You have probably heard this said several times that you cannot get different results if you are doing the same things that are responsible for your current results. This is true not only in life but also in career transition. You cannot expect to land the job of your dream by waving a magic wand or by doing the same things that have kept you in your current job or without a job. You need to change your approach if you need a different job. We suggest that you change your mindset and here is why.
In job hunting, it can be easy to shut down because beside the job itself that you are looking, job hunting is a job in itself that requires time, dedication, perseverance, and much more. You will need time to know yourself (and yes even if you have been living with yourself for this long), to clarify what you want, build a job search strategy, build trusting professional relationships, execute your strategy, learn from your mistakes, learn to stay motived, write job-related documents (CV, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, etc.), all this can be overwhelming and only a transformed mind can stick at the process and get to the desired result. We suggest that a transformed mindset predisposes a job candidate to be a HERO. A HERO is high in hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism (Hope, efficacy, resilience, optimism). A HERO also exemplifies mental toughness.
Thus, a HERO journey requires five elements:
- Mental toughness or a “can do” attitude. Mental toughness is having the skills to be able to navigate adversity as it occurs.
- Hope or perseverance to keep moving forward toward goals with the expectation that they will be achieved.
- Self-efficacy or the confidence in one’s ability to undertake tasks and attain one’s goals.
- Resilience or the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or setbacks.
- Optimism or the belief that outcomes will be positive.
A high HERO is likely to significantly increase your chance of getting a good job quickly. I was once in a conference in Orlando, Florida, and one of the participants shared that she was spending a month or two to recover from an interview rejection. This should tell you that she was low in resilience. Another shared that she was constantly failing to prioritize building professional relationships on LinkedIn, a clear sign of low self-efficacy and low optimism. In revanche, another participant shared how she faced 150 rejections in 3 months before landing a job as a director at a pharmaceutical company. And another shared that she was spending one hour every morning networking on LinkedIn for 2 months which had translated into six interviews and two job offers. Because the last two participants had high HERO, they were able to attain their goals quickly. The participant who had faced 150 rejections did not take them personally and understood that they were part of the process. Her high resilience allowed her to rebound from each rejection and keep pressing until she was hired. The last candidate had a high dose of self-efficacy, optimism, and hope that she had trust in investing in building her professional network hoping that they will soon or later translate into job opportunities. Sure enough, this happened.
The difference can between low level HEROs and high level HEROs can be significant and you don’t want to adopt a mindset that will cause you trouble in your job-hunting. And if you have issues with one or more of the HERO traits or identify yourself with the examples of low-level HERO provided earlier, do not worry because our career interventions include steps to help you develop resilience, self-efficacy, hope, optimism, mental toughness, and other positive traits that we know will serve you well.
If you have not started your journey with us, please schedule your free consultation session today.