Advancement
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A few years ago, I spoke with a man (now retired) who had worked in a large corporation for forty years and in his last twenty years, he basically did nothing. He was paid very well and was more or less forgotten—doing very little of anything. He would show up at the office at 9:00 a.m. each day, try to look busy—do a task now and then—and then get in his car at 5:30 p.m. each evening and drive home. When he finally retired from the company, he felt as if he had achieved a great victory. For the past twenty years, his friend (who had risen very high in the company) had protected the man and made sure he kept his job—despite the fact that the guy was doing next to nothing and was of very little use to the company whatsoever.
This story may sound a little odd, but in virtually every company, there are people working in jobs who are not needed. There are people working in jobs where they may be grossly overpaid. There are people who are not carrying their weight. There are people who simply have very little utility to the company at all but, for whatever reason, are kept in the jobs they are in due to some connection, emotional attachment, or other safety net they have created.
Hiring, interviewing, continued employment, and your entire career are largely emotional areas. Most people believe that hiring and the job market are ”professional” and ”rational”—I believe nothing could be further from the truth. Probably 50% of the people in any company do not belong there, the company could do without them, or the company could do their jobs cheaper with someone else. If this sounds a little offensive to you, then I apologize. What I want you to understand is the value of having emotional connections in your job. Without these emotional connections, you will be much worse off than with them.
In one law firm I worked at, I remember an entire group of attorneys were kicked out of a block of hotel rooms because one of the attorneys had thrown a woman he had met out of his room naked and proceeded to call her a bunch of names. Incredibly, this guy was not fired, nor was he even disciplined by the firm. He was friends with several attorneys and no one really seemed to care. If the relationship had been ”professional,” he would have gotten in a lot of trouble. I saw other attorneys fired or asked to leave the same firm for much more minor offenses. However, when an attorney like this is fired, he or she generally does not have an emotional connection to the firm.
In every industry I am aware of, when layoffs occur and when people are fired, generally the first to go are those who do not have an emotional connection to the organization. If that is you, you are making a huge mistake. Regardless of how professional you are, the odds are that you are setting yourself up for problems later on.
Holiday parties are a perfect example. An invitation to an event at your boss’s house is another. I used to be uncomfortable with these sorts of things—in fact, I often dreaded them because I felt instinctively they were so important and did not want to screw up. Nevertheless, I always went and am glad I did—the relationships I made were very beneficial to me.
The holiday party, invitations to spend time with your boss outside of work, and other similar occasions are extremely important because they are a chance to form an emotional connection with the people you are working with. This connection is arguably more important than the professional connection. The emotional connection will take you farther and will last longer than any other sort of connection. Avoid holiday parties and other occasions to form emotional connections with your coworkers and superiors at your own risk.
Most hiring is motivated by some sort of emotional need on the employer’s part. When you go to interview at any job, the most important thing you can do is find out why the employer really wants to hire you. You may get some sense of this in the advertisement you respond to—or from your recruiter—but you are only going to truly understand why the employer wants to hire you when you get into the interview and are able to feel comfortable with the interviewer—and uncover the employer’s emotional reasons for wanting to hire you.
Most people go into interviews concerned mainly about themselves.
All of these are valid worries (and may be important to the employer) but none of them are as important as the emotional motivation behind the employer’s hiring you.
Emotion is often irrational, and employers often hire people for irrational reasons. In fact, our entire economy runs on irrationality. This may seem like a bold statement, but look at it this way:
In virtually every news story I have read about when unemployment is high, something is always mentioned about how companies and other organizations are “doing more with fewer people.” Many of the stories mention things like companies doing just as much business (yet being more profitable) with 25% of the workforce.
More recently, news stories have mentioned ”record corporate profits” because companies have staffed down and are doing the same amount of work with fewer employees in response to recessionary conditions.
This indicates to me that something else is going on when employers are in hiring mode. A rational and unemotional organization would only hire as many people as it needs to do the work. It would not hire more people than it needs to do the work—and it certainly would not hire four times as many people as it needs to do the work.
There is, of course, the need for extra employees in case someone leaves. There is the need to make sure people are not overworked. But there is absolutely no reason for any company to have four times as many employees as it needs to do the work. (Forget about four times as many employees … there is no reason to have 25% more employees than is needed to do the work.)
