Finding a job in today’s economy

Research has shown that most people suffer heart attacks mostly on Monday morning or mid-week on their way to work. This is because people wake up and go to jobs they don’t love. They spend each and every day doing things they do not enjoy with people they do not want to work with. Then they spend most of their time standing next to the water dispenser complaining to anyone and everyone who will listen. Do yourself a favour, find a job you enjoy. Be proactive and stop being the person who complains about the job, the company, the boss, the workload and the salary. Change your attitude before they decide to fire you. Better still, find yourself a job you actually do enjoy

Finding a job nowadays is like courtship. Yes, I said it!!! Finding a job nowadays is like courtship. You have to know what you want, where to find it and how to get it. Be proactive, be smart about it, play strategic, think long-term and act now. Always act now!!!

First of all, know what kind of job you want. Do you want to shifts? Do you want to work flexi hours? Do you want to work from home? Do you want to work for a corporate? Do you want to wear suit and tie or jeans to work? Do you want to work weekends? Just like finding the woman of your dreams, if you are unclear about what you want, you will get whatever comes your way. Believe me, it’s true. I know it because I dated Mary-Sue. I was in junior high school and just wanted a girlfriend. Along comes Mary-Sue and I don’t even know how it happened, but soon enough she was saying I was her boyfriend. Mary-Sue ran cross-country. In fact, she was the provincial cross-country champion. She had biceps and calves to make any professional body builder jealous. She could definitely kick Chuck Norris’ ass. Whenever we were together, most people thought she was my brother. She wasn’t really what I wanted in a woman, so I was unhappy most of the time. It did not work out and to make matters worse, when I ended it, she gave me a black-eye. YES, she punched me right in the face and I had a shiner for 3 weeks.

Anyway, once you know what you want in your dream job, figure out WHERE such companies advertise their vacancies. Make that your playground. There is no use looking for a church-kind-of-girl in the club. Check out the company website and see if you can find anything in the careers section. Find out which recruitment agencies work with them, make sure they have your CV.

That should naturally tell you HOW to apply. The year was 1998. I was 15 years old. It was the school holidays and I was hanging out with my friends, as do all 15 year old’s. We are at Shoprite (the African equivalent of Walmart), and then we saw her. WOW!!! She looked like an Angel. So my friends pushed me towards her and forced me to go and try my luck. I followed her down 3 aisles. For 3 whole aisle, I just walked behind her – back then we did not have a word for it, I believe nowadays they call it stalking. Finally I gathered up enough courage to open my mouth. When I did, all I could say was “Wheeeee weeeee weeeee weeeeee weeeeee” (that’s supposed to be the sound of an ambulance). So, she turns around in utter disbelief and looks at me as though I am a loony. At which point I say to her, “Damn girl, please call me an ambulance coz you’re so preety you just nearly gave me a heart attack.” EARTH SHATTERING SILENCE!!! THEN CRICKETS!!!

Well, I guess it goes without saying that I never got her number. In retrospect, Maybe if I had changed HOW I had approached her, things would have gone down differently. Same with applying for a job. Think outside of the box, but THINK!!!! Sending an application letter in a brown envelope with 500 bucks enclosed will land you in prison.

Expand your network. Start actively seeking to meet people who are doing the job you want to do and working in the industry in which you want to work. Just like dating, your job hunt will be a lot easier if you are introduced and recommended by people in the industry. I know a guy, Bruce, who actively used this tactic for most of his dating life. Almost all the girls he ever dated, he had met through introductions from his sister. Each time he was left alone with his date, he would sweat and freeze and be tongue tied. He never really got any second dates, but he sure as hell got a lot of first dates. You go Bruce!!!

So yah, your network will connect you to the right people. But you need to be smarter than Bruce. Be prepared when that opportunity comes. Even if you earned the interview through a connection who had to force someone to give you that time of day, go in there and shine. Make it work for you and earn yourself that second date.

Last but not least, make time to apply for jobs. Give yourself 30 minutes everyday to speak to the right people. Send out your CV. 30 minutes a day is all you need. Before you know it, you have landed your dream job

Good luck happy campers Find yourself a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life!!!!

TGIM – Thank God It’s Monday ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

of Interviews and fashion disasters…

Ok. So I have been conducting interviews for the past couple of days and find it most intriguing what people will wear to an interview. I will illustrate:

This one guy, comes in for an Accounting position interview. Very smart lad. Dressed in a gray suit, crisp white shirt and a dark gray tie. We all look at him and think he will fit into the corporate culture here. First impressions were good. It was not until he was leaving and he turned around that we saw the letters xxx shaved onto the back of his head. LIKE REALLY??????!!!!!!

Then came the dude with the white socks. Yes, black suit with white socks. How ingenious is that? Gentlemen, if you own a pair of white socks, go home and burn them today. Unless you are looking for a job at the old country club, there is no room for white socks in the corporate universe. Infact, make that red ones too. And purple. And green. If it is not black, do not wear the bloody sock!!!

