How to fight the rejection blues

Posted on March 31, 2011
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Health | Leave a Comment

One of The Wall Street Journal’s most interesting features, the Hire Education Blog, follows the progress of a number of seniors around the nation as they search for gainful employment. One of the students, Shalini Sharan—a senior at Bates College majoring in economics with a minor in Russian—recalled a recent experience in which she felt, with utmost certainty, that she had secured a job. Interviewing for a position with “an esteemed national NGO [i.e. Non-Governmental Organization],” Ms. Sharan felt confident that she had gotten the job; in fact, everything seemed to point in that direction. She recalls, the NGO “seemed like a perfect fit,” and “after a smooth and exciting second-round interview” she “couldn’t help but be hopeful.” Despite protracted discussions with the NGO about where Ms. Sharan might fit into the organization, and signs which seemed to indicate the NGO’s interest in hiring Ms. Sharan, she soon received an unexpected rejection e-mail. Or, as she recollects, “I felt positive about my chances of landing the position. The e-mail from them wishing me luck for my future job search, therefore, came as a big disappointment.” Undeterred, however, Ms. Sharan’s response to this rejection provides a textbook example of how one should react in the face of such unexpected rejection. Read more

How to find “unlisted” jobs

Posted on March 28, 2011
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Networking | 2 Comments

Although today’s job seeker relies on the same set of tools used by job seekers through the end of the last century to find employment, (e.g. career fairs, networking, news paper ads, etc.) the job search strategy of the 21st century is increasingly focused on the use of one new innovative tool: online job search databases. This new emergent job search paradigm is largely predicated on the premise that online job post aggregators—like indeed.com or any of a number of online job search engines that have sprung up in recent years—are, in fact, an effective means of finding a job and surveying the employment landscape. This premise however, contains a fatal flaw: not every, or even most companies post job vacancies on those job sites. That is to say, while job search engines do an excellent job of processing information about listed positions, they are unable to disclose details about most job openings, which, according to one Wall Street Journal contributor, are unlisted. Read more

Employees discover the dark side of social networking

Posted on March 24, 2011
Filed Under Corporate Policy, Employment, Keeping your Job, Networking, Social Network, The Workplace | Leave a Comment

A recent Wall Street Journal  article got me wondering whether employers should be allowed to fire employees for perfectly legal social networking “offences”—spontaneous outbursts, statements indicating frustration, or even the occasional picture taken grossly out of context. Apparently I’m not the only one wondering—employees, fired for such, or sometimes worse, social networking offences have lined up, filling judge’s dockets with employment suits begging this very question. Queuing up, these fallen employees have two fundamental questions on their mind: Is it right? And, more importantly, is it legal? Read more

Surviving your office’s thermostat

Posted on March 21, 2011
Filed Under Corporate Policy, Employment | 2 Comments

I recall four consecutive weeks when my office was silent. The air conditioning system, which would typically buzz noisily throughout the day, was shut off for routine maintenance. The office transitioned from a noisy warzone, in which coworkers had to shout to be heard, to a panacea in which all one could hear was the “clickity clack” of fingers striking keys. Eventually, the air conditioning was brought back to life, and not only was there a deafening “hum” ringing across the office once again, but the cold air pumped in, dropping the average temperature in the office several degrees. Suddenly, it was winter: employees in hats and coats, Snuggies, and blankets scurried around the office while trying to retain their warmth. While such a scene may not be uncommon—employees everywhere express dissatisfaction with the temperature of their office—it is important to maintain your professional appearance while adapting to the evolving climate of your workplace. Read more

Interviewing as storytelling

Posted on March 17, 2011
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Interview | Leave a Comment

Have you ever sat down and told someone the story of your life? If you have, like me, you have probably discovered how difficult it is to strike those emotive notes that make a good story compelling. Evoking Coleridge, the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson once scribbled, “in good writing, words become one with things.” That is, good writers are able compose meaning-laden prose through their acute capacity to elevate words in such a way that those words become the very things they denote. While this standard may be impossible for the average storyteller, such as myself, to achieve, being a good interviewer can come down to just this: your ability to recount your professional story in a convincing, compelling way. Read more

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