Overstaffing is a complete waste of any organization’s money and resources. If this is the case, what is going on?
Hiring becomes more of an emotional function for many employers than a rational and business-oriented function.
For a few years, in my own company, we had a man who was consistently working massive amounts of overtime. It got to be so that his overtime was so excessive, I spoke with his supervisor and told him that overtime had to stop. Then I spoke with his supervisor again. Then I spoke with him again. Then I spoke with him again. This went on for more than a year. Finally, I told the supervisor that if the overtime did not stop, I would fire the guy working overtime.
To my astonishment, the supervisor said: ”Boss, he has three kids to feed and a house. You need to let him work overtime.”
The supervisor was telling me, essentially, that his emotional connection to the employee overrode the company’s more pragmatic and business-oriented reasons (saving costs) for limiting his hours.
I could list countless examples of these sorts of emotional connections and how they come into play in the workplace. There are so many emotional connections that virtually every company is far more inefficient than it should be.
If you are smart, you should realize that these emotional connections and emotional alliances are almost as important as your professional performance at work. These emotional connections are important in your getting and keeping a job and just about everything you do in your professional life.
Make the most of your emotional connection and realize that emotion is the dominant force in most professional settings.
Read More About Always Try and Accept Invitations to Spend Time Outside of Work With Colleagues:
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.
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Tagged: apply for a job, attorney jobs, attorney search, career advice, economic climates, emotional connections, holiday party, job blog | a harrison barnes, job markets, job search, legal career, legal jobs, legal profession, new jobs, past jobs
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Do not be distracted by your insecurities and doubts, or you will never achieve success because you will not allow it to happen. Focus only on the message about your skills and capabilities. Identify your goals and create a gameplan, and fill your mind with positive and hopeful messages that will drive you towards said goal.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
In this article Harrison discusses how people who stand for something always do better than those who do not. Companies who stand for something always do better than companies who do not. The most successful companies not only stand for something, but they are completely consistent with their core principles. This is what keeps them going and this is what makes them successful. One of the largest problems that people have in their careers is when they diverge from what they are good at. When you do not stand for something, you divert from your true strength. Everything begins to crumble and slowly fall apart when you are not doing something that you are really good at. The biggest success comes when you stand for something and are good at it.
Companies necessarily seek to employ positive, forward-minded people. A firm’s success depends on their employees, and they seek people who will enhance them rather than merely contribute to the bottom line. People with positive natures, who contribute to a healthy social environment, prove essential to the growth and success of their employers.
In this article Harrison discusses that the meaning you give to things will control the quality of your life. How we feel about ourselves is all due to what we tell ourselves certain things will mean. The meaning you give things is crucial for your career success. You need to choose meanings that make you stronger. You need to ensure you interpret things in a way that serves you and does not hurt you. You need to reach your full potential. Don’t classify yourself as someone who is not fit to succeed at the level at which you’re capable. You need to take charge of your mind to have the career and the life that you deserve.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of ‘energy’ over technical skills. When people are hiring you they are purchasing your “energy” more than they are purchasing your technical skills. They are interested in your ability to influence the world around you through your energy. When you are marketing yourself and seeking a job, or working in a job, there are essentially two things you are marketing. You are marketing your technical skills, but more importantly you are marketing an intangible sort of energy. The most successful people have mastered the art of projecting positive energy. The better your energy, the more employable you will be and the farther you will go.
You can never become too comfortable if you wish to be successful. Your success will largely depend on your ability to become dissatisfied with your current position. Successful people are never satisfied with the status quo, and constantly push beyond their comfort zone. When do you this and succeed, you set a new standard for normality in your life. Be continually dissatisfied, and always pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
Resourcefulness can make you better at everything you do, and separates the truly extraordinary people from the general herd. Do everything within your power to be resourceful in your job search, life, and career to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your goals, and learn how to employ the resources currently at your disposal for maximum impact.
The most successful people in the world share the common characteristic of sharing, or concentrating on the value that they give back to others rather than on their own growth and profit. Focusing on yourself never leads to long-term success, but leads instead to unhappiness as well as emotional and financial challenges. Your greatest consideration, therefore, should be how you can contribute to others, and how your actions can impact their lives.
