Okay, so, now that the story of my job search has a happy ending (i.e. a fantastic job with an amazing health-based organization serving women in the province of Ontario), I can share some of my less happy moments during my job search. I write about these as cautionary tales for those of you who are anxious to make the most of the opportunities you have (in information interviews, job interviews, and so on).
First, there was the time I applied for a writer/editor position for a very interesting health-related non-profit. In my application, I made sure to emphasize as much as I could that I was detail-oriented, my editing work was meticulous, and so forth. Of course, I failed to actually exercise that meticulousness in my own application. Just as my finger was pressing the “enter” key, sending off my email to the HR manager, I realized the version of my resume that I sent actually had a small typo (something had gotten bumped down to the next line). Nooooo!
I didn’t know what to do. For about an hour, I tried my best to forget about it. But then my type-A personality went into high gear. I wrote a follow-up note to the HR director, indicating my previous resume had a typo. I reattached the cleaned up resume. The good part? I got an interview. The bad part? I made reference, at the interview, to my cover letter–but when I glanced over at the HR manager’s package of my stuff, I realized she didn’t HAVE my cover letter–only my explanatory note about the typo! I didn’t get the job (which was for the best), but I didn’t dare speculate why.
Then there was the time when I finally scored a long sought-after meeting with the executive director of a non-profit organization supporting women that was, at that point, by far my number one choice of employer. I studied the website inside and out, I made enquiries to third parties about the organization, I thought about contributions I could make. When I finally arrived at the meeting, I felt excited and prepared. But sitting down in the board room with the ED, I suddenly realized…I could smell my own nail polish. In a last dash to add some, well, polish to my look, I had slapped on a coat of quick-dry, blood red nail polish. But oooooh nooooo! The acrylic smell was radiating from me–or so I feared, in the middle of this otherwise fairly seamless conversation. (In that instance, there was no job currently on offer–the meeting was sort of a “get to know you” as a result of a mutual acquaintance passing on my resume. Still, I’ll never know if my nail polish would have lost me a job there!).
I also had a few moments in which I probably appeared to be not unlike a desparate dater out at a speed dating event. There was one particular conference that I attended for the purpose of networking–and yet I completely failed to adhere to my own advice about networking. Instead of just chatting with people, getting to know their work, and finding ways that I could help them, I actually would introduce myself to people as a job hunter. There are times when I’m convinced this is the right thing to do, but there are other times when it displays a lack of confidence. I left that event feeling like I had made few genuine contacts–the kind that actually count when you’re trying to network in an effective way.
But I do have one more anecdote that is meant to show you that, even when you do slightly inappropriate things during your job search, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doomed. I had had my eye on the organization that eventually hired me for a little while, and I was aware that they were going to be represented at a health-based trade show. I decided to get media accreditation for the trade show (thanks, blogging!) and use that as an opportunity to schmooze with the women from the organization.
So I did just that. I got my media credentials, I went to the trade show, I found the booth where this organization was stationed. Then I walked up to them and…started talking nonsense. I had not prepared in advance what I was going to say, or how I should introduce myself, or how I should actually leverage that opportunity. Instead, I just blundered in with my big ol’ personality, and left feel a little sheepish.
As it turned out, of course, it was handy to be able to mention in my cover letter, which I wrote a week or two later, that I had met the hiring manager at the trade show. Moreover, my big ol’ personality was not something that detracted from my candidacy, but actually strengthened it.
Tagged as:
mistakes,
networking
Earlier this week, I organized another installment of the Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup. It was a great meeting, with new people and a lot of wonderful energy. The theme for this week was networking, and lots of folks had some great tips and techniques for strategies they had used to mobilize their own network. Here are some useful resources that folks shared:
Someone alerted us to Donna Messer, a networking queen who actually does have a lot of good insights into networking.
Whoa, talking about networking: for those of you on the academic job hunt, are you aware of academia.edu, which someone at the meeting described quite accurately as “Facebook for academics”?
