Day 32: Agile Principle No. 7
Bexs Nelson, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM
PMO & Operations Expert with Measured Results | PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM | I help Customer Service Reps transition to joy in Project Management Careers
What isn't working in your job search? What is working?
Often we have a plow ahead mindset. Throw it all out there and see what sticks. We don't view applying to jobs as a learning opportunity, or an experiment. In an experiment, what isn't working tells you a lot, and the goal is to isolate, identify, and correct. Oftentimes this process teaches you more about how the world works. Finding out why something "didn't work" and getting it functional again is often how discoveries are made.
All of this is entirely dependent on your view of "working" as well.
The 7th Agile Principle is:
Working software is the most important measure of progress.
Basically, nothing counts as victory except the goal you set out to obtain. In software development, that is actually?working?software. Optimizing the delivery process so working software happens quickly and then is flushed out into fun stuff and features. Fun stuff and features are important, but none of the fun stuff and features matter if the software doesn't work.
Rewriting for a job search:
Working potential employer interactions is the most important measure of progress
Rather than repetitively throwing things out there, we have to make sure we are isolating, identifying, and correcting what isn't working in our process. This may be our resume. This may be that we are only looking on job boards instead of talking to members of our target companies. This may be not having a target list of companies. You have to get feedback, filter it, and then apply it to figure it out.
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Ultimately, you have to know what working is going to be for you. You have to define it upfront. What does "working" mean.
If you try to define it in the actual trenches, the definition will change to match whatever the current situation is, not what you need ultimately.
Yeah, it may ultimately be to "get a job" but if you don't define what sort of job, chances are you can be hired by this afternoon and some soulless churn of a workplace within a 5-mile radius of your home.
This is why if you haven't done a?Job Search Charter?you really should.
Bexs
Past Articles in Job Search Like a Project Manager Series:
Note: This is a whole series that organically grew out of sharing an entire project on how to conduct a job search to both gain project experience and to give you a framework for how to conduct it. The earliest few days were posts before the newsletter format took off. Click below to get started! Below is the series on Agile Principles, and a link to the whole series.