The best way to attain your goal is through small, incremental steps on which you can build. Establish a routine, and make sure you are consistently working towards some kind of goal. Start small, and always build upon what you have done before. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they believe everything should happen quickly and at the same time, instead of progressively building upon their past achievements.
Make sure that you are involved in groups that focus on positive things. Your success in life depends on your ability to focus on the outcomes you want, and the focus of the groups with which you associate will in turn shape your own focus. You must endeavor to always choose groups with a positive focus.
Everything you do is a form of preparation for your job interviews, as you are always under some form of scrutiny. The best employees can always spot other good employees, and you cannot “fake it”; merely doing a good job in your work is a form of interview preparation. Always put your all into your work, therefore, even if you do not have long-term plans to remain at your current employment. Switch jobs as infrequently as possible. The time to prepare for a job search is before you even realize that you need to do so.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
When myriad candidates are applying to limited positions, practicing unusual tactics in your job hunt will prove far more helpful than following the established routine and waiting for positions to come to you. Much like in military strategy, well-planned and unconventional moves can help you conquer your goals without suffering significant losses. You can land an excellent position by focusing on companies’ needs, rather than depending on job and recruiting advertisements.
You can change your life forever by harnessing the power of persistence. Think about the people in your life, and whether they empower you or hinder you in achieving your goals. You must win at all costs, and persist until you succeed.
You need to provide people what they want, otherwise you will not have a job. Although they might not always be the most desirable kinds of jobs, certain jobs always exist because they provide services that people will always require. The only secret to continual employment is to provide a service that people always need; if you do this, and nothing else, you will always find yourself employed. Give people what they want.
Your ability to help people will determine the extent of your success; the more powerful and effective your help, the greater rewards you will receive. One of the rarest and most profound achievements is to follow through on your goals and create a paradigm-shifting idea. The more revolutionary your work, the more people you will affect and the more memorable of a career you will have.
You will greatly benefit your career by helping and promoting your company’s expansion. A common belief is that expansion is fundamentally positive, and a lack of expansion is fundamentally negative. You must be on the side of expansion rather than contraction in every area of your life. All employers seek people who will help them expand, and the more your ability to contribute to this expansion will provide you increased job security and a greater likelihood of being hired.
The ability to fit into your work environment is among the most important parts of obtaining and retaining a job, even more so than your skill level. Fitting in means nothing more than being comfortable in one’s work environment, and making others similarly comfortable. Employers want to hire people who will embrace their approach to business and the world on physical and moral levels, so you must strive to fit in with their worldview.
Focus on what you are doing, not what others around you are doing. There are people to take action towards their goals, and then there people who sit on the sidelines and comment on the first group of people. People who are mostly interested in gossip and watching others usually lack the confidence and determination to take action themselves. The most successful people go account and accomplish things rather than sit back and watch others make things happen.
In this article, Harrison advises you to live the lives you wish to have, do the jobs you want to do, and basically live your dreams to your best possible ability. Life is fleeting and no one knows what tomorrow holds. So Harrison puts forward certain questions – when are you going to start living the life you want and when are you going to take charge of your life. The time to have the career you want is right now, not tomorrow, and not later. You need to take charge of your career and life and no one else is going to do it for you. Your entire life and the quality of it is a product of your decisions. You can have, do, or be anything you want. Do not create alibis for making comprises in life. What separates the best and the happiest people is the ability to stop to making excuses and Harrison wants you to be this person.
Anyone can be up when things are going well, but the real challenge comes when things are not. Do not look at problems, which are inevitable for any person or business, in a negative light; think of them instead as challenges, lessons, or opportunities. There is a silver lining to be found in every problem, and finding that silver lining will enable you to grow.
Understanding what you do for a living is very important for your career. You should understand the generality of your specific profession. You and your career are a product. You need to know where and how to market yourself in the best way possible. You need to be relevant and understand the skills you are offering. Being a relevant product is essential for your success. It’s easy to be relevant when you understand what you are doing and what purpose you serve. Being relevant is more than just getting a job. Being relevant also relates to serving the employers with the skills they need. You need to understand your market and what your customers want. This is the way to stay employed, and it is also the means to continual improvement.