Are you still wondering how to maximize LinkedIn in your job search? Here’s a nifty little video that will explain it all.
And then there’s the piece I wrote about my recursive networking process over at Inside Higher Ed.
And wow, why had I not yet encountered MITACS, an organization that links business, government and non-profits with universities “to develop cutting-edge tools to support the growth of our knowledge-based economy.” It actually has post-doc internship programs in industry–wow (I’m assuming, though, that this is limited to Canada–if you find out otherwise, intrepid Americans, let me know). It does seem mostly aimed at the science-y among us, but it seems there’s a wealth of info at the site for researchers of all stripes.
Moving away from networking, but totally worthy, is a little advice for those of you dreading telling your supervisor/PI that you’re planning on leaving academia.
And if you need even more post-academic advice, I just discovered Kate Duttro’s Career Change for Academics site.
And here’s a superfabulous former music psychologist turned writer-editor-blogger, Christine Koh (and one of these days I’ll post my interview with English-PhD-turned-blogger Anna Viele who writes over at ABDPBT).
Finally, one reader sent in this link about the “quarterlife crisis” phenomenon, which included this little zinger:
An obvious choice for panicking twentysomethings with a post-undergraduate sense of displacement and for the ones that aren’t fulfilled by their jobs is grad school. James, a 28-year-old student, says “Quarterlife crises are the reason that so many universities have turned lower-level graduate programs into a cash cow.” Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education. (He also has a Ph.D.) Scheer emphasizes making an informed choice. “Whether graduate school is a wise move depends on each individual student and what they want to study. Law school can be helpful, but mostly if a student can gain acceptance to a top-tier school. Getting a Ph.D. could be dangerous for some students, especially since Ph.D. graduation rates are obscenely low these days, and few tenure-track jobs are available. So it really depends.”
And, dovetailing what I wrote earlier this week,
Women also find themselves conflicted, usually more than men, about the trajectory of their twenties as they relate to relationships. Sarah, who is 27 and works at a non-profit, wants to travel and get a master’s degree, but feels conflicted about doing either. “I want to have kids, and every day that goes by, I have this number in my head. It’s 32. It used to be 30. That’s only a few years from now. I’m thinking, if I don’t do some of this stuff now, before I have kids, am I going to be able to do it?” Women are roundly considered to be in biologically ideal form for baby-making in their twenties and early thirties, which are also prime fun-having and career-building years. For women who want all of the things promised by (theoretically) equal education, work and sex lives, the conflict of desires can be catastrophic.
Tagged as:
networking
I’ve got a few things I want to draw to the attention of Leaving Academia readers, so it’s a link-roundup kinda Friday.
- Canadians: are you aware that the federal government has re-opened their post-secondary recruitment campaign? Most job ads close October 8th, so you’ve got a week to whip your application together.
- Thanks to @jovanevery’s introduction on Twitter, I’ve found out about the very busy Raul Pacheco-Vega (that’s @raulpacheco in Twitter-speak). I haven’t had a chance to talk much with Raul, but I thought you should know about him because he has managed to bridge the divide between scholarly research and consulting. And no, he’s not a computer guy. Water is his thing.
- I’ve also been thinking about this piece over here at The Ladders which claims that “men have stronger professional networks than women.” This is based on research by two American sociologists who found that
“both men and women tend to build networks comprising people of their own gender — a process known scientifically as homophily and colloquially as “birds of a feather flock together.” But women tend to recognize the tendency and try to overcome it — building networks made up of about 50 percent men — while men’s networks included very few women, Torres said.
“According to Torres’ and Huffman’s theory of social networking: Because men hold 80 percent of the jobs in senior management (a figure that has been steadily declining), they are more likely to hear about job openings at the senior-management level. Men pass the news on to their mostly male social networks, and it is likely that news about the job opening reaches women only after it has reached and passed several men.”
