Firing Your First Boss
If A A is a success in life, then is a success in life, then A A equals equals x x plus plus y y plus plus z. z. Work is Work is x, y x, y is play; and is play; and z z is keeping your mouth shut. is keeping your mouth shut.- ALBERT E EINSTEIN SOME OF YOU entering the job market for the first time are probably wondering how long you have to pretend to read this book before you can hand the book back to your parents, thank them, and then go on doing exactly what you intended before they tried to offer you advice, through me. Some of you may even have turned to this chapter first as a shortcut rather than reading from the beginning as your folks suggested. If you fall into either of these categories I"d like to make a deal with you. If reading the next three paragraphs doesn"t convince you to continue on to the end of the chapter, you can go ahead and quit. It will be our little secret. But in return, if you find the next three paragraphs intriguing, you have to promise to finish the chapter. At that point, you can decide whether or not I know what I"m talking about and if it"s worth your time to go back and read the book from chapter 1 on. entering the job market for the first time are probably wondering how long you have to pretend to read this book before you can hand the book back to your parents, thank them, and then go on doing exactly what you intended before they tried to offer you advice, through me. Some of you may even have turned to this chapter first as a shortcut rather than reading from the beginning as your folks suggested. If you fall into either of these categories I"d like to make a deal with you. If reading the next three paragraphs doesn"t convince you to continue on to the end of the chapter, you can go ahead and quit. It will be our little secret. But in return, if you find the next three paragraphs intriguing, you have to promise to finish the chapter. At that point, you can decide whether or not I know what I"m talking about and if it"s worth your time to go back and read the book from chapter 1 on.
Everything your college career office told you is wrong. Interviewers and recruiters couldn"t care less about your grades; your cla.s.s rank; or in most cases, the college from which you graduated. In most cases, it"s who you know, not what you know, that counts. How did your teachers and advisers get things so wrong? Well, in the first place they"re working in an academic environment rather than the real world. Academics have no idea about practical things. Unlike everyone else in the working world, they have tenure, meaning the only way they get fired is if they commit a violent felony. There"s an old adage that says, "Those who can"t do, teach." In many cases that"s true: some of your professors couldn"t succeed in the real world and so they retreated to the safety of the academy. In other cases your professors never even tried to succeed in the real world: they stayed in the theoretical world rather than venturing out into the practical one.
The nonacademic staff who work in the career office have have to tell you that your grades and your rank are important, and that a diploma with your college"s name on it is particularly valued. Why? Well, the college has been trying to convince you to work hard for those grades and that rank. If it tells you that, upon graduation, no one will care if you had a 2.7 or a 3.9 GPA, it won"t be able to convince you to work hard. The college has also been taking a lot of money out of your pocket for four or more years. If it told you that, other than in a few rare cases, the college from which you receive a diploma doesn"t matter in the real world, that would fly in the face of its charging you all that money. The aim of the career advice you get from a college is to make sure you keep working hard and paying your bills, not to help you get a job. to tell you that your grades and your rank are important, and that a diploma with your college"s name on it is particularly valued. Why? Well, the college has been trying to convince you to work hard for those grades and that rank. If it tells you that, upon graduation, no one will care if you had a 2.7 or a 3.9 GPA, it won"t be able to convince you to work hard. The college has also been taking a lot of money out of your pocket for four or more years. If it told you that, other than in a few rare cases, the college from which you receive a diploma doesn"t matter in the real world, that would fly in the face of its charging you all that money. The aim of the career advice you get from a college is to make sure you keep working hard and paying your bills, not to help you get a job.
If you go out and look for work in that meaningful career you"ve chosen, you"re going to end up just like your parents, working longer and longer hours; earning less than they"d hoped; having no job security; and feeling emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually unfulfilled. They entered the job market with the same idealism and enthusiasm as you have right now. They shrugged off their own parents" warnings and concerns. The last thing they wanted was to replicate their parents" work lives. Well, they got their wish. Your parents got to lead work lives different from their parents": work lives that were less satisfying and fulfilling. Your parents gave you this chapter to read, not because they think they know best. They know they don"t don"t know best. They know they made mistakes that led to unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their work lives. Your parents don"t want you to make the same mistake they did. They want you to fire your boss before you even get hired and start your work life fully in charge of your present and future. Besides, your youth and inexperience can actually be helpful in some elements of the radical approach to the job market I advocate. That"s what I explained to Liz Mandel when she first came to see me. know best. They know they made mistakes that led to unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their work lives. Your parents don"t want you to make the same mistake they did. They want you to fire your boss before you even get hired and start your work life fully in charge of your present and future. Besides, your youth and inexperience can actually be helpful in some elements of the radical approach to the job market I advocate. That"s what I explained to Liz Mandel when she first came to see me.
Liz is a twenty-one-year-old recent college graduate. Her father, Don, is a high school princ.i.p.al who went to college with one of my children. Her mother, Jacquie, is a math teacher at a private school. A very pet.i.te redhead, Liz looks younger than her age, despite her very fashionable dress and appearance. After doing very well in her suburban Long Island high school, Liz went to a well-respected private university located in Manhattan. Her family had too high an income to obtain much financial aid or get many subsidized loans, but not enough savings or liquid a.s.sets to be able to pay the very large tuition bills. As a result, Liz took out a series of unsubsidized loans that she had to begin paying off upon graduation.