Things will not always go the way that you want them to go, so you must not be discouraged by adversity in your job hunt. When you persist and consistently put forth your best effort, things are much more likely to go in your favor. Also, you must resist others’ efforts to undermine your efforts and potential; focus instead on doing everything in your power to fight on and complete the task at hand.
Having a goal or vision will propel you towards greater career success and happiness. Without a purpose, you will find yourself depressed and ultimately fail to achieve your goals. Do not subscribe to the unrealistic problem that you should never have problems, but instead regard problems as part of your overall growth strategy.
Don’t ever give up, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Take chances and invest in your best skills, and persist in the face of unfortunate events. Have faith in your considerable work and capabilities, and use them to create value for others.
In this article Harrison discusses what a good hiring manager should look for. Many people who make hiring decisions really do not know what they are doing. In fact, they often make mistakes when hiring. They put too much emphasis on skills and experience. But the single most important aspect of hiring is evaluating the person’s unique outlook on the world. If the person does not have a positive outlook on the world, he/she will bring down the morale of the other workers. The person will harm the company through the negative outlook. The key to success is having the power to stick it out in jobs and finding happiness wherever you are. Hiring people who do good work and are always able to find happiness should be the number one objective of hiring managers.
To reach the goals to which you aspire, you must compare yourself with people superior to you for motivation. Most people prefer to look at life the way they wish it to be, rather than as it truly is. Move out of your comfort zones and face reality. Don’t seek out or compare yourself with the average people around you, as doing so will only mire you in mediocrity rather than push you forward.
You can better market yourself by taking a stand against something. Peoples’ personal beliefs, including the things with which they do not agree, define who they are as people. Standing against something differentiates you from the crowd; when done in the correct manner, without disrespecting others’ opinions, such a stance can help you land your dream job.
Maintaining a routine in both life and work is important to success. Not only do you need to establish a routine, you must make that routine demanding and push yourself to the limit. Budget a certain amount of time each week for networking, applying to jobs, brushing up your interview skills, and following up with employers. Such consistent effort on a daily basis will make a huge difference to your career success.
A recommendation from a powerful person can make a huge difference in your job search; a reference from an influential person makes a tremendous difference to a prospective employer, and thus can be a major advantage for you. When an important person whom the company trusts recommends you, you instantly qualify for positions that may previously have been unattainable. Make the absolute most of your connections with the powerful people in your life, because doing so can instantaneously change your career and life.
You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.
Recent immigrants exemplify the benefits of willpower, passion, and excitement in the way that they work so much harder for their goals than the people who have been here for most or all of their lives. Like most Americans, you need to rekindle the spirit of your immigrant ancestors and become hungry for what you want. The entrepreneurial spirit that brought people to America has often faded over time; adopt the fire and work ethic of new immigrants in order to achieve your goals.
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Most supervisors are stupid. But they are cunning and sly, and bear considerable watching.
Supervisors are drunk on their own power, and don’t give a rat’s ass about the company, only their own “bed”. As long as they are in charge, they will do what they damn well please and to hell with the firm and the employees.
Very interesting post. As a professional resume writer and career coach, I work with job seekers all of the time. Just today, I spoke with a past client of mine who works virtually. He is a national sales manager an he admitted to me that he feels like he is on a island. His company is going though some changes and he is not as connected to the company and to the leadership as he should be, even though he is at the tops in sales. Me and my client both know that if things get shaken up, his lack of an emotional connection could cost him his job. This was a great read! Thanks, Harrison.
Great post, as always. But, as a business owner (and professional), I still would have had to fire the overtime worker. Or at least put him on notice, if the supervisor hadn’t (as was his responsibility), and then fired the supervisor. I have a bottom line to take care of, and if I can’t stay liquid, then all of those OTHER employees can’t feed their kids or pay their mortgages. And neither can I.
Employees can’t make business decisions for the boss. That’s a bad precedent – but a great way to go bankrupt.
Better way to handle this: supervisor tells employee he can’t work overtime. Employee needs more money. He comes to BOSS to either (a) negotiate promotion, (b) negotiate raise in salary, (c) say that he will be moonlighting with second job (we’ve all done it), or (d) say thank you for the time at the company, and give day of departure.
Kind regards,
Alexandra
Interesting post that expounds beyond the original premise but with a good point and purpose. If only more pieces were this well written.