And sociologist William Bielby adds:
“Women have tended to be better connected overall, but they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more female-dominated jobs,” Bielby said. “So their networks may be wider but not reach to as high a level as men’s, who tend to be better connected, particularly in getting professional news, to more high-status people.”
Hmmm. Something to think about when you’re cultivating your networks. The advice the article supplies in response to this problem?
“If women want to equal the effectiveness of male social networks, they need to emulate the men in those networks, said Torres. If male-dominated professional networks are passing jobs leads to other men before women, women should put themselves in the path of those leads, Bielby said. Women must add more men — especially high-status men — to their professional networks. Furthermore, they need to make their interests and competencies as clear as possible, he said.”
Tagged as:
consulting,
jobs,
networking,
roundup
Earlier this week, I was checking out the new site redesign at Brazen Careerist (and if you haven’t checked out this great resource lately, hop to it now). While there, I saw the headline for a member’s blog post called something like “How to job search when your computer is broken,” or something to that effect. I clicked to see the post because, naively, I assumed it was going to be a piece on networking (and as it happens, I’ve been not only doing a lot of networking myself lately, but I’m trying to organize something on that very topic for our next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup).
As it turned out, the post suggested activities like, “If your wireless is down, you can still search for jobs in newspaper classifieds,” and “Write letters to companies you might want to work for.” Huh? What about, um, say, talking to actual live human beings, some of whom you may already know!
Networking is not a mysterious activity; it’s also not a sleazy activity. Networking is about relationships. It’s not about begging or cringing while you ask for a job lead (in fact, asking for a job lead is probably the last thing you should be doing while you’re networking). It’s about information gathering and relationship cultivation. Probably one of the simplest, most straightforward pieces I’ve read lately validates what I often tell my clients: talk to everyone you know about the fact that you’re looking to change careers, including your hairdresser, your dog walker, the concierge of your building, and, as the article says, your grandma. Sure, you may not want a job as a hairdresser, a dogwalker, a concierge or…a grandma. But those people all know people, and following the trail of people is partly what networking is about.
But don’t forget that networking isn’t just a one-way street, of squeezing information out from people about job prospects. It’s also about finding out what other people need and want. As researchers, we’re trained to look for gaps — so start using that skill in your everyday life. Is your hairdresser him/herself looking for a dogwalker? Hook him/her up with yours. Is your concierge looking for a a hairdresser? You get the idea.
I’m going to post again about my own networking activities as of late to give you a bit of an illustration about what I mean. In the meantime, I’m going to spend a little more quality time with my computer before I head out to engage with some real, live human beings.
Tagged as:
networking
I have a client (we’re going to call her Eleanor Kaye) who is trained as a sociologist. Eleanor recently told me about an old sociological study on networking and job hunting. She offered to write a guest post about the study, knowing that it would be of interest to the readers here at Leaving Academia. Here it is–both the research and Eleanor’s own life experience illustrating the research!
We’ve all heard the cynical expression, “it’s who you know” when it comes to looking for a job. But in the 1970s, US sociologist Mark Granovetter conducted a social networking study and found that, counterintuitively, people didn’t necessarily get jobs through a close friend or family member–they got them through a contact that was more remote, a “weak tie” in soc-speak.
Granovetter’s explanation for his “strength of weak ties” argument is straightforward enough: the people we are closest to, the friends and family we consider part of our everyday social network, tend to know the same kinds of things (notice how your friends are, overall, more similar than different from one another). People we don’t know that well, those we may just call acquaintances, are more closely tied to other networks–so they know different things, have different connections. An acquaintance can be a kind of bridge to another network of unexpected information and resources.
Whether you consider someone an “acquaintance” or not, the fact is that anyone you don’t know that well is a person who is connected to other people you don’t know, who know things and other people you don’t know, and so on.