When the next candidate walked in, I almost keeled over and died. Imagine this balding dude in his mid fifties walking in wearing a brown suit with a red and yellow mickey mouse tie. Yes, a read and yellow tie with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. Do they even still make Mickey Mouse ties anymore??? And unless you are applying for a job as a kindergarten teacher or a clown, why on earth would you wear a Mickey Mouse tie???  I m ay not be an image consultant but I believe that a tie should be at least 3 inches, preferably plain or with a conservative pattern.

Oh, and then there was the dude who wore a white shirt and a brightly coloured tee shirt underneath. I could not make out what was printed on the tee shirt but I did fashion out the word porn and a woman’s leg wearing heels. Guys, you don’t want to be perceives as childish or worse, perverted. When you wear stuff like that, employers can just see you standing at the water cannister, creepily oogling at women as they pass. If you are ever to wear a tee shirt as an undergarment, make sure it is a clean and plain white tee shirt.

Last but not least, if you are fat, buy clothes that fit your body size. Never buy outfits two sizes too small in the hope that someday you will burn off the fat. Buy what works for you now. You can imagine my dismay as I looked at Fat Joe walking in looking like he was wearing his sons suit. It was waaaay too tight and when he stood up to leave, I almost hurled when we all had to look at his bum cheeks and ass crack because his pants were too small…

Never traumatise your interviewer. This is not a conclusive live od do’s and don’ts but if you have half a brain, you should be able to reason out what else is acceptable and what is not

Have a great day folks

Good jobs, bad jobs and shitty jobs…

There are good jobs, and there are bad jobs. And then there are shitty jobs. If you have ever worked at a shitty job SMILE What the heck are you smiling about? Just kidding. But seriously, you should strive to work only at good jobs. Sometimes you’ll have to endure bad in order to meet a greater goal. But you should never put up with a shitty job.

Your job is one of your most important assets. It gives you earning power. It can bring you personal fulfillment. But what happens when you’re stuck in a job you hate? Here’s the true story of the worst job I ever had.

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Ok, so I relocated to South Africa in 2008. Being in a strange land, I had to start earning money quick hence I needed to find a job.

My cousin Andy, a life-long Insurance guy, and always a sucker for other insurance salesmen, set me up to meet with an insurance guy who had tried to sell him a policy. We met at a McDonald’s in the heart of Johannesburg. The guy gave me long, slick pitch, touting the job’s “unlimited income potential“. Personally, I think he need not have bothered. He had me sold when he bought me a McFeast. Besides, I needed work and was dumb enough to think that this was a perfect opportunity. I signed up.

I underwent two weeks of training, during which I learned how to sell crappy get-rich-quick stock market trading software. I should have known the stuff was a scam; after all, my employer did not have a dime to his name. I spent two days learning why this was the most marvelous stock market trading software in the world (yeah right). I spent another two days role-playing the door-to-door sales technique: I’d pretend to be the salesman and my boss would be the customer. It was so easy! I sold him the product EVERY TIME.

I spent a couple more days learning “rebuttals”, the magic scripts that would turn a prospect’s objections against himself. Our goal was to sell the customer whether he needed the software or not. We were to create the need.

This training period was life-changing. I had awakened a giant within. I was a new man. I began to cast aside the skin of my existing life and take on that of another:

• I broke up with my girlfriend – she would have slowed me down on the path to riches.
• I started attending car auctions. I had to get my own set of wheels – did I mention I did not have a license at the time?
• I bought a new wardrobe, paying full price at trendy stores.
• I ate out every morning, every noon, and every night.
• In short, I was living the high life.

In one training session, we were required to cut up magazines to make a collage depicting our goals.I think they called it a vision board. I cut out a big photo of a big, beautiful, triple storey house in Sandton with two Aston Martins parked in the driveway and I declared, “I’m going to retire a millionaire when I’m thirty.” The older folks in the class — they were all older, and all over thirty — stared with vacant, hollow eyes as I made my presentation.

That night I went out for a fancy dinner. I had to celebrate my path to untold riches.

After training, I spent a week shadowing my manager (the man who had hired me), watching how door-to-door insurance sales worked in the real world. We drove to rural Mpumalanga and set up shop in a motel. That Monday morning, we met for breakfast in a local coffee shop. I bought my manager eggs and coffee – yes, there I was buying him stuff when in fact he had more money than I did. We drove out and began knocking on doors.

At every house, we’d introduce ourselves: “Hi. I’m Fred, and I believe this will interest you also. For only R5000, you can actually buy yourself software that will earn you millions on the stock market in the next 12 months GUARANTEED…” and so on. My manager was slick. He signed up some poor old lady that first day. He’d made R5000!

