to making someone else’s life better. Can you explain how you do that each day? If not, try to come up with some ways. How are you lifting someone else up by what you do?

Find Purpose in Asking Others: As Camarote points out, you can find amazing insights about purpose and meaningful work/careers by talking with people who have gone ahead of you, or who are deeply engaged in building work that matters. Ask questions like: why do you do what you do? How did you get started as a _____________? What do you like the most about what you do? I’ve found that people tend to be very open and happy to share their journey with someone who is genuinely interested.

How are you focusing on others today?

Finding Forward When It’s Dark

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“Your success and your happiness start with you.” – Zig Ziglar

You don’t need money to start making great investments. I have been learning, through my reading journey, that some of the best and most profitable investments I can make today can be made with zero dollars down.

The only thing I need to get started is a well chosen book, by an author with a wise message, some time, my attention, and then my application.

I see you rolling  your eyes.

“A book!?” You exclaim with a dismissive chuckle. “I don’t need a book. I need a better job. I need more money to help me dig out from under my debt, and keep the lights on…food on the table. I don’t need a book!”

Thing #1: I love investing!  But I didn’t know a blessed thing about it, other than investing could help you grow your money, or it could help you say goodbye to it if the markets fell.  So I started to read. I read one book about money, called The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. I learned about the power of setting up automated money transfers inside my bank accounts. Result: we set up automated transfers to our savings account. We don’t have think about saving anymore. It just happens each payday. We now have a growing savings account.

I read another book about money and investing called: The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton. Loved this book! Felt like I was having a friendly conversation with a barber, but we weren’t talking hair styles. We were talking investment strategies, saving strategies, and money smarts. Here I learned why you shouldn’t try to beat the market by day trading stocks on the stock market – that chimps and ‘well trained professional money managers’ tend to produce the same results when picking ‘the right stock to invest in.’  Go with index funds. Use your tax free savings account, and start investing in your retirement fund now. Not tomorrow. (Cus tomorrow will likely turn into you saying…I’ll start tomorrow.) Result: my wife and I pulled the trigger on our first tiny investment through a little service called Wealthsimple. Check them out. They rock!

I could go on, and I will in another post – but the books I’ve read over the last year have changed me. I’ve grown. With God’s grace, help and guidance – and with me nose mining my way through a dozen or so books, I’m now in a job I LOVE. I’m earning more, and I’m saving more. Pretty soon, as things settle down, we’ll be investing more too.

I’m not a millionaire. Not yet, anyway. Not even close. But investing time in reading (many books came from our local library, so I didn’t even have to put money out on them) has so far produced a massive return on my time investment. Well worth it!

Thing #2 You need a different conversation than the one you are having alone in your head. I learned another thing on my reading investment journey. Again, with less than $20 down the whole year. If I want something to change in my life, I need to start thinking different thoughts in my head. Books, the right books, can help expose you to new ideas that can lead to action in new directions.

Have you started investing in you yet? What’s holding you back?

Tempted To Settle With Your Life?

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One of the hardest things, at least for me and my journey to find meaningful work, has been to be persistant in a new direction.

Figuring out that I needed to change direction took a lot of time, by the way. I first needed to realize that the depression, boredom, dissatisfaction, and general sense of ‘I can do so much more than this, and I LONG to do so much more than this!’ were not feelings that I needed to suck up and live with.

Look around you! I would yell at myself, if I dared to think I should try to do something different. There are so many people around you who have to work two, three, even four jobs just to make ends meet – and you’re complaining about working one full-time job that ‘doesn’t fully engage you?’  Suck it up! Be grateful for what you have! 

Months burned by under that line of thinking. And on some levels, that line of thinking is totally true:

  • I should be grateful for my work. And I am. I was.
  • There are lots of people around me who work their tails off around the clock just to pay their bills, and I am and was blessed to have only one place of employment.

Those were true arguments for sure, but after careful examination I discovered the truth behind them: they were fueled by fear.

I was afraid to try something different. I had settled for underemployment.

I am blessed and so thankful that God has opened a new door of work for me. I LOVE and feel completely engaged by the work I do each day. The boredom is gone. The depression is gone. I even get so excited and engaged by what I get to do, and the people I get to do it with, that I can sometimes find it hard to sleep!

But there is still a battle going on inside of me, and on multiple fronts:

  • Impostor! I’m trying something new in a few arenas of life right now. While I’m doing things that I know I was created to do, I sometimes catch myself thinking that I’m not really qualified for this! (Even though doing this kind of work was what I was longing for back in my underemployment stint.) The impostor voice whispers: back down! You can’t do this! You’re totally going to fail if you keep going! Go back to where you were before, at least you had MORE skill than the job required! It’s safer there! 

 

  • Change is MESSY.  Everything got thrown up in the air with my career change, and my wife and I knew it would happen. Instead of working nights, I’m now working during the day. We homeschool. That used to be mostly me working with our boys while my wife worked a full time day job. Now she works with the boys and is holding down a high potential casual/on call position while I’m working. That’s MESSY as we try to get used to our new roles. Change whispers a constant message of: Are you sure you made the right choice? Look at all the upheaval you’ve caused! Maybe this wasn’t the right move…

 

  • Finances are messy.  My wife’s pay periods used to be on the weeks I didn’t get paid. In other words: every week we would have a cash injection. It was great! Now, we’re working off  my wife’s casual income and my full-time pay check. We’re still trying to get used to it.  Financials yell at you, they don’t whisper. And they’re mean too. What? You’re not saving anymore? You’re failing. You’re only making minimum payments on your cards? Failure! You know better than to have those blasted credit cards anyway – Loser!  (At least that’s how my finances feel at times.)

All of those voices feel like they’re trying to pull me back to the way things were before. They also seem to tempt me into keeping my head down, and not try new things. To not rock the boat, just settle with what you have already.

I wonder if they are speaking to you today, too? And I wonder what will happen if you listen to them….or more importantly, what will not happen?

Not Knowing Your Direction Is A Good Thing

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When someone says, “I don’t know,” say, “Great! Now we can start thinking.” Our awkwardness with not knowing is one reason we think so little.

The moment of uncertainty is the tipping point of trajectory. (Dan Rockwell How Quick Answers Make Us Stupid. )

I enjoyed reading this post from Dan Rockwell – and I found the last line of this little quote to ring so true when it comes to working on and working out new pathways in our life/career: “uncertainty is the tipping point of trajectory.”

I might dare change two words in that quote: “uncertainty can be the tipping point of trajectory.”

It’s what you do with uncertainty that matters.  Career uncertainty can draw us to stick our head in the sand, and hold the course – fear leading us to stay where we are. No trajectory change.

It’s when we feel the fear and dare to step in a new direction anyway that we’ll see a different trajectory, don’t you think?

What actions are you taking today, even if they’re small ones, to cause a change in your career trajectory?

Be bold! Be brave! You can do this.