Pride and Job Hunting

PRIDE AND JOB HUNTING

I thought I'd share something that happened today in the life of an hospitaity recruiter; me. It has to do with pride and looking for your next career move.

I spoke with a man today who's been actively looking for work and currently unemployed. He works in the hospitaity industry in Western Canada at the management level. The connundrum of pride came up in reference to looking for work, but first, let me tell what came before this issue.

We did a screening interview with him and I was following up on his search. He comes across as energetic, people-oriented, an experienced manager who has a history of stability, focusses on upgrading his skills with courses/training and he loves the industsry. All good so far, right?

In terms of career searching, he seems to doing everything right to get himself out there with networking, resume posting, and sending out applications. So why hasn't he landed a position?

I'll tell you why, in my recruiter opinion. This candidate told me he "has pride and wasn't going to call them if they didn't contact me". Ahh, one of the 7 deadly sins wreaking havoc in his ability to land a good job.

Although he's been looking for a significant period of time, he laughed after he told me this. He then went on to say that he's been starting to wonder if there's something wrong with his experience and work history that people are not making offers. Isn't it a shame that good people can sometimes get in their own way and not quite realize that's happening?

So,in the end I gave him the good news, then the bad so to speak.

We talked about where his efforts have been directed and I assured him he was doing a great job getting himself out there and that his experience is solid, his training was the best in the industry currently. I also told him about what the market is like for hospitality career seekers Western Canada now and gave him some new search ideas. A general attitude boost,and isn't that something we can all use when we're looking for work. It's so stressful and rejection can be so personal that we get depressed and look at what's wrong with us.

Then I dropped the bad news. I told him straight up that not receiving follow-up from an hiring organization is not personal and pride shouldn't be an issue at all. I gave him a few scenarios as to why orgnaizations sometimes don't respond to you resume, not the least of which is because they are pulling overtime covering the position that they posted! I emphasized to him that it's always a good idea to follow up with a phone call when you submit your resume. Pride has nothing to do with this, it's about making their job easier and demonstrating your ability to professionally following up.

And what happened to him? I'm not sure, but I think he did understand he could make those calls and not damage his sense of pride. Once he understood the circumstances that could interfere with a company calling him, he was relieved he could do more to be effective in his career search.

Historically, any one of the deadly sins is said to lead to damnation, but I hope now he'll be led to a great career move in hospitality!