A Kick up the Backside

Last week I logged on to a website to check the status of a job application, and discovered that I had not been invited for interview. The sting of rejection was immediate. And it was swiftly followed by surprise and then self-doubt.

This was a job where I was convinced that I was a shoo-in to get past the first hurdle. The skills required were an almost exact match for my experience. My resume required minimal tweaking to make me look like the ideal candidate. Or so I had thought.

It's unusual these days to find out that an interview is not on the cards, as so many companies simply never contact you either way. But this was a particularly comprehensive online system, which indicated where your application stood in their hiring process. Better yet, it invited you to call the human resources team if you wanted to know why you had not made the grade. Naturally, I called immediately. Of the sixteen hiring criteria they had created, they had selected two which I did not meet. Fair dinkums to them: they were indeed the only two things which I could not claim to have done. But it's a tough hiring market indeed when you meet fourteen out of sixteen criteria, and still don't make it to interview!

Once I got over my anger / outrage / self-pity, I realized that this experience was a good one to have early on in my search. It will help me guard against complacency, and make me zero in on making each cover letter truly compelling. The truth is, that since I first started reaching out to prospective employers in early July, I have been insulated by the comforting bubble (and regular paycheck) provided by my current employer. At the end of this week, both the comfort zone, and (sadly) the direct deposit, will cease.

On the plus side, I have already been asked to consider two consulting gigs once I get to California, with the prospect of a third. And this evening, I am heading over to my attorney to sign a contract for sale on my little Brooklyn house. So with any luck, assuming that the sale of the house goes through as planned, and that at least one of the consulting opportunities pans out, I should be able to keep the wolf from the door.

And, at the risk of ending on a somewhat karmic note, I'm a big believer that you get the job you deserve, which can only mean that there is something infinitely more interesting, better paying and more prestigious out there which has my name on it!

It's Not What You Know...

What do Hillary Clinton, Mike Bloomberg, the Duchess of York, Ken Livingstone and the Prime Minister of St Vincent & the Grenadines have in common? In the past four years, they have all met me.

Granted, meeting me may not have been the highpoint of their careers to date. And while it's pleasant to speculate that Hillary's Brooklyn connection to the Fortune Huntress might have landed her the Secretary of State job, I am willing to concede that her Senate career (and an ex-President for a husband) might have had more to do with it.

The real question is: How, and when (if ever), should I start name-dropping to help land myself a job?

Name-dropping in a social context is not a particularly attractive habit. It's rather like the people who, when you mention that you would love to visit Africa, comment that they spent the summer touring the Serengeti. On elephant-back. Drinking Krug all the way.
It often comes across as oneupmanship, in other words.

But for job interviews, leveraging your network is critical. It establishes your credibility in your field, can be helpful in determining your seniority, and may ultimately be what sets you apart from other candidates.

I'm not expecting to use Hillary, Mike or the Duchess anytime soon for this purpose. But I did just write a cover letter for a job which really interests me, where I mentioned that I have met John Gapper of the Financial Times, Matthew Bishop of the Economist and Clive Crook of the Atlantic Monthly, in a bid to distinguish my application from the pile. I also threw in the name of a well-known Valley personality, a guy who was Employee Number Eight at Google (and has since cashed out, presumably to enjoy gazillions of dollars at his leisure), in case his name might impress the prospective employer.

How well do I really "know" any of these guys? Certainly, we're not Facebook buddies. But their contact details are in my Outlook file and for each, there is a specific, usually quite memorable event, which should jog their memories. Matthew and I did a conference together on the future of New York. I sat on a panel with Clive and through an enormously dull political meeting with John. I met Google # 8 last month on a job-fishing expedition in the Valley, having been set up by Cambridge in America, because it turns out he's a Cambridge alum.

In a weird way, I'd be quite pleased if I get to the interview stage and my bluff is called, so that I actually have to demonstrate that I can reach out to these folks and get a response. Because I could, and would. And it would be a lot easier than answering some of the usual interview stock questions (What are your weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in five years' time?), which I still find tough to answer in a meaningful fashion, fifteen years after people first started asking.

I'm not likely to find out for a little while yet if I will make it to interview on this one. But unlike many of the other opportunities out there, where your resume goes into an enormous internet black hole and a machine spits out an automatic acknowledgement, I did get an e-mail response from a real person for this job. Cross your fingers for me, reader. I'll keep you posted.