The Warm, Fuzzy Side
Your other channel, the one eager to re-integrate into the herd, also tends to overgeneralize. This is partly because we think that if team rules exist and we master them, we'll be accepted onto the team. We'll be safe. Feelings of isolation also break a sense of victimization and a tendency to catastrophize in some of us: They'll never hire a 56-year old for a product manager job!"
Add many people's tendency to personalize – "I knew it! They hated me!" – and you have the recipe for an intense defensiveness that can lead you to lower your sights, overlook your individual strengths, and appear both defeatist and oversensitive. Such defensiveness can make you come across to others as disdainful, aloof, suspicious, thin-skinned and paranoid. Wow, that's attractive.
The "they think syndrome" and over-generalization may be evident in many of our words and expressions. We speak, for example, of "the job market," as in "the job market always picks up after New Year's and Labor Day." Or, "the job market insists on scannable resumes these days." Or, "the job market doesn't know what to do with displaced middle managers."
Used this way, the phrase supposedly describes the opinions and biases of all employers. But there is no such place as "the job market." Why should you lump your skills, objectives and job search campaign in with millions of people whose situations are completely different from yours? Far more relevant is your job market: the universe of jobs and opportunities keyed to what, when and where you perform your profession.
Consider how frequently and casually the adverbs "always" and "never" get used. Networkers are indoctrinated to "always meet contacts face-to-face and never accept no for an answer." Interviewees learn they must "always email thank-you notes by 10:30 the morning after the interview." Other common beliefs: "You must never wear loafers to an interview." "Always include your resume with a direct contact letter."
These rules may have some basis in common sense, but there also may be perfectly sound reasons for exceptions or alterations of the "rules." There's nothing wrong with conventional wisdom as long as your realize it should serve as a foundation for you own judgment, not as an inviolable set of commandments.
As far as verbs go, "should" and "must" lead the way in encouraging sloppy thinking. Both suggest universal, authoritarian norms, much like parents telling you what to do: "you should never leave a job without having another one," or "when asked the weaknesses question, you must always describe a strength as if it were a weakness."
Where Rapport Comes From
In most job search interactions – whether they involve networking, writing direct contact letters or answering ads – the I-versus-they mindset undermines the crucial goal of developing rapport between two individuals. It obscures the importance of figuring out if there's really a fit with this potential employer. All the components of a good fit, such as goal and value congruence, your potential contributions, rewards, recognition, affiliation and motivation, build on perceived mutual interests – not on who vanquishes whom. If you think in terms of "winning the interview or job offer," or even in terms of "winning them over," you're likely to discover that all you've accomplished is to win a reputation from competitiveness, self-aggrandizement or having a chip on your shoulder.
There are some general principles that actually may help your job search efforts. For example, it is a universal and perfectly appropriate aspect of human nature for each of us to approach every situation concerned first and foremost with our own self-interest. However, as experts in emotional intelligence remind us, to manage people in social interactions effectively, you must do so in a way that protects their self-esteem. If your communication style takes on an unduly assertive or authoritative tone, the other person will respond to your display of power with one of their own. Unacknowledged power battles tend to escalate into self-protective counter-punching. Usually, however, it's the other person who has the power to deliver the knockout blow: "Good bye."
People with well-developed emotional intelligence are well aware of the importance of treating every person and every interaction as unique. This, frankly, is hard work. Stereotyping is easier. However, active listening and showing that you regard each person as unique has a huge payoff in establishing powerful and lasting human relationships.
We're all flattered when someone remembers our name or relates to us as an individual. We're repelled when we think we're being "dissed," manipulated or treated like a statistic ("I had 32 networking meetings last month!"). Yet many job seekers inadvertently send signals that their interactions are perfunctory or impersonal: That mass mailing that begins, "Dear Human Resources Director." That two-minute commercial at a networking meeting that sounds rehearsed. Interview answers that are glib, mechanical mini-scripts, rather than thoughtful responses. All these gaffes will turn out the other person's lights.
In a job search, human nature plays out pretty much the same way it does in life. The "job market" may be frantic, disorderly and unfair, but the people in it respond to personalized and individualized attention. Job seeker behaviors that appear naïve, presumptuous, manipulative or impersonal in business settings won't seem clever, insightful or credible in interviews or networking meetings.
Whether you call it emotional intelligence, context awareness, street smarts or political savvy, the ability to adjust your behavior to fit the situation is a crucial part of good judgment. As an HR head once said to me, "I want potential employees to sell me what I need, not what they want to sell me. A canned one-size-fits-all pitch either shows me that someone doesn't have the brains or initiative to figure out who I am and what I want, or they don't have the courage to stand out from the crowd."
You don't want to fight the "they," be hired by the "they," or even be one of the "they." Dwell on what distinguishes you from others, not what you have in common with competitors. To give yourself an extra advantage, keep reciting this mental mantra to yourself: "Personalize, individualize, personalize, individualize."
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