Strategy #40: Win The Workplace Game

No matter who you are or what the specifics of your job might be, your work will inevitably feature ups and downs, good days and bad days, elements of fulfilment and frustration – with more of the former than the latter if you’re lucky. So, the obvious question to ask is this: is there a way of making sure that you get more positives than negatives in the long run, despite the inevitable hassles that come everyone’s way?

Incorporating a success strategy into everything that comes with your job, and one that's effective over an entire working life, is the challenge of winning the workplace game. So long as you understand the rules of play, I think this is simple to achieve and I want to offer you some ideas on how to do it.     

I help people like you do better work - that’s the strapline I give my Vocation Master training programme, and it’s taken me until strategy #40 to address this overarching aim. Doing better work is a subjective judgement in some ways although there are plenty of objective measures too. Just look back at #5 of this series for more on this. What’s certain is that one person’s bad experience of doing a particular job is another person’s good experience and it’s this conundrum that creates the background to my suggestions here.  

Everything I cover in these strategy articles is about doing better work, and this process starts with finding a better job. There’s more to my Vocation Master programme than job-hunting advice, but it’s a major part of it because unless you do a job that’s absolutely right for you, and for an employer whose purpose and activities you wholeheartedly support, you’re in trouble.

You won’t be surprised to hear that I believe my job-search strategy is the best one you’ll find anywhere. I hope we’re on the same page but this will only happen if you agree with the criteria I use to design each part of it, and if you think I’ve done so successfully. Therefore, I’ll use this article to summarise my system and explain why it will inevitably lead you towards the best work you can possibly do.

By way of introduction, every training course I present (including the strategies you’re now following) starts off with an analysis of the problems connected with a conventional job search. It’s really important to grasp the challenges you face if you do things the way nearly every job hunter does them. Following a herd instinct might give you some comfort, knowing that around 95% of people are in your camp, but it’s a false security for a variety of reasons. That’s why I follow up on the problems with a range of solutions.

Here's an example of what I mean. The first problem is that you face massive competition from other job hunters if you do things the usual way. On average, 250 people submit applications for every openly-advertised corporate vacancy. With 249 losers and 1 winner, that represents a massive 99.6% failure rate. This encourages most job hunters to take a swing at any vaguely acceptable job opening in the hope that something will stick. This methodology means that the chances of finding the perfect position are slim, to put it mildly.

My strategy totally eliminates competition because you’re the sole applicant for the job. You get to design the role you want because you research and pitch yourself for a work opportunity with an employer who appeals to you, and entirely according to your unique skills and personal inclinations. You enjoy almost total agency over all of your decisions, one of the key criteria in whether you’ll find fulfilment in your job. This is central to doing better work.

Most job candidates go into an interview having completed only the most rudimentary research into the employer and the job they want to do. I know this for a fact, based on observations during my long experience as a recruiter and interviewer, and it’s a depressing reality of a standard job search. If you want to do high-quality work for an employer you trust and respect, it’s crucial that you know what you’re getting into, and well in advance of an interview.

The best way to do this is to get the inside track on the potential employer, the person you’ll be reporting to and your new colleagues by speaking with people in the know. This means making contact with current and recently-released employees of this organisation, plus any other relevant stakeholders, just to be sure of the employer’s suitability. Otherwise you’re going in blind and you could end up making a major mistake by accepting a job with the wrong outfit.

You wouldn’t buy an expensive new car based on the manufacturer’s brochure alone. You’d read independent test reports, mug up on its features, compare it to other vehicles, take it for a test drive and maybe seek recommendations from friends or family who’ve run the model you like the look of. Why would you not do the same with an employer you want to join?

The inside contacts you make will help you in two ways. You gain vitally important information about the quality of an employer you’re targeting, the benefits of which hugely increase the likelihood that you’ll do much better work than otherwise. Privileged information, straight from the horse’s mouth, will also feed into the content you deploy during the interview. This is an incomparable advantage to you because you’ll deliver a more persuasive pitch for the job you want. In turn, this gives you the power to negotiate a far better work deal than otherwise.

These are amongst the key features and benefits of my work-search strategy. There’s no chancing to luck that the right opportunity comes along at the right time. You eliminate virtually all of your job competitors from the equation so you’re the sole candidate for the job. You gain an unparalleled insight into the quality of the employer and the potential of the work you want to do. There are no adversarial job interviews because you seize control of the format and content of these meetings.

If you see the advantages of conducting a job search in a relentlessly proactive manner, it’s not a big stretch to accept that this is the best way of finding high-quality work with a high-quality employer.

The metrics are simple. You’re in control of the position you pitch for which inevitably leads to better work. You engineer inside contacts who’ll facilitate personal introductions to hiring decision makers. This kind of one-to-one introduction propels you into the inner circle instead of forcing you to lurk on the outside. This puts you on the fast-track to doing better work. A well-designed and expertly-delivered job pitch confirms that you’re unequivocally an A-list candidate, especially when you make a solutions-based presentation to a recruiter who appreciates the unique approach you’re taking to getting hired. This is unquestionably the best way to manoeuvre yourself into the highest-quality work.   

These are just some of the reasons that I think you should adopt my job-search system, but there’s one last piece of advice I want to give you if you truly want to win the workplace game. Some people come to me shortly before they have a job interview. They enrol in my Masterclass course, attend one of my in-person seminars or book a series of coaching sessions without allowing enough time to elapse between these events and the moment they begin their job search. To fully absorb the lessons I deliver, you really have to factor in a reasonable amount of lead time and not rush things unnecessarily.

My recommendation is simple. Think of my Vocation Master job-search strategy as an essential work skill to acquire, not a quick-fix solution to a problem you’ve just recognised. Like all of the most crucial skillsets, it’s far better to develop your abilities when the pressure’s off, not when your back’s against the wall. This genuinely is the way to shift yourself decisively into doing better work.

I’ll wrap everything up by suggesting where you go from here;

• First of all, review these strategy articles, particularly if you’ve missed out on any of them. Next up, take a look at my free Job Interview Secrets video course. I focus entirely on the interview, by way of 3 hours of unique and innovative material.
• Here's a link to my VocationCast, an audio compendium of my strategy articles - be sure to subscribe!
• If you prefer to watch rather than listen, take a look at my YouTube channel for plenty of video job-search tutorials.
• And of course there’s my complete Job Search Masterclass which is a fifteen-hour-plus programme. You’ll have to pay for this but I’m certain you’ll benefit from it a lot. I make a money-back guarantee to this effect and you’ll find details on my website.
• I’ve hinted at these things already, so don’t ignore my in-person seminars and personal coaching programme. You'll find full details of these on my website and they sit at the top of my offer. If you want to make the fastest progress, it really is the way to go.

Neil Grant, Vocation Master

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about the issues I raise here, I invite you to contact me personally. Please get in touch via LinkedIn;

LinkedIn/VocationMaster