The next day, it was my turn to try. And suddenly my enthusiasm ran smack into the reality. It wasn’t a game anymore when I was the one trying to convince the little old lady with the oxygen tank that she needed to buy my product.  “I’m on a fixed income,” she said, and I had no response. I wasn’t going to try to convince her that she needed this. She didn’t. She needed to hold on to her money. But my manager saw her weakness, and sensed my hesitation — he stepped in and smoothly countered her objections and forced her to buy the software with her meager pension money. He let me keep the R1000 for the sale. “You can’t let them make you feel sorry,” he told me. “Your goal is to get a signature and a cheque.”

Actually, my goal was suddenly unclear. My goal had been to make a million dollars by the time I was thirty, to own a beautiful house in Sandton, marry Miss South Africa and buy an island bigger than Richard Branson’s. But not like this. Not selling useless software to little old ladies. I went back to the hotel and called my cousin Andy. “I want to quit,” I told him.

“You can’t quit,” he said. “You’ve only been doing this two days. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t be an idiot.”

I called my ex-girlfriend. “I want to quit,” I told her. She wasn’t surprised. I’d just broken off our relationship, so why would I stick to a job?

I talked with my manager. “I want to quit,” I told him. He frowned, and then he smoothly countered my every argument. The one that made me change my mind was this: “Look how much you’ve spent. You bought new clothes. You’re paying all this money for food and lodging. If you quit now, that money is all wasted. Plus you want to buy a new car.” I believed he was right, and so I stuck with it. I threw good money after bad.

For the next two months, I travelled with the other salesmen, spending a week at a time canvassing the small towns. “Hi. I’m Owen, and I believe this will interest you also. For only R5000, you can start your trip down the path to being a millionaire…” I was a terrible salesman. I did not believe in my product. It was a crummy product pitched in a slimy method to people who didn’t know any better. I felt dirty.

I sold some, it’s true, but my income was a miserable R2000 per month. It did not make sense. I was supposed to be earning at least R50 000 per month. I could not fathom what had gone horribly wrong with my grand plan. My expenses were much more than that. I had reconciled with my girlfriend, and so was paying rent for an apartment with her. I was also paying for hotel rooms four or five nights a week. I was essentially paying for two sources of lodging. And for a new car. And for a shocking amount of fuel. (I put 20,000 miles on that car in three months.) And for food.

It was during this period that my problems with food began. I was stressed, mentally conflicted. I began to eat poorly. In the morning, I would buy a box of old-fashioned donuts and a quart of chocolate milk, drive to some secluded spot, and down it all while thinking of my ruined dreams. I don’t even want to think of how many calories I consumed every morning. I recall the day some chap saw me weeping unconsolably in the car listening to Celine Dion while waiting for the traffic light to go green. It was all a mess.

My life was a disaster and I was only twenty-five years old.

The nadir came on a drizzly Friday. I was out selling in the Drakensburg area. It was early morning, and I had just driven up a long gravel road to make a futile pitch to an old farmer. He was getting ready for work, and didn’t want anything to do with me. “You need to leave,” he told me, and so I did.

I drove my car -yes, I said MY CAR – further up the gravel road to a fork in the road. I could have continued straight, but I took the road less travelled by (and that made all the difference). I drove downhill and around a corner. The road narrowed and the gravel vanished. The road ended. I considered backing up, but instead decided to make a three-point turnaround. I had pulled forward into a newly-plowed field. My tires sank in the mud. Cursing my luck, I attempted to rev myself out of the jam, but that only dug the tires in deeper.

I got out to survey the situation. The drizzle had turned to rain. I believed I could push the car back onto the road, so I rolled up my pant legs, took off my sports jacket, and tried not to worry about my muddy shoes. I went to the front of the car and pushed. The vehicle moved slightly, so I pushed some again. I rocked the car back-and-forth, and soon it rolled free. Gravity doesn’t care about bad days or crappy jobs. When the car came free, it rolled in the opposite direction from what I had intended. Because it was resting on a slope, it rolled toward me. I dove into the mud, and watched as my car rolled downhill, where it struck a fallen tree with a crunch.

I lay still for a few moments, trying not to think about the ruined clothes and the damaged car. I was in shock. I got up and walked up the hill, back to the farmer’s house. “What do you want?” the farmer asked me. I explained my predicament. I think something about the situation must have moved him to pity, because his features softened, and his voice mellowed. “Stay here,” he told me. “I’ll get a tractor and pull you out.”

I drove back to the hotel. I took off my wet and soiled clothes and took a hot bath. I packed my stuff, went home. That was the last time my workmates ever saw me. My boss called a few times. I did not answer. He was too smooth. He would have convinced me to go back. Eventually, I think they figured that I was no longer interested.

This, my friends, was the worst job i ever had in nearly every way: emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially.