Tag: jobseeking

Following and picking

FabrizioLeave a comment

Repeatedly, over the course of your career, you will be asked to conform to certain standards or rules.

You need to meet certain requirements to get a job, for specific roles you will be asked specific qualifications, if you get to be a manager there are certain procedures you will have to adhere to. It is normal, and that’s what makes things somewhat reliable, trustworthy, known.

The fact is, there are two ways to go about standards and rules.

The first is to follow them. If they say you have to study a certain language to get a job, you do study it. If they say you need a certificate to be promoted, you do get the certificate. If they say you have to follow a procedure to advance your purpose, you do follow it.

The second is to pick them. Does it make sense? is the key question on this path. Will study that language add something to my value as an employee? Will it add to my story and my strengths? Will it make me more frustrated, because once I am done with that role, I will never be asked to use that language ever again?

You will probably surf between the two ways at different stages in your career. What matters most though, is that you understand that there are two ways, not one only.

Once you get to know what you are here for, what your value is, what your strengths are, what you have to offer and what you don’t have to offer, what sets you apart from the rest of us. Does it make sense to follow a rule that does not serve all of this?

Whose dream?

FabrizioLeave a comment

I was tired of living someone else’s dream and not living mine.

This is something we hear a lot these days, as we celebrate leaders and not followers.
It is very good to acknowledge, yet it is probably even more important to have the following clear:

1. what your dream is;

2. what living your dream means (in terms of sacrifices, things to leave behind, compromises to make, and so on);

3. living someone else’s dream is not a subpar option (the dream might be, but there are plenty out there).

Lies spread

FabrizioLeave a comment

Many years ago, I was once interviewing with a company, and during the hiring process I realised that they were lying to their audience.

It was not a big lie, it was about inflating some numbers to look bigger, something that most companies do. I was kind of surprised with the tone one of the executives in the room told me that was a lie: it felt like I was talking to a kid caught with their hands in the cookie jar, he was very apologetic, and he had a very good and thorough explanation on the reasoning behind the lie.

That episode should have been an eye-opener to the culture I could have found in the day-to-day operations. Because the fact is, lies spread.

A lie leads to more lies. It is very difficult to stop at one lie, to just say this little one once, for the best possible reason, and then go back to telling the truth.

A lie infects others. It is more than likely that, if you start with a lie, others around you will not be honest and transparent in return.

A lie begs for a wider audience. If you tell a lie to your customers, chances are next you are going to lie to your business partner, to the shareholders, to the employees, to the community.

Interviews are full of these kind of hints. But we are often blind to them, as we tell ourselves the story that having a job is the priority. It is not, and we could be better at picking jobs that align with our values.