Character: Be the Hero of Your Story

Here's a true story. When I was 28, I worked in a start-up company, an exciting roller coaster experience in London. Unexpectedly, after two years, the company's founder fell in love with a millionaire and lost her mojo. Our team of five were invited to seek fresh pastures.

I had recently become a parent for the first time. My partner and I had just sold our first flat. We ended up back at my parents - unemployed with a 6-months-old baby! Instead of falling into despair, we saw it as an opportunity to move where we wanted and start a new chapter in our lives. A sliding doors moment and pivotal in our family history. We moved North, got new jobs and have stayed ever since.

The essence of mental toughness is being your best self in tough times. Change (that happens to you), choice (that you make), and chance (that you seize) shape your character.

Football Heroes

The current England soccer manager, Gareth Southgate, has an interesting perspective on the character of today's young players (quoted in an interview with The Observer). He wants them to be out of their comfort zone but he does not want to be a dictator. He wants them to think for themselves.

Young people today, the way the school system is, it's different from the way we were brought up. If we were told to run up a hill 8 times, we did it - and then we threw up. It helped us to get physically and mentally tougher. If you asked a player to do that today, they want to know why and what are the outcomes. Now I think they'll run 10 rather than 8 because they can see the benefit and you've explained it.

Similarly, Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp, looks beyond technical skills.

I knew there were some good players here when I came but I didn't know about their character and attitude. This is a group that likes to work.

Rounded and Grounded

Increasingly, character and attitude are the differentiators for employers hiring young talent. Grit and determination are part of the equation. Some schools have introduced their students to mental toughness self-assessments like AQR's MTQ48 with interesting results.

Being well-rounded is another term bandied about by politicians and business.

Character and resilience are the crucial ingredients for success in the workplace. Businesses want more rounded and grounded young people - John Cridland, former Director General, CBI

Translated that means not just narrow academic success but exposure to, and dealing with, different experiences and environments.

Competent Characters

Another indicator of the direction of travel is the shift from competency-based recruitment practices to strengths-based ones among some employers. Competence alone is too limiting, mechanistic and focuses on an absence of failure or weakness (rather than liberating talent and potential), the past rather than the future. It’s the lowest common denominator.

Yes, we need competent people in our workplaces, but surely our aspirations are higher for people and their capabilities? We need to tap into the creativity, energy, and potential of this generation if we want to achieve the much-vaunted growth business demands.

And that will mean employers taking more risks in recruiting young people. Judging character, not just functional capability.

Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there - Zig Ziglar

If you want to be an aspiring young professional, a first-class degree won’t help if you are not rounded and grounded. And if you cannot recognise, value, develop and articulate your capabilities in a way that is meaningful to employers. Sharing strongly-held values and beliefs help young people to differentiate themselves in the job market. As Dan Pink articulated brilliantly in his book, To Sell is Human, the art of selling ourselves in today’s world is about moving people emotionally. Remember the panel interview scene in Billy Elliot? 

Revealing your character in the job search process shows employers you are someone of substance rather than superficial. It means placing your authentic self at the heart of your stories. It's revealing your work ethic combined with an outward-looking mindset and ethical behaviours. In practice, care more, stand up for what you believe in, and show you can thrive as well as survive in the workplace.

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David (@David_Shindler) is an independent coach, blogger, speaker, associate with several consultancies, author of Learning to Leap: a guide to being more employable, and co-author with Mark Babbitt of 21st Century Internships (over 200,000 downloads worldwide). His commitment and energy are in promoting lifelong personal and professional development and in tackling youth unemployment. He works with young people and professionals in education and business.

Visit the Learning to Leap blog to read more of his work and check out his other published articles on LinkedIn:

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