When you have the wrong perspective on things, life becomes difficult for “no apparent reason.”
For instance, take this image and ask yourself, are the lines straight or curved?
Curved, right?
Wrong.
It’s an optical illusion. I didn’t believe it, either, until I recreated the image in Excel. (I’ve left some contextual clues in this one so you can see for yourself—I did this simply by changing the width of certain columns and rows, and then filling them in with either white or black.) Here’s my version:
Now, if you had to make critical decisions based on the shape of those lines, and all you had was that first image—without any idea that it was an optical illusion—then you’d be, as they say, up a creek without a paddle.
Sure, you could measure the lines and determine the trick and work around it, but you probably wouldn’t get that far because—look at the image!—the lines are so obviously curved, it wouldn’t dawn on many people that they should waste their time. Of course, these people would be horribly mistaken, and any plans they made based on those lines being curved would fall apart.
And you know what they’d do then?
They’d yell, kick, scream, blame, and rant. They’d put more muscle into their work, redouble their efforts, and hone all the wrong skills. Even if it dawned on them that the lines might be straight, they’d still keep doing what they were doing, if for no other reason than to hedge their bets.
Which brings me to your career goals.
Your goals are based on an illusion. What you see as a linear, predictable “career path” is anything but. It’s actually a “career story,” with twists, turns, revelations, obstacles, victories, and subplots. And what’s more, for many of you, all those things are ahead of you.
The career illusion is the opposite of the above illusion: when it comes to your career, where you see straight, predictable processes, there is a twisty path at best. Indeed, at the moment, the future is nothing more than momentum, hope, and intention… hardly the stuff predictable process are made of!
In nearly every executive assessment I’ve ever done, I’ve found an inflection point in the person’s career—a moment in time when things changed, however subtly, in a significant and permanent way. And save for the rare case, that inflection point came as a surprise, recognized only in hindsight, if at all.
So when I hear Millennials—or indeed, anyone with a “doer” mindset—talking about their career goals as these Definitive Things They Intend to Have, Things That Will Be because Someone Has Decided They Shall Be, it sort of makes me want to laugh, but more than that, it makes me want to cry.
This faulty mentality gives rise to things that are asinine and not actually helpful to achieving your goals. It keeps people from getting the very things they want, whether they are one the job or looking for one.
Case in point: Ask a Manager just launched an email generator that gives whatfor to hiring managers who don’t call you to tell you that you aren’t getting the job. It’s funny, sure, but it’s also dangerously unhelpful.
Here’s the breakdown:
In illusion-land, an email telling the hirer off seems great. It appears to be the natural next step in a linear process: there’s a job, I interview for it, I get it or I don’t. Either way, I should get a call. And if I don’t get a call? Then you get an email! You were rude, and you deserve what’s coming!
In reality-land, things look a lot different. For starters, there’s no linear process. That job I interview for is available based on your current projections of future needs… and with the world in flux, who knows how good those projections are? Your company is doing the best it can with the information it has, which is to say, you’ve been put in a tough spot of anticipating how to fill your needs with imperfect information. Next, there’s the rudeness factor. To you as a hiring manager, six months will go by in the blink of an eye. (Ask any consultant or business services sales person about their typical sales cycle—you’ll hear stories of business they thought disappeared and how it seemingly came back after months of radio silence… and how the prospect was genuinely surprised to learn how much time had passed since their last conversation.) Obviously, to me the job seeker, six weeks can be an eternity, let alone six months. Should you be more empathetic to my situation? Absolutely. Do I benefit at all from bitch-slapping you for being unaware or unappreciative of my situation?
Well, do I?
Are you feeling more generous about my candidacy now that I’ve bitch-slapped you for being rude? Or is your body just a little more tense now than it was a few sentences ago? I bet you’re breathing just a touch harder than you were 5 sentences ago, and some part of your mind is preparing to tell me that I’m in no position to bitch-slap you at all.
Is that really the impression you want to make on anyone, let alone someone in a position of relative power at a company you want to work for?
In simple terms, whether getting a job or growing a job, the illusion is that, to a candidate/grunt/employee, things look linear and therefore subject to closure. But from the non-linear perspective, there is no opportunity for closure because nothing is fixed… there are twists and turns and surprises that are as-of-yet unkown.
Oh, and one more thing—and this is important:
The more the someone cries about how right s/he is, and how much s/he is entitled to closure/information/opportunity, the more you look at him, or her, and think, “If you can’t read between the lines to piece together the information you need, then I don’t want you on my team. I want teammates willing to use their brains to put 2+2 together… not people who need everything little thing spelled out.”
Greenies, your sense of fair and expectation for closure are functions of your perspective… and your perspective is incomplete, based on an illusory understanding of the world you live in.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I appreciate hearing your thoughts! But did you look at the actual email that gets sent? It’s not rude, it’s not telling anyone off, it’s not a bitch-slap.
I really do think it’s BS that interviewers display a lack of regard for the time many interviewers put in; it takes me 10 seconds to send an email letting a candidate know I’m not longer considering them for a position.
Working for a global brand and corporation, we see this actual behavior more than we’d like to admit. It tends to leave not only a sour taste in the hiring managers mouth but puts the recruiting team in a tough spot as well.
Best example was a candidate who was referred to me via a connection on LinkedIn and he then in turn started to stalk me. He also called into the switchboard and socially engineered the name of one of the senior directors. He wanted to prove that he was the “right” candidate for the marketing role and bombarded us with analysis and reports that were not only bad, but just plain awful. The kicker, he thought that this would help his candidacy, and it didn’t.
