Spoiling your best contacts
What about friends and other personal contacts? Let's see.
"Tom, if there's anything I can do for you, let me know. We are always looking for people with a lot on the ball like you," said Frank, Tom's regular golfing buddy and senior vice president of the biggest bank in town. So when Tom lost his job two years later, Frank was the first person he called. A lunch at the city's most exclusive club resulted. Frank gave Tom lots of encouragement but explained that there weren't any suitable openings at the bank just then. Frank, however, arranged interviews for Tom with three top people in businesses similar to that of Tom's last company. Unfortunately, each in turn resulted in an unsatisfactory interview. Frank was cordial to Tom's follow-up call, but he only gave Tom a couple of lukewarm suggestions. These proved to be even less fruitful than the first contacts. Tom's subsequent calls to Frank went unanswered.
Tom's experience with Frank is typical of what happens with contacts if you don't handle them properly. Influential contacts can be a great help, but regardless of the closeness of your friendship, don't expect important people to jeopardize their reputations with their professional peers unless they feel you are going to be a good representative. Nor are they likely to give you a second chance. When people have come to you for help in the past, haven't you been pretty selective about whom you have referred them to?
A contact can't make a favorable impression for you-you have to do that yourself. You may have a few friends who want to open influential doors for you, so it is essential to get your preparation done quickly.
The key to getting the best effort from influential contacts is making the most favorable impression on them. Past or social relationships may not mean a great deal. So you should be prepared to make the most favorable impression possible when you see your influential contacts.
Blindly accepting advice from friends
Naturally you are anxious to seek out your friends in the most responsible positions, because not only may they be able to offer you a job, but they likely have the most useful contacts. This makes sense, but it can also be a trap.
Because they are successful, you may think that their advice will be excellent. It may be. Unfortunately for you, though, many of these successful executives may have achieved their success without ever having been exposed to the job market from a job-hunter's standpoint. So they may have little understanding of what you need.
In addition, friends usually do not want to hurt your feelings, and say nothing even though they may think you make a poor impression. Therefore, they may tell you what they think you want to hear, rather than what you should hear. Actually the friends who are critical (provided its constructive criticism) may be doing you a big favor. Early in your interviews with friends, make clear that you understand that they may be reluctant to be critical, but that candor may be most useful to you.
Most people-especially your friends-want to help you. Some will approach you. Most won't know how to help-and won't volunteer-but they will respond willingly if you contact them. More than likely, few of these people can help you develop your job-hunting skills (probably your greatest need), but they can be invaluable in providing contacts. It's up to you to decide who is likely to be most helpful and to ask them specifically for this help. You may be surprised to find that some of the people you would least expect to help may be the most useful resources for you.
Being overly optimistic
You probably have a good record. You may have friends in responsible positions. You may have put on an aggressive campaign to date. You may have had a few interviews and had several people say they are working on something for you. You also may have an interview coming up in a couple of days and another possibility next week. Even though nothing definite has developed yet, you are quite confident that things are going well for you.
Don't kid yourself, for you may be in a trap.
You probably only scratched the surface. It's easy to be deluded into thinking you are doing well. You may be. But what if you aren't? Adopt the attitude that nothing you have started so far is going to work out. Then exert yourself as aggressively as possible to get a new job. Working as hard as you can at your campaign and taking nothing for granted are two of the keys to a successful job search.
All eggs in one basket
You may have run into a job possibility that looks ideal, and you have decided to put all your energies into landing it. Be careful, because a situation that looks as though it might jell in two weeks often might not materialize for a month or more, or never. Or if the opportunity does come through, it might be less satisfactory than you thought it would.
Pursuing one opportunity exclusively can be dangerously entrapping. If it doesn't work out, not only will you have wasted a lot of time, but you will also have lost the momentum of your campaign. Make a number of new contacts with possible employers every day. Even when the "ideal" job is about to be offered to you, you may run into something that is even better.
