If I could give you just one piece of advice for getting the job you deserve and building a career you can be proud of, it would be this:
In this game, job offers and promotions do not go to the candidate who has the best skills or most experience, or the right attitude or aptitude.
These things are important, but they’re not enough.
Take two people, let’s call them Alice and Jane.
They’re both applying for the role of Customer Support Manager.
Jane has twenty years of experience working in a high-pressure customer support environment. She’s mentored countless colleagues, and dozens of times she has been personally responsible for winning over disappointed customers who were
about to leave and take their money with them.
The marketing department love her, and estimate that she’s saved the company at least $25mm over the last two years alone.
She could walk into the job tomorrow and own it.
Alice has worked in a customer support team for six years. Although she pulled her weight, she’s never really saved the day.
However, she has done her homework, and she knows exactly what the recruiters for this new role are looking for. She made some phone calls too, and she has someone “on the inside” coaching her and telling her what she needs to say to win
the job.
Now, if you were a betting person, who would your money be on?
I don’t like the “system”.
I think it’s unfair, because more times than not, it rewards the wrong people and penalizes honest folks — especially those most suited for the job.
But none of us can change it.
This means we have two choices:
We can do what many folk do (and I don’t blame them) and passively resent the system. We can curse it and wish that things were different.
It won’t change anything though.
Or, we can learn how to use the system to our advantage.
Because when you understand how it works and why it works, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to turn the whole process on its head and, in a sense, “beat” the system at its own game.
