Three job search lessons from “The Pursuit of Happyness”
Thanks to TNT, Will Smith’s portrayal of Chris Gardner’s rise from rags to riches via a truly gut-wrenching job search is on cable TV over and over again in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” a tearjerker set during the early 1980s, another challenging economic time.
It’s a great movie, and also contains some important lessons for job seekers — particularly those who are concerned they might be perceived as underqualified.
Lesson 1: Don’t bluff.
It will take more than solving a Rubik’s Cube to prove your prowess, establish your stamina and overcome your weak spots. Resist the urge to glamorize a resume, inflate a history, fictionalize education or BS your way through an interview. Know what you know you know . . . and show that you know it. Be honest. Many HR folks just seem to be blessed with the spirit of discernment (kind of like your mom) — and they don’t appreciate the challenge of someone trying to fool them.
Samantha Nolan of LadyBug Design suggests developing a “value-based” resume to demonstrate your worth:
Your resume has to sell your value to a hiring manager. Don’t develop a resume that simply serves as a narrative of everything you have ever done. Instead, prioritize engagements, responsibilities, and achievements based on your objective, making sure you are marketing your candidacy effectively and answering the hiring manager’s question of why they should interview you.
A professional hiring coach can help with such a resume, pinpointing your values to the particular pursuit you’re on.
Lesson 2: Persevere.
Hang in there. We’re in an era when time, effort, preparation, sweat, tears and study are all required elements for a successful search. As of May 2009, the average unemployed person spent 22.5 weeks without a job, up from just under 17 weeks a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Chris Gardner never gave up — and you shouldn’t, either.
Lesson 3: Focus on your qualities, not just your qualifications.
What you don’t know can hurt you . . . so make an effort to find out what you need to know and learn it. But you should think of being underqualified as just another challenge to overcome.
If you’ve decided you’re too old to learn new tricks, you’re not going to seem very valuable. The good news is that HR professionals are learning to look beyond the traditional ways of judging worker performance — giving you a chance to show off your standout qualities and be noticed.
Says Laurie Ruettimann of Punk Rock HR:
It took me years to hone my skills and ensure that I’m not overlooking speed, savvy & creativity. Working hard, working smart, working fast, and working efficiently — it’s not the same things as being in the office and working 80 hours/week. My goal, over the past several years, has been to ensure that colleagues who find a healthy work/life balance are accepted and lauded in the workforce.
Granted, it would be nice to have a scriptwriter who could wrap up your job-search story in a nice neat way, as happens in “The Pursuit of Happyness.” You would know going in that it’s all going to work out fine.
But guess what? We write our own scripts these days — and things can still work out just fine.
Which is actually a relief to me. Because if I had to solve a Rubik’s Cube to get a job interview, I’d still be in line somewhere.
Article by, Thom and courtesy of RiseSmart.com – RiseSmart: Search Smarter. Rise Faster.
