Read Excerpts

• Preface

  Several years ago, I did a workshop for a group of Bentley University alumni. Right after we finished lunch, just before we started back again, someone expressed frustration with the inefficiency and wastefulness of traditional job-search practices, and I made the offhand remark, "If I had my way, people would throw out their resumes and stop networking." An electric charge went through the room. Thirty business professionals, some a few years out of college, others farther along in their careers, all of them well-versed in traditional job-search, came alive. Somebody had actually said out loud what they instinctively knew, that trying to find work the way we currently go about it is unproductive, frustrating, humiliating, and often downright awful.

• Chapter I, Ground of Your Own Choosing

  In less competitive times, before a single job posting could bring a flood of applicants, an individual stood a reasonable chance of getting through to someone who had the authority to consider him. Now, thanks to technology, companies can collect thousands of resumes and effectively screen applicants out, the equivalent of "shooting them down" before they can "engage," i.e., get in the door and sell themselves in a face-to-face meeting. I could see a distressing similarity between the soldier charging an entrenched position and the jobseeker trying to get past Human Resources. For both, changing times had turned it into a losing battle.

• Chapter II, Everything Has Changed

  Like tectonic plates moving against each other along a fault line, the Industrial Age, where work was organized in discrete bundles directed toward production, is receding, while the Information Age, where work is organized around knowledge directed toward service, is advancing. The stress of these two forces moving in opposite directions has produced what thought-leaders are calling a "workquake," and the familiar structures of employment security have been swallowed up in the chasm it has left behind.

• Chapter III, Jobthink

  Even before jobs started falling into the chasm created by the workquake, job-search practices were challenging. Now, however, with the odds against success steadily increasing, the jobthinker who relies on them is very likely to get caught up in an internal monologue that goes something like, "I want a job, I need a job, I deserve a job." When he gets to "deserve" he’s in real trouble, because the belief that you deserve something you’re not getting is a slippery slope to feeling like a victim. Even if he doesn’t go that far, if he sees himself as needy, so will others, and being seen as needy is totally incompatible with being thought of as a valuable resource.

• Chapter IV, Throw Out Your Resume and Stop Networking

  The jobthinker directs all his attention at a single form of documentation, a resume. He overlooks alternative ways of communicating his value in his quest to make the resume as perfect as possible. This obsession is unfortunate not only because it means he is putting all his eggs in one rather fragile basket, but also because he is likely to lose sight of the "forest" (what he has to offer) for the "trees" (wording, layout, font, format, stock, etc.) It is because people get hung up on seeing one or two 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper as the golden key to a magic door that I told the group of Bentley College alumni (see Preface) that they would be better off throwing out their resumes.

• Chapter V, Beyond Jobthink

  Before we can come up with innovative ways to get across the chasm created by the workquake to more secure ground, we must first end jobthink, the number one obstacle to reinventing ourselves. Its persistence is the the primary reason people are ineffective in finding work. "Nothing happens without an ending," William Bridges tells us, and what needs to end is looking at our professional life as a series of jobs. The jobthinker who continues on the well-worn path of traditional job-search will keep spinning his wheels in the mud of employment practices, and even if he does find another job he will remain vulnerable. But it will not be enough just to stop thinking in terms of a job. We must be vigilant about not chasing anything that makes us dependent on something outside ourselves for our security.

• Chapter VI, Authenticity

  You have reached the Ground of Your Own Choosing the moment you know deep inside yourself, "I am the person to do this work." The path to this discovery runs through the fertile land of the creative space of transition, and if you follow it you will emerge with a better alignment between who you are and what you do.

• Chapter VII, Work the Problem

  Self-leadership is critical for the work-seeker today because is he dealing with transition on two fronts, one personal, and the other global. The world of work he is part of has experienced its own change event, the workquake, thus he is in transition on both a micro and a macro level. He has the choice of enduring this grudgingly or using it as a means to professional transformation. If he opts for the latter, he places himself within the context of something far more meaningful than just getting the next job. By choosing to utilize the creative space of transition as an opportunity to better align who he is with what he does, he will become more authentic, marketable, and whole.

• Chapter VIII, Your Inner Entrepreneur

  When the objective of connecting what you have to offer with the needs of the workplace drives your actions, you will have gained the status of a business resource providing a service, rather than a jobthinker looking for somewhere to re-attach the umbilical cord. Then you will be able to engage in business-to-business dialogues and not be subjected to the often discouraging and sometimes humiliating person-to-business protocols that govern admittance to a organization as an individual. You won’t be just one of thousands applying for a position, making telephone calls that aren’t returned, sending emails that aren’t answered, going on interviews and waiting for a response.

• Chapter IX, Selling Yourself

  Before the workquake, it didn’t matter if you’d rather hang by your thumbs than sell. Today, however, changes in the workplace mean that sales will be a part of your professional life whether you like it or not. Even if you don’t have sales responsibilities added to your job description, as some will, you will be expected to contribute to the revenue flow by serving customers inside or outside the organization. In addition, the trend toward shorter tenures means that you will have to go out and sell yourself to a new employer every three to five years.

• Chapter X, Professional Self-Care

  The decision to take your stand on the Ground of Your Own Choosing and say with self-assurance, "I am the person to do this work," is a courageous one, and like any act of bravery, it will naturally be accompanied by feelings of vulnerability and fear. Stretching ourselves emotionally increases the demand on our energies, and under pressure our capacity to perform can become compromised, just as an electrical power grid is taxed during a heat wave. Replenishment from external sources is indispensable if we are to keep moving over the rough patches of self-doubt.