Many years ago, in sheer desperation, I worked at a call centre where my only work tools were a heavy, black, rotary-dial telephone, and a dirty phone book. I sat at a makeshift desk (a slab of plywood balanced on sawhorses) and made cold calls from the phonebook, trying to be heard over the din of the other callers. One morning, the two young men who worked on either side of me were talking past me to each other, in hushed tones, about their parole officers. I knew there was something seriously wrong with this picture.
One of the places I called that day was a small non-profit agency. When I asked to speak to the person in charge, in order to make my sales pitch, I was told that she was busy… conducting job interviews. I politely asked about the job and before I was caught in this inappropriate chat mode by the beady-eyed call centre bossman, I got the specifics and during my lunch break I rushed over there with my resume. I was interviewed the next day and got the job–needless to say, it was a much better job and I learned a whole new set of skills while there. This is perhaps an extreme example of the strength of weak ties, but you get the point.
This weak tie theory has practical applications for more than just job-getting.
When I first moved to Toronto in 2000, to start my PhD, the rental vacancy rate hovered close to zero and the apartments that were available were ridiculously overpriced (”no thanks, I don’t think that having the bathtub in my bedroom should be considered a ‘feature’!”). I began to panic. Would I have to cancel my acceptance and return to the coast? In desperation I began to talk to everyone I met about my situation. To my partner’s embarrassment, I literally stopped people on the street to ask them if they had any leads on a decent apartment. One morning I asked the woman who ran a nearby convenience store if she knew of anyone with an apartment for rent. She said that in fact she did. A man had come in earlier that morning to buy some milk and told her he’d just finished renovating an apartment and hadn’t yet advertised it for rent. We moved in a few days later and stayed for three years.
If you think of all the jobs you’ve had, you will probably find that quite a number of them were found this way–through the strength of weak ties. While we may be tempted to write off this research as more sociology-of-the-obvious, what we can take from it is this: talk to everyone you meet about what you are doing and what you want. Encourage them to do the same with you (this reciprocity idea is mine!). You simply do not know, and really should not assume, what someone else knows or doesn’t, and who they might know. If in fact it is a small world after all, it’s only because we talk to each other and pass along our stories and insights… or in this case, job leads.
But let’s face it–it’s not just about the strength of weak ties. It’s also about recognizing these opportunities, screwing up our courage and proceeding with chutzpa!
Tagged as:
networking,
research
I’ve got a fresh batch of linky goodness for you this week, all related to your professional development:
- Have you heard about The Ladders? It’s kind of like Monster.com, but for $100,000+ jobs. I know, I know–you’re thinking there’s no point in job searching on a site like that, partly because you feel so underqualified but also because you don’t have a sleazy job in some corporation just because you’d make the big bucks (or would you? Hmm!). If you take a moment to sign up, though, you’ll find there is a lot of useful, free information aimed a professionals (and guess what? Even if you don’t feel like one, you’re going to market yourself like one). For example, I thought of you guys when I saw this article on the elusive “hidden job market.” It’s a very brief and to-the-point how-to on networking your butt into your next job.
- I know how some of you have slightly icky feelings about turning from academia to the corporate sector. You’re not sure if you can play the corporate game, and if you’re going to have expectations imposed on you that you may not be able to cope with. My friend Jamie Ridler is offering a workshop called Authentic Professionalism, which is precisely oriented for those of you who aren’t sure how to work in a private sector context but still be yourself.
- A client sent me a link to a site called Squawkfox. When you first get there, it looks slightly busy with all of those ads and the “everything but the kitchen sink” nature of it. The aim of the site, actually, is to provide information about frugal living (kitchen sink, like I said). However, there is an avalanche of really solid information about resume-writing. It’s not specifically on converting a CV to a resume, but if you start at the begining of her series, you’ll find links to tips on jop hunting, doing a skills inventory and probably one of the best top-10 lists on networking that I’ve ever read.
What online resources have you found helpful in your post-academic travels? Leave a comment and let us know!
Tagged as:
networking,
professional development
