I got into a discussion the other day with a young professional about her job search. She has a fresh, polished resume, has been told she’s great at interviews and has a fair bit of experience for someone early on in their career. Still, she wasn’t receiving the job offers she was hoping for and finally settled on the perception that it must be because she’s being discriminated against because she’s a member of Generation Z. Nothing I said could convince her otherwise–age was the only possible explanation.
And she’s far from the first person I’ve had this discussion with. Anyone I’ve ever interacted with who is struggling to find the job they want will have an explanation for it. They come in all different shapes and sizes.
“I’m over 50-years-old – that’s why I’m not being hired.”
“I’m a woman – that’s why I’m not being hired.”
“I have a disability – that’s why I’m not being hired.”
I understand why these perceptions exist. Let’s face it: Unless you are a middle-aged, straight, white, able-bodied, cisgender man, you can make a case that you have some cards stacked against you in a job search, and at work in general. There’s no denying that discrimination is a reality among a laundry list of categories. If someone can look at you and know you belong to one or more of those categories, it can be very easy to point to them as a mitigating factor to explain why you didn’t get the offer you wanted.
But focusing on those statistics isn’t going to help you get the job. All it does is set you up for self-sabotage by putting a giant obstacle in your way that might seem insurmountable.
Know your primary goal.
Using mindfulness techniques is all about knowing how to focus your energy and attention in a way that best serves your goals, and not letting anything that has happened prior to this very moment get in your way of achieving what you want. Have bad things happened to good, qualified people? Yes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get exactly what you want – it just means you have to focus in a way that allows you to get it in spite of what’s happened.
It’s tricky to do this because we have a limited capacity to focus our conscious attention. Every second of every day, our brain takes in 11 million pieces of information across our five senses, but we are only consciously aware of about 40 of them. That big disconnect means that sometimes it can be easy for noise to distract us from whatever our primary goal is. However, the good news is that we can block out the noise by actively selecting the things that get our attention. You simply have to choose to focus on what is going to benefit you the most and get your brain to see that success is a distinct possibility, as long as you do the work required to make it happen.
When it comes to finding a new job, your success depends on convincing the people making the hiring decision that it would be absurd for them not to pick you. That is the one and only battle you are fighting, and thus that is the battle where you should be focusing your attention. If you were fighting the battle of ridding the world of injustice, then it would make sense to focus on the privilege that others experience. While that is a worthy battle to have, and perhaps one you can focus on in the future, it doesn’t set you up to achieve your primary goal: Finding the perfect job that you can thrive in.
Think about it: What happens if you go into a job interview perceiving that you have all the cards stacked against you? Perhaps when you were sitting in the lobby waiting for your interview, you watched another candidate exit and he hit every mark of the perfect, white, middle-aged male candidate. You watch as he shakes hands with the hiring manager, and maybe they even share a good laugh as they wrap up the meeting. Immediately, you start psyching yourself out, thinking, “Why would they even consider me! They’ve already made their decision.”
At that moment, you’ve shot yourself in the foot. Now, it’s your turn to interview. Are you going to give the hiring manager the most confident, engaging interview they’ve ever experienced? Are you going to unapologetically share the amazing attributes, values and skills that set you up to be the perfect person for this position? Are you going to put your absolute best face forward when, in your head, you’re thinking you don’t have a shot?
The answer to all of these questions is the same: Probably not. You’ve already defeated yourself by focusing on the things working against you rather than the things you have playing in your favor. For all you know, you had the best qualifications, and the hiring manager was already leaning towards you before you even walked in the room. But then you got in there and didn’t give it your best because you were “sure” you didn’t have a shot.
Put your focus on the things you can control.
Finding a great job requires you to have the discipline to not give a moment’s attention to the things that can get in your way. That’s why it is best, for the purpose of your job search, to simply pretend things like discrimination and privilege don’t exist. That’s not to say you deny their validity in general conversation, but any attention you give them during your job search will take attention away from the things that you can control. This is how people unconsciously self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage in your job search can take many forms. Here are a few examples:
- Choosing not to apply to the jobs you’re interested in at all because you think that your efforts won’t amount to anything.
- Restricting the geography of your search to really limited options, without considering the perfect job might be a short drive beyond it.
- Sending in a resume with typos, without going that extra mile to check everything over.
- Sending a cut-and-paste cover letter, rather than one completely customized to the role (I’m a particular fan of Liz Ryan’s pain letters approach).
- Not getting out there and networking your tail off because it makes you uncomfortable or because you assume it won’t amount to opportunities for you.
When you’re hunting for a job, these are the things you should be focusing every ounce of your attention on – finding the open positions that are perfect for your aspirations, putting yourself out there in every way you can think of to your network and creating a polished package for employers that emphasizes the value, skills and experience that you bring to the table. Those are the only things that are under your control. The rest is simply noise, and your mission is to tune it all out. Every single time you send out a resume, there should be one thing on your mind: The belief that you’ve given them everything they need to make the call that you are the best person for the job.
Keep fighting until you get an offer.
“But Karlyn…I’ve done all the right things to put my best case forward and still didn’t get a job offer! Obviously, that’s proof it was all discrimination!”
Au contraire, there’s any number of things that could have come up during the hiring process which have nothing to do with you. Here are a few examples:
- Maybe the company decided they wanted two junior positions instead of the more senior one you applied for and didn’t want to hire someone so obviously overqualified for entry-level.
- Maybe they weren’t doing well financially and initiated a hiring freeze.
- Maybe they promoted someone from within who was a known quantity, even if they lacked slightly in credentials.
- Maybe the person they hired was a friend of a board member who gave the hiring manager a call to let him know what decision he would be making.
- Maybe they decided they really needed someone who spoke Chinese and you didn’t. So, even though you were the best candidate overall, they traded down a few qualifications in other areas to meet that critical need.
What do all these things have in common? They have nothing to do with you, nor are they elements that you could have controlled as you were interviewing for the job. Chalk it up to a blessing in disguise, and move on to the next.
It may be cliché to say that every time a door closes, a window opens, but that perfectly describes the process of finding a new job. When you’re putting yourself out there, you’re going to be told “no thank you” more than once. The difference between people who find a great new job, and those who end up settling, is that they don’t let the “nos” get in their way. They don’t dwell or make excuses for why they didn’t get the gig. They brush it off and move on, knowing that, eventually, their hard work will lead to a yes.
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