During her soph.o.m.ore year Liz decided to become a philosophy major. She had always loved attending religious services, not only of her own faith, but of all faiths. Her parents used to joke that they wished she asked uncomfortable questions about s.e.x, like other kids, rather than asking all those uncomfortable questions about the meaning of life. Liz loved her philosophy cla.s.ses, and also loved partic.i.p.ating in a variety of different political and service organizations while at school. At the beginning of her senior year she had decided she didn"t want to go to graduate school...at least not right away...but instead wanted to work for a nonprofit organization that either helped the poor or was a force for social change. Having lived in downtown Manhattan for four years while in college, Liz was determined not to have to return to her parents" home on Long Island after graduation. She had a friend who was willing to share the costs of an apartment, but when they investigated rents in Manhattan she was shocked. When her parents heard about Liz"s plan to work for a nonprofit and get an apartment "in the city," they resisted the urge to try to talk her out of it, but couldn"t resist asking me to speak with her.
When we had our initial conversation, I explained to Liz, much as I explained earlier in this chapter, that her parents" motivation was to ensure that she didn"t make the same mistakes they had and end up getting neither psychic nor monetary fulfillment from work. While she was a bit resistant at first, Liz was open-minded enough to listen to me when I suggested she needed to fire her first boss, even before she knew who it would be.
Firing Your Boss Even Before Getting Your First Job You have a wonderful opportunity to start your work life off on the right track. Most people, from their first job right out of college to their last job before retiring, cede control over their work lives to their bosses. They allow their bosses to determine their value in the workplace. The skills they pick up throughout their working lives are determined, not by which are potentially the most lucrative or important in the long term, but by what their boss needs them to do in the short term. After just a few years of workplace subservience people"s perceptions of their achievements, value, and abilities become shaded by their bosses" judgments. Instead of having their own proactive plan for their work life, they become reactive and let their bosses determine the course of their work life.
Firing your boss means taking charge yourself. For you, that means developing your own work profile and plan even before you get your first job. The idea is to have an intelligent, cogent, self-generated answer when someone asks, "What kind of work are you looking for?"
Start by coming up with a one-paragraph job profile: a description of the type of work at which you think you"d excel. Don"t worry about things like t.i.tles or industry specifics. Instead, focus on verbs: action words that describe the mental and physical aspects of a job. For instance, you might conclude that you"d excel at a job that involves writing and communicating. Or perhaps you think your strengths would be in researching and a.n.a.lyzing. Maybe you feel you"d be best at developing and organizing. Put your profile in writing.
Next, conduct a brief "performance review" of your past. What was it that led you to select those verbs when developing your job profile? Did you have your greatest academic successes in, let"s say, science projects where you were responsible for researching and a.n.a.lyzing information? Was your prime role in your summer job writing and communicating information for your local newspaper? Were your extracurricular and personal activities centered around developing and organizing, perhaps by launching and leading a charity drive? Make note of the results of your review, writing your findings beneath your job profile on the same sheet of paper.
Take a few minutes to read over your profile and review. Refine it, if necessary, or tinker with the wording. Make it as concise as possible. You want to be able to convey this information in one or two conversational sentences.
Liz Mandel Fires Her Boss Before Getting Her First Job It didn"t take much convincing for Liz to see the advantages of taking charge of her own work life right from square one. Both her parents had often complained about the extent to which their work lives were controlled by their bosses. Her father, even though he had finally become a princ.i.p.al, had spent years having his work progress blocked by the combination of an incompetent princ.i.p.al and a domineering superintendent. Then after a shake-up in the school board led to his finally getting the princ.i.p.al"s job, he found his powers strictly curtailed by a block of board members who had engineered the ouster of the previous princ.i.p.al and superintendent and who now sought to micro-manage the entire district. Liz"s mother had been made to teach seventh-graders rather than the younger students she preferred, and had been told to go back and get additionally certified in social studies rather than biology, as she"d wished. Both felt they"d given up control over their work lives years ago. Both were also working hard to regain it, however, by having me help them fire their bosses.
At the end of our first session together I asked Liz to go home and work on her profile and review. She called me the next day to tell me she"d done some thinking and thought she had it worked out. Thinking back over her academic career, Liz decided she was very good at a.n.a.lyzing problems, finding a variety of potential solutions, and then a.n.a.lyzing the pros and cons of each option. Most of the jobs Liz had held up to now were doing light filing, data entry, and answering telephones, so they didn"t really apply to her job profile. But her academic work in philosophy certainly did, as did some of her extracurricular activities. In high school she had trained as a peer counselor, and then in college she had volunteered at a suicide-prevention hotline. She had come up with the following answer to the question of what kind of work she was looking for: My strength is in problem solving. As a philosophy major and a volunteer crisis counselor I learned how to isolate problems, research possible solutions, and a.n.a.lyze the alternatives.
Killing Your Career Before It Even Starts If you take only one thing away from this chapter, I hope it"s this: you are not your job. I believe the single best way to ensure that you earn a good income and and get some level of psychic fulfillment is to abandon the notion of being able to achieve both through work. The focus of your work life should be to earn money, while the focus of your personal life should be to provide you with emotional, psychological, and spiritual satisfaction. By splitting your life in this manner you vastly improve your chances of being happy. get some level of psychic fulfillment is to abandon the notion of being able to achieve both through work. The focus of your work life should be to earn money, while the focus of your personal life should be to provide you with emotional, psychological, and spiritual satisfaction. By splitting your life in this manner you vastly improve your chances of being happy.
I know this doesn"t match up with what most of you have been taught or told. That"s because most of the people offering you advice are baby-boomer academics. When your parents" generation was young they thought such a divided life was a terrible idea. Their goal was to lead a holistic life in which work and personal life were inextricably and harmoniously linked. It was a very idealistic theory. For academics it was actually possible. But everyone else has discovered that it didn"t work in practice. Most of the members of your parents" generation ended up working ever increasing hours at jobs with ever decreasing security, for incomes that didn"t keep pace with inflation, and in the process they"ve become more and more dissatisfied with their lives. Both their work lives and their personal lives are actually less fulfilling than those of their own parents. You won"t hear this from your college advisers, since they"ve remained sheltered from real-world market forces. You will hear it from your parents...or at least see its evidence. My goal is to keep you from falling into the same trap.
I"m advising people to kill their careers and get jobs instead; to work to live rather than live to work. Careers are supposed to produce psychic as well as financial reward. Jobs are simply tools to make money. It"s very hard for some of my older clients to make this transition. They"ve spent years struggling to achieve their dream of a rewarding holistic life. If they give up now they"re forced to admit all that effort and time were wasted. Still, most are biting the bullet and killing their careers. That"s because the result is getting what they most want: a happier, more fulfilling life. I"m hoping you won"t waste years of your own working life in the pursuit of a nearly impossible dream, making yourself miserable in the process. Unless you"re going to spend the rest of your life in academia, I"m urging you to kill your career now, before it"s even born. You won"t regret it.
At this stage in your life the process will actually be quite simple. Think about what, besides money, you most want from work. Do you want to be of service, or to express yourself? Are you looking for status, security, or respect? Or is your goal to travel or meet people? Whatever it is, you can more easily achieve it through your personal life than through your work life, particularly at your age. Right now you have fewer obligations and responsibilities dictating what you need to do with your personal life than you will when you grow older. That makes this the perfect time for you to seek out and pursue those things that provide the psychic satisfaction you crave. Now, before you have children, is the time when you can spend multiple evenings a week playing with a chamber music group. Now, before you have household ch.o.r.es, is the time when you can spend all day Sat.u.r.day working with a church youth group. Now, before you have multiple schedules to coordinate, is the time when you can spend two weeks hiking through Scotland. As you grow older you"ll need to make more compromises and sacrifices to achieve the kind of personal satisfaction you crave. Now all you need to do is abandon the notion of career and embrace the concept of job instead.
Liz Mandel Kills Her Career Before she met with me, Liz had planned to look for work with a not - for - profit agency or organization that worked on behalf of the poor. From an early age she had felt the need to serve, inspired by her parents" examples. This drive to serve meshed with a strong spiritual element to her life. While both her parents were spiritual in their way, they weren"t religiously observant. Liz, on the other hand, took a great deal of comfort from religious worship. Unfortunately, her drive to serve didn"t mesh well with her desire to carve out a life independent of her parents. Right after college Liz and a former college roommate began scouting for an apartment they might be able to afford on their projected incomes. While certainly not spoiled, Liz had grown up in solidly middle-cla.s.s environments. However, the areas of New York City where she could afford to live if she took an entry-level job working at a not - for - profit agency were, to use her roommate"s euphemism, "authentically urban."
It was at this point that I introduced Liz to the idea of killing her career and getting a job instead. I thought she"d reflexively resist the concept, but after only a few moments" thought she seemed to see all its advantages. After about ten minutes she was already talking about ways she could express her need to be of service through volunteering, and ways she could follow up on her religious impulse as well. By the end of the dialogue she was genuinely excited about killing her career.
There"s No I in Your First Job A key element in both landing and keeping a job today is realizing there"s no I in job. That means focusing on your boss"s needs and wants rather than your own, or the company"s. Once again, as someone new to the job market, you have some advantages.
Having spoken about this concept with a number of young clients fresh out of college, I"ve learned that this is similar to a technique many savvy students use to ensure they get the best possible grade in a cla.s.s. Rather than approaching the material in an entirely objective manner, these ambitious students study the professor"s statements and writings to determine his or her own preferences and prejudices. Then the students package and present their work in a manner or style that mirrors the professor"s own ideas or approach. These clients of mine also report that college professors are no different from bosses in that they almost universally seem oblivious of such efforts.
Another advantage you have as a neophyte job hunter is that it"s easier for you to determine a boss"s needs or wants. When anyone applies for a job, the secret to determining a boss"s superficial needs and wants - those he openly talks about during the search process - is studying the ad and drawing inferences during the interview. As a young person you can be completely direct and simply ask, "What are the traits you"re looking for in a candidate?" Whereas such a direct approach would make an experienced job hunter appear naive, it"s refreshing coming from a young person. Bosses love young subordinates to be eager, obedient disciples. Directly ask what you can do and you"ll not only gather the information you need to present yourself in the best light, but you"ll also score bonus points in the process.
Once you"re on the job it will become apparent that what the boss said he wanted from a candidate during the search process is different from what he wants from an actual subordinate. Here"s another place where you have an advantage over more seasoned employees. They need to study and observe their boss"s behaviors to figure out how best to meet his needs. You can simply ask, "What can I do to make your work easier?" Again, your directness and obvious eagerness to please will be a plus. Having been told what you should do, all that"s left is for you to do it.
Fishing for a First Job I tell my clients they need to go job fishing rather than job hunting. Instead of waiting until they"re in dire need of a new job, and then going out looking for a specific type of job, like some kind of big-game hunter, I think people today should act more like a fisherman. That means constantly looking, regardless of how long you"ve been at a job, and focusing on landing as many offers as possible, not necessarily looking for a particular job. The idea is to cast a wide net and regularly land a large catch of offers from which you can pick and choose.
For a first-time job seeker this means being as open-minded as possible about which opportunities to pursue initially, and pursuing a large number simultaneously. One of the things you may not have learned in college is the ability to mult.i.task. You may have been able to go to one cla.s.s at a time, and to do your work one project at a time. In the job market you"ll need to be able to juggle multiple projects in which you may play different roles. Your first lesson in this will be to not look for work in a serial manner. Too many young people, uncomfortable with the process, send out a ma.s.s of resumes, land perhaps one or two leads, and then pursue those leads until they yield either a job or a rejection. In the latter case they start the process again, sending out a ma.s.s of resumes, getting a couple of leads, and following them to their end. Instead, you need to be constantly sending out resumes and constantly pursuing leads. You need to always be doing every step in the process.
Just as important, when you find a job, you need to keep job fishing. Most people end up in industries or professions by default. Fresh out of college they get a job in, let"s say, the greeting card industry. They stay with their first employer as long as possible, perhaps getting one or two promotions. After just a couple of years they feel they"ve made an investment in the industry, and that their best chances for finding another job are to stick with it. So they keep looking for work in the greeting card industry. By the time they"re in their thirties they"re considered "industry veterans." Not only are they afraid they won"t earn as much, or be able to maintain their organizational rank, if they shift industries, but they"re secretly worried they won"t be able to cut it in another industry. Greeting cards are all I"ve ever known, they"ll think to themselves. I can"t leave the industry. By continuing to look for another job, even after landing your first job, and taking a better offer as soon as it comes along, you"ll be able to avoid falling into that trap.
No One Hires a Young Stranger Either You"re entering the job market at a time when the standard job-search strategy no longer works. For years, most people in business eschewed cla.s.sified ads and instead drew on a business network consisting of coworkers, peers, clients, customers, and compet.i.tors to generate job leads. They"d use their network to gather names of people with whom to hold informational interviews: overtly casual conversations to get advice, but covertly requests for jobs. The lack of job growth and a push by human resources professionals to regain control of recruitment and hiring has led to the demise of networking.
I"m urging clients to instead return to the use of help wanted ads, since they are the single best way to get a job, any job, in the shortest period of time. For many, that"s what"s most important. But I"m also suggesting that my clients follow a second, parallel path by tapping into their personal lives for job leads. That"s because no one hires a stranger anymore.
Since, as a newcomer to the world of business, you don"t have a network on which to draw, its demise as an effective job-search tool isn"t an issue. Luckily you do have a personal life you can use to generate job leads.
However, since most of your social contacts are probably people in situations similar to your own - just entering the job market, returning to a hometown after four years away, or making a fresh start in a new community - they may not offer either the breadth or the depth of social connections that could generate job leads. That"s why you need to follow a slight variation on the technique I outlined earlier in the book. You need to tap into what I call your "second-generation social life."
Instead of looking to your friends or to people you"ve met in social situations for job leads, look to other people"s social contacts. Ask your parents and older siblings to tap into their social lives for help. Anytime you"re invited to meet friends" parents, grab it. Invited to a party at your parents" neighbors? Leap at the chance. Is your aunt begging to take you to church with her to show you off to her friends? Do it. Don"t look at going to the Rotary Club breakfast with your father as the equivalent of having teeth pulled. It"s an incredible opportunity to tap into a social sphere that could yield multiple job leads.
A second-generation social life has an added bonus. You will be one of the only young people present. As such you"ll stand out and attract attention. Instead of seeming like a desperate job seeker, you"ll appear to be a young person with an unusually mature approach. Just your presence at these kinds of events will create a positive perception in the eyes of others. Whenever the people at that Rotary Club breakfast are told about a job opening for a young person, they"ll instantly think of you.
From Day One, It"s the Money When you do get that call from a Rotarian about a possible job lead, it"s vital that you realize which characteristics of a job are important today, and which aren"t. Most of the people who follow the Fire Your Boss approach will a.n.a.lyze the twenty main elements in each job offer they receive, focus on the important ones I describe in chapter 7, and weigh whether or not to accept the new offer. When you"re just starting off you"ll do the same, but some of the elements carry a slightly different weight.
The unimportant factors are the same, whether you"re getting your first job or your fiftieth: amenities, auto, challenging, culture, environment, expense allowance, opportunities for advancement, stability, status, and t.i.tle. The factors I believe are definitely important remain that way as well: income, proximity, paid time off, unpaid time off, and opportunities for learning. It"s some of the questionable factors that, I believe, take on increased importance for those getting their first job. Disability insurance, retirement plans, and life insurance, while potentially valuable to some, aren"t always essential to first-time job seekers. On the other hand, health insurance and tuition reimburs.e.m.e.nt, I believe, are definitely important factors for someone getting his or her first job. Let me explain.
Most young people fail to realize how expensive health care can be. Having been covered by your parents" health plans up until now, you"ve probably never received a bill for medical services. The response from most young people, when faced with the possibility of having to pay large medical bills because they don"t have insurance coverage, is to go without care. That"s an understandable response. However, it"s not a wise one. The only reason I don"t consider health insurance coverage an important factor for all of my clients is that many of them can obtain coverage from a partner, and so can do without coverage of their own. Since most first-time job seekers aren"t yet able to obtain coverage from a partner, my recommendation is to consider health insurance coverage one of the important factors in choosing a job.
For most of my clients tuition reimburs.e.m.e.nt is an important factor only if the selection of courses isn"t limited. That"s because most experienced job seekers are returning to college in order to acquire skills and credentials that will allow them to more easily enter a different industry or profession. For a first-time job seeker, further education is almost always a good thing. My suggestion is that you should add tuition reimburs.e.m.e.nt to your list of important factors.
All that being said, the most important factor, whether you"re just entering the job market or are getting your final job before retirement, is still the money.
You Must Be Going, Even Though You Just Started When you land your first job you need to enter it with the att.i.tude that it"s only a matter of time before you leave for another job. That"s true for every worker, but it"s especially true for the first-timer. Don"t let yourself get too comfortable. This is an excellent opportunity to set a pattern for the remainder of your working life: that you, rather than your boss, will determine when and how you leave your job.
In order to determine whether or not it makes sense to leave your current job for another one, you need to weigh the twenty elements that const.i.tute each job offer. I tell my clients that their decision about leaving should also be influenced by the length of time they"ve held their current job. For instance, if you"ve held a job for a year or less, you should leave for another only if the new position represents an improvement in at least two of the factors you consider important. If you"ve held a job for between one and two years, you should leave only if the new position is an improvement in at least one important factor. And if you"ve held a job for more than two years, you should feel free to move for any job that offers a boost in any of the factors, important or not.
However, if you"re in your first job I think the rules should be slightly different. I believe a first-time job holder should be ready to move within a year for any position that represents an improvement, even if it"s just in one important factor. In addition, if you"re still holding that initial job after two years, I"d suggest you take another, even if it doesn"t offer an improvement in any any factor, but simply is a change. I believe it"s essential for young people to create a momentum in their work lives and to fight any tendency toward complacency. In the twenty-first century, movement is essential for a successful work life. The sooner you learn that and make it part of your life, the better. factor, but simply is a change. I believe it"s essential for young people to create a momentum in their work lives and to fight any tendency toward complacency. In the twenty-first century, movement is essential for a successful work life. The sooner you learn that and make it part of your life, the better.
Liz Mandel Lands Her First Job After accepting that she needed to kill her career before it even began, Liz set aside her idea of getting an entry-level job in the nonprofit sector. After speaking with a former professor about her desire to find a volunteer activity, Liz contacted a neighborhood youth center in Brooklyn. She and the director struck up a quick friendship, and Liz volunteered to help set up a peer counseling service. Liz also decided to go "temple shopping," as she called it. After attending services at a number of synagogues around the metropolitan area, Liz found a small but energetic Reconstructionist congregation in Manhattan that seemed to provide much of what she was looking for in a religious community.
While she was busy creating a fulfilling personal life of her own, Liz tapped into the personal lives of her parents and her friends" parents, looking for job leads. It was actually at a barbecue in her parents" backyard that she struck up a conversation with a neighbor she hadn"t seen in years. A marketing executive in the sporting goods industry, he had started consulting with a large national chain of sports stores that was setting up an electronic commerce operation. After hearing Liz explain how studying philosophy had taught her how to be a problem solver, he mentioned that that was exactly the skill the sporting goods store"s e-commerce arm was looking for in staffing its customer service department. The chat at the barbecue led to an office meeting, followed by an interview.
At the interview Liz saw that the hiring manager seemed to be looking for people who would be compa.s.sionate with customers. Liz stressed not only her problem-solving skills, but also her charitable work. She got a job offer. Since the only other offer she had was for an entry-level position at a bookstore, and that paid much less, Liz took the customer service job. After a few weeks on the job Liz quickly realized her boss"s real need. A veteran in the retail business, he didn"t have much of a handle on the Internet customer. But he was being pushed by the management of the new e-commerce operation to come up with innovations. Liz began offering suggestions and new ideas he could use. Within six months she was promoted to be his deputy.
Despite her promotion, Liz continued to fish for other job offers. After a Bible study group at her synagogue, she and a very fashionably dressed woman in her midforties struck up a debate about Spinoza. It turned out that the woman operated her own business running focus groups for clients. As I was in the process of writing this chapter, Liz was in the process of talking with the woman about a possible job facilitating focus group discussions.
Before I met Liz I was worried that a young person who majored in philosophy wouldn"t be pragmatic. She proved I was falling prey to stereotyping. Liz Mandel, a philosophy major fresh out of college, is as savvy and successful a pract.i.tioner of my Fire Your Boss approach as any of my most seasoned, bottom - line - focused clients.
Chapter 12.
Firing Your Boss in Another Industry
To betray, you must first belong. I never belonged.- KIM P PHILBY THE ONLY THING separating most businesses from each other is jargon. Sure, there are fields requiring specialized technical knowledge, like auto mechanics and neurosurgery, but most industries have far more in common with each other than most people realize. separating most businesses from each other is jargon. Sure, there are fields requiring specialized technical knowledge, like auto mechanics and neurosurgery, but most industries have far more in common with each other than most people realize.
Businesses usually follow similar sets of strategies and employ comparable arrays of tactics, regardless of what they"re actually selling. That"s actually the first common point: all businesses are selling something, even if it"s intangible, like advice. I know it"s something of an oversimplification, but you could say there are only three business strategies: sell the best for the most, sell the cheapest, or sell the best compromise between quality and price. In addition, all your skills and experiences in business operations can probably be divided into three categories: finance, management, and marketing.
The secret to successfully changing industries is realizing there"s this similarity between businesses and then being able to demonstrate that sameness to others. You need to demonstrate that your skills and experiences are transferable. The first step in doing both is firing your boss and hiring yourself.
That"s what I told Jody Harkins when she came to see me. Jody is the thirty-nine-year-old deputy director of planning and development for a small city in the northern suburbs of New York City. Married with two young children, she was referred to me by her brother-in-law, an attorney with whom I"ve worked on a number of different projects. Jody found herself in an all too common position. A bit of an obsessive, Jody hated to see anything left undone. She instinctively filled any vacuum she came across. I"ve found that, as if by magic, people like Jody always end up working for individuals who are more than happy to let others do their job for them.
Jody"s boss, the city"s director of planning and development, was a fifty - one - year - old former architect who cut a dashing figure at public meetings. Tall, distinguished looking, and the possessor of an aristocratic New England accent, he seemed to attract cameras. He did nothing to discourage the attention. That wouldn"t have been a problem for Jody, who didn"t like attention, except that his doing nothing extended to work as well. He was constantly traveling to conferences, attending seminars and meetings, and going out for long lunches, leaving Jody to do his work as well as her own. Jody had, without knowing it, successfully found and met her boss"s needs, ensuring her security.
That security didn"t outweigh two other factors. First, Jody had grown tired of playing her political role. She had become the public face of development in the city, despite her being the person that carried out rather than set policy. The politicians who did set policy were happy to have any angry citizens take their ire out on Jody. After a couple of very contentious projects she had wearied of that role. Second, Jody"s earnings potential was limited. Not only were any salary increases subject to the vagaries of politics, but because her boss was a fixture in the director"s position, Jody would never be able to rise above a certain income level. Her boss was open about his plan to retire from this position. (Behind his back Jody joked that he"d actually already retired.) Shifting to a similar job in another munic.i.p.ality would have required uprooting the entire family, something neither Jody, her husband, nor their children wanted to do. Jody decided that meant either sticking it out or changing industries. At a recent family gathering Jody had told all this to her brother-in-law, who suggested she get in touch with me.
Fire Your Boss in a New Industry In order to make the jump from one industry to another, you"re going to need to take charge of your work life. If you allow your current boss to continue to define who and what you are, you"ll never be able to break out of that mold and step into an entirely different industry. Most people have let their boss not only determine what they"re worth, but also define their set of skills and plan out the course of their work life. Unless you break these chains you won"t be able to convince anyone you"re also able to break into a new business.
The way to do that is to write your own job description. What"s important is that it make no reference to your current job, industry, or business. That sounds difficult, but all it takes is some thinking outside the box. Rather than focusing on your role in a hierarchy, think about your role in a process. How would you explain what you do to someone who knows nothing about your industry? Think about what you actually do during the day. Then write down all the verbs that came to mind. Using words like "a.n.a.lyzing," "organizing," "planning," "leading," "coordinating," and "communicating" will make it easy for people in other industries to understand what you do. To make the parallels even clearer, weave those verbs into one or more of the three business disciplines: marketing, management, and finance. By looking at your work in this generic fashion, and coming up with a way of communicating its universal nature to others, you"ll be able to shift from any industry or business.
