Dan Ariely, the behavior economist who teaches at Duke and has written a number of books, was asked in his write-in article in the Wall Street Journal White a few week ago about what the most important quality that would help a marriage survive. His answer was to have “no expectations.” Those of us who had been married for a long period of time really understand this sage advice.<\/p>\n
The same could be said for a job search. However, based on my experience I would amend this concept just a bit…even maybe marriage. The The biggest problem most job seekers is that they have an expectations<\/em>\u00a0Just about everything regarding their job search. They\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em>that when they see a job posting they\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>they can do, they will get interviewed and likely get hired. When they apply to hundreds of job opportunities they expect<\/em>\u00a0to get interviews. They\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em>to get interviews when they call their friends. They\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em> to find a job easily, in a short period of time. They e<\/em>xpect\u00a0<\/em>to do amazingly well on interviews. They\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em>to get hired when they interview and often get better money and title. They\u00a0have way too many expectations.<\/em><\/p>\n Rarely do any of these expectations ever pan out. This is one of the greatest shocks of most job searches. And the whole problem is that people have\u00a0expectations.<\/em><\/p>\n There is a place for expectations. And it has to do with what a candidate should expect of\u00a0themselves<\/em> in the job search process. A job seeker has to\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em>the search is going to be hard. They have to\u00a0expect<\/em> that they had better take massive, massive action to get interviews …with great intensity. They have to\u00a0expect<\/em> to make more contacts about their job search than they ever imagined. They had best\u00a0expect<\/em> to perform well on interviews…and get lost of them. They have to\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em>that they have absolutely nothing until they have a job offer….that they like.<\/p>\n Notice that all these expectations are about\u00a0themselves<\/em> and no one else. Where job seekers always run into problems is when they have\u00a0expectations<\/em> about other people. Interesting, isn’t it…that is probably true about marriage also.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dan Ariely, the behavior economist who teaches at Duke and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n