The fastest way to find a job

By Orlando Huaman* 25 May 2018, 12:00AM

As we all very much know, having a job is or must be an integral part of our everyday life. We all yearn for one. That is for sure. What we don’t know is, how do we go about getting “our” job. Period. That is the purpose of this article.

Just about everybody have thought that there is only one way to get a job--any job. I thought that too. Not anymore. In fact, I had been hired, all my productive life, by the prevailing way, not only here, but just about everywhere: that is: the  outside-in approach.

 To tell you the truth; it is a biased approach. Because it does not do any favor to the individual as a whole.  Why do I say that? Because it favored the company and not you, the applicant, the men/women who yearn for a job meant for them. Period.

Here is how it works: A private or public company for whatever reason needs to fill a vacancy that resulted for various reasons. Nothing wrong with that. So what do they do? 

They place an ad in whatever media that would reach a job seeker. And who do they hire? The best man they (the company) can get for their money to fill their purpose in the first place. Nothing wrong with that either. 

You would not blame the executive who does the hiring the “right” individual, they meant right for the company. Now consider this scenario: Should a highly superior man is interviewed and hired for a job beneath his abilities, the hiring organization usually was not going to discard him for being too good. No siree!

I am all for good bargains, wouldn’t you?  As long as they are in merchandise and not human lives. My own idea is that a job is not a hammer, a computer, a sales counter, though an organization may feel it should look at it that way. And how about the applicant? Do they get what they deserve or just a job to keep them going in life? 

To me, and any sensible person, a job is the whole individual, complete with his intelligence, past achievements, dreams, and ambitions for the future. Right? Right.

If a company hires a man for his skill with hammer and nails and then keeps him there-- remember the job has to be filled—though he may demonstrate greater skills in another field, both man and  company are losers. Hardest hurt is the person, with one and only career at stake. 

They are jeopardizing their progress while his employer is getting what he pays for while losing the man’s potential to produce more. An aberration, if you ask me. I happens all the time.

You probably full agree with me, on something that signal a win-win approach, haven’t you? Well, my good fellow applicant, with the prevalent practice this is not the case. You lose. 

Hard to believe, but that is the pure and simple truth. If not (this might surprise you) why are there in the working place 80% of not so happy working people, and only 20% who believe whose jobs are theirs and no one else.? If not, confront anybody who works, with this blunt question: Do you really love your job? If he/she hesitate, common sense will tell you that there is something that prevents him/her to blurt out: Yes, I really love my job. The reality is that many people fool themselves by saying: yes I do. But if you ask for any proof of it, the silence is even longer.

 Personally I hated two of my jobs I had. If you want to know: one, while working for a French mining company, six days a week, 12 hours a day, and for  one solid year.  I only saw the sun once a week.  You try it. Also, when I worked for a car insurance company, Geico, In both cases; I had no choice. 

Luckily for me, did I say luckily, no it was all part of my plan. The very same morning, (actually the night before,) I was going to be sacked, I received the good news that I was being hired for my first international job. Just the job I wanted. And I stress the “I wanted” part of it.

Now, hold your horses for a second, while I quote the Russian writer, Maxim Gorky who said: “When work is a pleasure life is a joy. When work is a duty life is slavery.” 

It was in the early 40’s, that an Englishman, Dr. Bernard Haldane, the inventor of job counseling/personal development, introduced the real approach, the correct one, to find a job. And when you wholly understand how it works in your favor, you will be a true believer. It is called the Haldane’s inside—out approach.

 His approach was extremely radical for the time. Most people  who assisted job seekers adopted an outside—out approach---the one that they were truly familiar with, as of now too. I talk about above. i.e. beginning from the job box, they tried to fit people into this definition.

What it boiled down to, is, that while no employer would think of using a giant tractor  to push a little wheelbarrow, he was all too often using human beings on tasks that left most of their abilities unused. While at the same time bemoaning the scarcity of good men.

 So, what is left for the applicant?  In the libraries I found many books ready to help one achieve success. That is all fine, provided you knew where you were going, but no one of them could point out your way. But how to point out the way if the individual didn’t know where he was going in the first place? Or thought he/she knew.

As much as we deplore men and women wasting their lives on jobs too small for them, I could see that the first move toward personal success had to be made by them.

The best training programs  offered by a company  are the programs best for the company. The companies spend thousands of dollars on their programs, they have made scientific studies of them, and they try to know how many trained employees for what jobs they will get out of them. There is nothing wrong with that. BUT how much of a study had the employee made of himself to discover, if he could whether the program would lead him to lasting satisfaction or merely a promotion to ultimate frustration?  

So the question was or is: why didn’t the employee make the move? Even when they were being nudged in the right direction. 

That question was answered. How?  By the thousands of cases that Dr. Haldane worked on for over 50 years. Here are the known facts: The schools can educate you, and the psychological tests can try to rate you, and the training programs can try to train you. This tradition says, is the way it always has been and always will be. Not so.

This very worn out route is no longer necessary, if it ever was. From now on you can find your successful self based in your own achievements. Period. 

Here are proof how the Haldane method has had it influence in countries like the USA, U.K. and Canada. Let the Dr. tell us: “ …since 1940 I have trained business executives, government officials, educators, and clergymen  in the use of these principles for themselves as well as for others. I have taught them to  career-puzzled college students—from freshmen to those seeking doctorates. At the Harvard Business School, these principles were incorporated  in a manual recommended  to its  thousand alumni. The Society for the Advancement of Management  recommended their use  to graduating students in over 200 institutions  of higher learning throughout the nation. And the American Management Association reported on them  to more than 30,000 executive—members  in all industries. Every progressive company should know about the principles of success and the Success Factor Analysis  technique based on them.”

He goes on to say “Traditional job application form, as we know it, contribute little to the task of selecting the right man  for the right job. It has influenced job applicants to accept wrong assignments repeatedly, to accept job frustration as being their fate, to see their job as providing little more than a way to earn money.”

What is more, from Dr. Haldane experience, he warns, to beware of traditional job finding systems and people who endorse them. The old systems are primarily responsible for over 20% unemployment rate among young men and women; for ten million unemployed at the start of 1976; for many millions more who have become discouraged and dropped out of the job market, and countless millions who are frustrated in their jobs.

Innovation in our educational system  would find this above method to go with the times in this information age. By not doing so, it would submit the job seeker to the worn out way of trial and error. To do it right the first time is the calling card of the inside-out approach in job finding.

Note to job seekers. Your librarian will direct you to the best source of information about your job. Good luck.

 

*Orlando Huaman is a job counselor. Malololelei.

By Orlando Huaman* 25 May 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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