Let"s say you are the editor of a newsletter for a museum. Your boss might say your job description is to develop the editorial calendar, set the freelance budget, write and edit the copy, hire photographers, supervise the design, and even oversee the printing and circulation. To someone outside of the publication business all this is just jargon. But what if you write your own job description, focusing on verbs and how the job fits into one of the three business disciplines. The new description might be that you "develop and supervise the creative and financial aspects of an ongoing marketing campaign designed to generate repeat business from past customers." That"s a description that works for any industry.
Jody Harkins Writes Her Own Job Description Having spent almost all her working life in government, Jody initially had a difficult time translating what she did into generic business language. Jody"s role was to be the generator, as well as the legal, physical, and aesthetic gatekeeper of any development in the city. Her job included trying to attract private developers to do business in the city, winning grants for public development, and overseeing the planning of the actual projects, making sure they met the city"s requirements. She was the liaison between developers and the city, as well as between the city and its residents.
After a few minutes" conversation, Jody and I realized her job was actually a sales and marketing position. She not only prospected for new customers, but having found them, she provided customer service. In addition, she helped those customers in marketing to end users. Setting aside all the technical elements of her position, she was actually a full-service sales and marketing consultant.
Killing Your Career and Getting a Job in Another Industry One of the most common misconceptions I see in clients who come to me for help in changing industries is the belief that shifting industries will provide the psychic rewards they"re missing. The failure to get emotional, spiritual, and psychological satisfaction from work has nothing to do with the nature of the work you"re doing; it has to do with the nature of work itself. Expecting to get both financial and psychic rewards from work is the problem. That"s true whether you"re working as an actor or an actuary. Change industries with the idea that you"ll find satisfaction in another business and you"ll just find the same frustration you"re feeling now. Remember: psychic rewards should come from your personal life, not your work. Your goal in changing industries should be to improve your work life.
There"s No I in Jobs in Any Industry Another mistake I"ve seen made by many people who are looking to change industries is to forget that landing and keeping a job require a laserlike focus on a boss"s needs rather than your own. A natural tendency of someone changing industries is to concentrate on one"s own achievements and how they can be translated to the new industry. The problem with this is that you become the starting point for the argument for why you should be hired. Instead, your potential future boss"s needs are where you should begin your argument. Don"t take your own skills, abilities, and achievements and say, "Here"s what I can do; now let me show you how I can do the same for you." Instead, find out what your future boss needs, and explain how you can fulfill those needs. You dialogue should be: "I understand you need x, y, and z; here"s how I can provide them for you."
Job Fishing in Another Industry The challenge of job fishing in an industry in which you"re not currently working is that you need to wear two very different hats at the same time. Normal job fishing requires you to keep meeting your boss"s needs while pursuing leads for future jobs. While this means dividing your time and perceived loyalties, you are speaking one language, and keeping in touch with the developments of one world. Job fishing in another industry requires you to speak one language and stay on top of developments in one world while meeting your boss"s needs, and to speak another language and stay on top of the news in another world while looking for new potential jobs. That"s a more demanding task. My suggestion to clients is to create a schedule that allows them to change worlds. Usually I suggest they begin by devoting weekends, or one day a week, to their efforts at job fishing in their new industry. Obviously this may mean it will take longer to attract job offers in a new industry than it would in your current industry. If for some reason it"s important to make the change quicker, you can simply devote more time to your future world. There is a trade-off to this, however. The more time you devote to your future world, the less secure will be your place in your current world. This balancing act has to be a custom job, based on your specific circ.u.mstances.
No One Hires a Stranger from Another Industry Tapping into your personal life rather than your business network is, I think, a much better way to find job leads in an industry in which you"re not working. That"s because your personal life provides a much broader range of people than your business network and, as a result, offers more possible connections to individuals indifferent industries. The secret is to make it clear during your social interactions that you"re interested in the industry in question. When people ask about your work, mention your current business but quickly segue into a conversation about the industry you"re trying to enter. To the best extent possible, make your proposed change of industry the prime topic of your conversations. Ask your acquaintances if they"ve changed industries, or know anyone who has. Seek out advice and opinions. The more enthusiasm and excitement you show about this new industry, the more feedback you"ll get and the more leads you"ll uncover.
It"s the Money...but Maybe Not Right Away While it should remain your goal to select a job offer based on how it measures up in the factors you"ve deemed most important, changing industries requires a bit more flexibility. In order to get a position in a different industry, you may need to accept an offer that doesn"t represent an improvement in any important factor. Before you do this, make doubly sure you"re changing industries for long-term material benefits, rather than any perceived psychic benefits. I"d urge you, during your first year of looking for a new offer, not to accept any that represents a decrease in any important factor. A decrease in an unimportant factor is okay, however. If, after a year of looking to change industries, you still haven"t received any acceptable offer, then I think it"s time to consider taking a position for, let"s say, less money than you"re earning now. This may be one instance when you"ll need to make a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. You may need to take a step backward today to be able to take two steps forward in the future. Just make sure that you do indeed take steps forward from this point on.
