Giving Sound Advice without Sugar

Throwback Thursday- Mid-1990's

I was once invited to speak on a panel discussion in front of roughly 30 unemployed information technology professionals. It was a very snowy evening, that would normally take me 15- 20 minutes to get there. I got there in a little over an hour thinking nobody else would be there. I was wrong. The room was packed! The other two people who were supposed to be on the panel with me cancelled, so I was the only one! I remember thinking to myself "GREAT!!" The moderator asked me what I wanted to do. I asked her if I could drive. She said "go for it!" So I did.

I went around the room and asked everyone what their names were, what their specialty was and what company they last worked for. I wrote all this information down so I wouldn't forget.

After they told me who they were, I told them who I was and what I did. I was an information technology recruiter for a search firm in Secaucus, NJ.

I went back around the room and asked them how their job search was going and how they were going about looking for another job. The answers were all over the place, yet each person had an interesting story to tell.

I asked that question to this one gentleman on the right side of the room. He was dressed very well. He looked like he may have been a senior level manager or director in his career. He was a rather large man who projected a pretty imposing demeanor. He sat their with his arms folded, not looking at me, with quite the scowl on his white mustached face. When I asked him how his job search was going, he just blurted out pretty loudly "yeah, why can't I find a job?" He never looked at me while saying it. I turned to the moderator sitting to my left and asked him if I should sugar coat it, or tell it like it is? Her exact words were "go for it!" So I did!

Instead of getting adversarial with him, I decided to ask him questions about himself. I started with "you said you worked at Bell Labs, correct?" He said "yes, for 30 years." I complimented him on having such a long career with a top firm such as Bell Labs. I asked him if was ever in a managerial role there. He said he was. At one point he was responsible for a team of 60. Again I complimented him on that. I asked him how many interviews he's been on and he said many. I asked him how long he's been looking. He said over a year. At this point, I decided it was time to "take the gloves off" and asked him if he could just imagine for a minute if he were on the other side of the desk interviewing himself. Then asked him "would you hire you?" All of a sudden this person with the adversarial body language, dropped his folded arms in to his lap, relaxed the stiffened body posture and softened his tightened face a little, but didn't answer me. I suggested he think about it, then I moved on to the next person. He never said another word the rest of the time I was speaking. I felt a little guilty that I may have hurt him by being too truthful, but felt he needed to hear that and was hoping that it would help him in the long run.

I probably spoke another 20-30 minutes, then wrapped it up so everyone could get home before the roads got too bad.

I let everyone know that I'd stick around for a while afterwards to answer any questions that people had for me. As the moderator thanked me for coming, she wrapped it up and they actually gave me a standing ovation, which kinda embarrassed me a little, but I was appreciative of it in either case.

When we were done, I walked to my right and stood there to see if anyone had any questions. I looked up and who do I see making a bee line towards me like a charging bull is the big guy with the folded arms!! I thought he was going to take a swing at me at first!! What he did next taught me a valuable lesson. He reached out his hand to shake mine and said these exact words that I will never forget! He said "son, I just want to shake your hand!! You were absolutely right! That's what I've been missing during my interviews! I've been feeling sorry for myself and it's been showing on my face! I've been expecting not to get job offers because I never get them, rather than going in with a positive attitude and expecting them to hire me! It's all been my attitude!! I would've never hired a guy like myself now. I've never been in a situation like this and I've been expecting everyone to know who I am from my Bell Labs days, but they don't know me at all. I want to thank you for enlightening me to what my problem has been!!" I just remember thinking WOW!! Did that just happen?

The moral of this story is not for me to get a pat on the back, but to understand how important the dynamics were here. I could've easily shot him down because of his negativity, but I not only wanted to teach him a valuable lesson, I wanted to enlighten the rest of the people there that perhaps they could learn the same lesson if they'd been on the job market for a few months or longer and had fallen into the same trap.

When a person is out of work for several months or even several years, the expectation of failure starts creeping in to their psyche and it only gets worse on interviews if you're not aware of it. Stay positive. Do your homework. Have some empathy for people that are out of work and looking for new opportunities. Help them by connecting them with people in your network if you can. Sending your resume to a company's website or a job board and waiting for them to respond just doesn't work any more. That process has been broken for many years.