His best bonehead move was when he sent the recruiting team and the senior director an “Angry Gram”. Apparently he didn’t understand the concepts behind the web app and the funny marketing behind the tool. We finally had to tell him directly via a terse phone call to stop.
He didn’t see it, but he was a overaggressive, annoying, tool.
That’s interesting to hear because we’re told in school that the more creative and unique you are, the more likely people are to notice. Case in point: a girl I went to high school with applied to Harvard and was rejected. She proceeded to send a rejection letter to Harvard saying she didn’t want to attend their silly school anyway. They were so impressed by her “creative” response, that they put her on the accepted students list. Crazy.
As a Millennial, I don’t think I have an inflamed ego or that sense of entitlement that older generations say my generation has. But I do think we’re taught to have it. Like if we work hard enough, we DESERVE reward. Well, sometimes that’s just not the case. Sometimes you work hard and you still don’t get the job. Two years ago I thought I’d graduate college and land a great job with a magazine just because I worked my butt off and got great grades my entire life. Well, other than because the industry took a nose dive, I didn’t get any of the internships for which I applied and, a year later, applied for dozens of jobs and still didn’t get anything. So I sucked it up, stayed with my internship for 14 months and waited until it was my turn. No creative “bitch slaps” to my superiors. Or Angry Grams.
Just patience.
Millennials should read this article and take notes. Serious notes.
@AskaManager—The language on the note is irrelevant… the very act of sending it is the bitch-slap!
My 6 yo daughter appears in some of my vlog entries (including the one on indirect feedback). She knows when she’s done a good job on camera merely by whether or not I ask her to do another take. It doesn’t matter how nicely I ask for a retake, the request itself signals the quality of her performance. Ditto your email. It calls the hirer’s attention to the process, and your displeasure with it. The note could read “pretty please, with a cherry on top,” it wouldn’t matter. And if you re-read your recent posts about interviewing etiquette, along with the tone of the comments, I think you’ll have a hard time defending the assertion that the intent behind the email is anything BUT to offer your readers a (n admittedly clever and funny) way to bitch-slap a “rude” hirer.
@Johnny—I see this constantly, not just with candidates, but with employees, too, who grossly overestimate their abilities and then run into problems when a boss holds them (dare I say it) accountable for better results. For more on this topic, see my article on the Law of Ignorance.
@Ashley—The problem with creative is that no one talks about the missing ingredient: the person trying to pull it off. We like to take charisma off the table and pretend it’s not a factor in life, but tough nuts, it is, and it is in a big way. Give 3 people the same joke to tell, and one will pull it off, one will come across as inept, and one will offend the audience. Same joke—all that changed was the person delivering it.
To understand why a creative strategy works one moment and not the next, you need to understand the the people involved. You need information about the person who did it, the person who received it, the relationship those two had, mutual friends they might have had, conversations they may have had to set up the creative event—everything. Because all that stuff matters!
If you have even the slightest doubt about your ability to pull off a stunt like that, skip it.
Eh, I disagree. It’s polite and it offers candidates a chance to get something said that they can’t say themselves without burning bridges (hence the anonymity of the note). But thanks for weighing in. Obviously everyone doesn’t like everything!
@AskaManager—Your email, if sent, will through a pall over all recent candidates interviewed. It will make the interviewer wonder which one of those candidates was the coward who sent it.
And cowardice is never polite.
This isn’t about weighing in on something you did, it’s about protecting the people you are setting up to get hurt by helping them develop the skills to handle the situation the right way.
I think the interviewer behavior is indefensible and it’s a message worth delivering to them. But we can agree to disagree!
My goal is to rule the world, so I don’t get stuck on a particular 1-2-3 path. And since I’m not aware of anyone who can just hand it to me, I’m not waiting for deliverance either.
As for the anonymous email: just ask yourself what the purpose of sending it is. Nobody ‘deserves’ a response. It’d be nice to have concrete closure but the world is often ambiguous. Don’t think about ‘deserve’, think about what is going to get you what you want. Deserve and should are words that are overused.
As for the rudeness of companies not giving the response: some don’t have the processes in place to respond to all interviewers let alone applicants. Many companies get all their applications by paper (or fax) and don’t have the admin resources to enter all the info into a database for a merge letter.
If you interviewed 20 people for a warehouse job, are so completely swamped that it makes no sense to prioritize the data entry to get response letters out to non-selects, and then remember 2 months later when you do have the opportunity, do you still send the letter? Maybe, but it also makes sense to assume they’ve figured it out by then.
It’s a tough thing to say whether it’s a rude letter or not. The content of the letter is not rude at all. Whereas the act of sending the letter does not take into consideration the situation of the interviewer.
For example, I’m a Marketing Manager however due to the ineffectiveness of my company which is based in another country, me and my General Manager are the ones who are left to interview in the local country.
I short-listed roughly 100 interviewee’s from a pool of 500 to 600 horrid resumes and we interviewed them and we told them we’d contact them after 3 or 4 weeks with a response. Unfortunately, it’s been a few months and because of our corporate office still “deciding” on the issues of salaries and qualifications required, we can’t possibly tell any of the interviewed candidates yes or no. We’re not doing it out of rudeness, but the situation is as Jason described… months fly by.