You Must Be Going...but Maybe Not Just Yet I encourage my clients who"ve taken a new job to continue to look for another position, but not to accept any offer within their first year unless it is an improvement in at least two important factors. After one year on the job I suggest that they accept offers that are an improvement in one important factor. And after two years, I believe, they should take any offer that"s an improvement in any factor, important or not. When you change industries I think you need to be more selective, at least temporarily. In order to cement your change of industries in the mind of future bosses, I suggest you not accept any offer in your first year in a new industry unless it"s an improvement in three three important factors. No future boss would second-guess a move in that case. Similarly, after a year in the new industry I"d suggest you accept only offers that represent an improvement in two important factors. And after two years in the new industry I"d suggest you shift for any improvement in any factor, important or not. Two years is more than enough time in today"s job market to make you a veteran. important factors. No future boss would second-guess a move in that case. Similarly, after a year in the new industry I"d suggest you accept only offers that represent an improvement in two important factors. And after two years in the new industry I"d suggest you shift for any improvement in any factor, important or not. Two years is more than enough time in today"s job market to make you a veteran.
Jody Harkins Changes Industries After developing her own job description, Jody and I discussed her plans for changing industries. She explained to me that she loved horticulture and had always dreamed of working in a nursery or garden shop. But when we explored that idea it became clear that her dream of working in a nursery was based on her drive to be creative, which she loved to express through gardening and landscaping. I suggested that she devote more of her personal time to tending her own garden, and perhaps even taking some additional horticulture cla.s.ses, and focus on changing industries for material reasons. Jody understood my point and admitted that she and her husband had discussed other industry-change options, particularly her going to work for real estate developers. Jody realized that by, in effect, changing sides in the real estate development process and working for the real estate industry rather than a munic.i.p.ality, she could earn a great deal more money. At the end of our first session together I asked Jody to come up with some ideas for how she could meet the needs of her potential future bosses.
When she returned for our meeting a week later, Jody had prepared a memo for me about meeting future bosses" needs. She wrote that real estate developers needed to be able to antic.i.p.ate and work to avoid the possible objections of community officials and residents. Her experience at working on the side of munic.i.p.alities would be invaluable. Jody and I then discussed how she should conduct her job fishing. Knowing it would be difficult to look for work in the real estate industry while continuing to work for the city government, Jody and I agreed she should spend one day each weekend researching and exploring opportunities in real estate. We also talked about how she would use her social life to help look for job leads. Jody decided to get more active in the local Rotary Club. She had been sent to France on a Rotary-sponsored student exchange in high school, and felt a deep loyalty to the organization and its missions. She was already a regular churchgoer, and had decided she would get even more active, volunteering to serve on the parish council. Jody also said she had signed up for a bonsai cla.s.s and had taken a plot at the community garden to give her more ground for her landscaping hobby.
After six months I got a call from Jody asking for another appointment. She told me she had been discussing her desire to change industries in her social life and that she had actually met the wife of a real estate consultant at her bonsai cla.s.s. The consultant met with Jody and, over lunch, actually offered her a job. The problem was it didn"t pay any more than her current job. She and I agreed that after only six months, it didn"t make sense for her to make the jump just yet. Still, the offer had brightened her spirits and improved her self-image immeasurably.
At the time this ma.n.u.script was being finished, Jody was still job fishing. Her job with the city was as secure as possible, since she continued to a.s.sume much of the grunt work her boss avoided. Her personal life had yielded some additional leads. At church one Sunday, another member of the congregation introduced Jody to her nephew, who was one of the princ.i.p.als of a real estate development firm that was working to bring a megamall to a nearby city. She and he hit it off right away, and they"ve arranged to meet for lunch. I"ve told her I think it"s just a matter of time until she"s successful in shifting industries.
Acknowledgments.
Thanks to Dave Conti and Megan Newman for helping us remain focused on our readers" needs. Thanks to Stuart Krichevsky for knowing there"s no I in agent. Thanks to the clients of Stephen M. Pollan for letting us fish for details in their life stories. And thanks to Corky Pollan and Deirdre Martin Levine for helping us live the lives of our dreams.
About the Authors
Stephen M. Pollan, a New York City-based attorney, financial adviser, and career expert, is one of America"s most-renowned financial experts. Mark Levine Mark Levine has been Stephen Pollan"s collaborator for more than eighteen years. Together they have auth.o.r.ed numerous books, including the national bestsellers has been Stephen Pollan"s collaborator for more than eighteen years. Together they have auth.o.r.ed numerous books, including the national bestsellers Lifescripts, Live Rich, Lifescripts, Live Rich, and and Die Broke, Die Broke, and most recently, and most recently, Second Acts. Second Acts. They have been nominated for three National Magazine Awards. They have been nominated for three National Magazine Awards.
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Also by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine
Second Acts
Die Broke
Live Rich