FMEA and the job hunt

[Wes Bucey]

The worst thing about the job hunt is that it is always a series of failures until the candidate achieves success.

Wouldn't it be swell if we could weed out some of those failures (preventive action) before they occur?

FMEA (Failure Mode & Effects Analysis) is a tried and true quality tool, but it amazes me how many quality professionals neglect [avoid?] deploying that tool in the job hunt.

Time after time, I hear or read personal communications from job hunters who "just can't understand" why their job hunt seems to be in idle or even reverse gear. Even more frequently, I see news stories purporting to put a "human face" on unemployment by focusing on folks who have been out of work for months or even years. By reading between the lines of those articles, I get a picture of folks who are like the thousands of golf duffers who go out each weekend and flail at a hundred balls on the driving range, ingraining bad habit after bad habit and never improving their game. Just like those duffers, they go out and invest in a new club, a new glove, new shoes, or the job hunter equivalent: canned resumes, posting on dozens of job boards, joining Linked In, Facebook, and dozens of other "networking sites," but they refuse to do those things which might actually improve their status:

Take lessons from a professional!
​

Some do take lessons, but then they say, "Oh, but it's easier if I do it my way!" and the value of the lessons is lost in a heartbeat.

Here are some of the self defeating activities ["failures"] I see time after time and the effect they have on the job hunt. The order is not necessarily about frequency or amount of damage ["effect"], but just how they occur to me.

1. Sending identical resumes to dozens or hundreds of organizations without first researching what value those organizations need and tailoring the cover letter and resume to address how the candidate can/will provide that value. (when your resume looks like hundreds of other generic resumes, it joins them in the round file [recycle bin.])
2. Listing what the candidate expects the company to provide (advancement opportunities, respect, etc.) without detailing the value the candidate will supply the company. (the company is NOT there to nurture the candidate - it expects the candidate to nurture the company!)
3. Addressing envelopes and letters "To whom it may concern:" (If you don't bother to learn enough about the company to determine which individual your communication should go to FIRST [he can pass it on], the company is justified in thinking you aren't too serious about your job hunt.)
4. Arriving at an interview without first researching the company enough to know what it makes, its primary competitors, its primary suppliers, and at least a hint of the problems to which the candidate is prepared to offer value in solving. If the company is a secret before interviewing with a recruiter, the candidate at least needs to be very knowledgeable about the industry and have a short list of possible identities in mind BEFORE going forward with the interview. (Would you talk about your baseball skills with a recruiter for a football team?)
5. Not asking for and receiving feedback about how an interview went [from the interviewer's point of view.] (I am continually amazed at candidates who say the interview went "very well," but the phrases they report from both sides of the interview give me an entirely opposite picture, which is confirmed when no job offer is forthcoming. Maybe some candidates interpret the interviewer's formal civility for genuine warmth because the candidates have such terrible bosses and working conditions in their background.)
6. Not following up an interview by getting a good understanding of the next step and an approximate timetable for that step (at which time [not before] the candidate is justified in following up with phone or email to determine if the timeline has changed and the candidate's current status in the process.)
7. Not examining closely an offer if and when it DOES come. Examine it closely because many candidates leave money on the table (not necessarily cash salary, but benefits, education opportunities, working conditions, etc.)

If you recognize any of these items characterizing YOUR job hunt, it may be time to perform FMEA on your entire hunt and implement some changes, then evaluate whether those changes help.

That's my short FMEA. Anybody got more suggestions?

 

[pldey42]

Good advice, Wes, to which I would add:

8. Not asking why you won.
9. Being afraid to ask questions.
10 Being afraid to demonstrate knowledge and skill.

On 8:

Several years ago I won a consultancy job for which I was not qualified. The deal was to apply software process improvement techniques (which I know) to the design of electronic hardware. While I knew the terms that hardware engineers used, I had flunked electronics at university, this being one reason I did software instead.

Once my feet were under the table and I had facilitated some reasonable decisions about how hardware, software and systems design processes ought to work, I summoned up the courage to ask the VP who paid my fees how I had won the contract.

"It was your passion," he said.

I've since learned that passion sells. Just watch a successful singer or musician.

More generally, it helps to ask how one won, as well as how one lost.

On 9:

I once tripped over the computerized records associated with my selection (some while before) as consultant to an ISO 9001 implementation programme. Perhaps I should not have read them but I did. "He listens," they said, "And appears to understand - unlike the others."

Moral: don't be afraid to listen in interviews, nor to ask questions. People like to feel understood, by their consultants and their employees.

On 10:

On another occasion I can remember distinctly the moment when the interviewing manager decided he liked me. It was when, to demonstrate a point, I asked a sequence of questions about how his company performed a certain process and I finally asked how they performed a critical detail which most overlook. He laughed, not knowing the answer, sensing a possible weakness, and seeing my insight into typical problems that he and his clients faced, problems with which I might help.

Moral: sometimes people employ us in quality for what we know, that they do not, and our ability to bring them to face facts in a palatable manner.

 

[Mikael]

Thanks Wes, what about one for recruiters also

Anyway may I add:

A) Not being realistic...

B) Be afraid to ask about salary at the very beginning.

C) Being to obses with the idear of ''the perfect job'', in the sense that you are born for only one thing, and therfore you dont see other/new opportunities.


D) Also for number 7, I can say that I just sign up for a new good job, but when I got the contract, what is the first thing you look at - ''Salary''. My eyes went directly to where the salary was, lol, to check it was right. Fortunately, I was ready to sign it right away. Then I start to look at the other stuff like payed phone and so on.
Well, a part of the recruitment conversations was about the tasks, and to what extent I could fullfill them, but I think I should have give the alignment of expectations more attention in the end, just to be extra sure...

Concerning the research part, yes of course you should do the basics, but you should not waste to much time, researching for stuff which does not matter.
If you are unemployed, you can kill your self with research, and you end up spending your time wrong.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Thanks Wes, what about one for recruiters also

Anyway may I add:

A) Not being realistic...

B) Be afraid to ask about salary at the very beginning.

C) Being to obses with the idear of ''the perfect job'', in the sense that you are born for only one thing, and therfore you dont see other/new opportunities.


D) Also for number 7, I can say that I just sign up for a new good job, but when I got the contract, what is the first thing you look at - ''Salary''. My eyes went directly to where the salary was, lol, to check it was right. Fortunately, I was ready to sign it right away. Then I start to look at the other stuff like payed phone and so on.
Well, a part of the recruitment conversations was about the tasks, and to what extent I could fullfill them, but I think I should have give the alignment of expectations more attention in the end, just to be extra sure...

Concerning the research part, yes of course you should do the basics, but you should not waste to much time, researching for stuff which does not matter.
If you are unemployed, you can kill your self with research, and you end up spending your time wrong.

Yep. This is a truism. Over here in the USA, my fellow "suits" and I started using a catchphrase about it back in the 70's - "Analysis Paralysis."

For sales people, that often translated to:
"The hardest door to get through is your own front door in the morning."

Ultimately, an individual has to make a decision to ACT. Of course, the gu who can't act on his job hunt is probably a poor risk as an employee, too. So it may really be for the best that "paralyzed" job hunters stay paralyzed.