The key to a fulfilling career is, I believe, not so much about choosing the right job, it’s about finding pleasure in the job that you are doing. Applying for jobs is a job, not a particularly well-paying one, but a job that can be extremely fulfilling nevertheless.

It is really a combination of two activities: consulting and sales. Or, to put it another way, it’s information-rich selling, i.e. you collect a lot of information about the market (the company & surroundings) and sell a complex product (yourself). Since both the ability to transform complex information into simple, understandable terms, and the ability to sell just about anything (even your monkey-self) are probably the most desired qualities on the job-market today, applying for jobs is an excellent training, which everyone should look forward too.

Following are a couple of the skills you learn in this job:

• Strategic positioning: this is the basic activity. Job-hunting is an activity that moves in concentric circles. In the centre, there’s you, your strengths & weaknesses, your niche. Then comes the company and how you fit into it. Finally comes the strategic landscape of the company and what its priorities are there. Positioning is, according to my basic marketing book, about communicating 4 C’s (Clarity, Confidence, Continuity, Competitiveness), matched to the needs of your customer.
• General market-research: finding interesting companies is like finding a needle in a haystack. Well, not really. But it does require using all the mediums available to you to get to that sale. And you may want to segment the market and focus on specific types of companies.
• Strategic market-research: it’s a jungle out there, and the more awareness you show for the company’s strategic (competitive, current & future) landscape, the more she will trust you to do a good job. And, as a side-benefit, you’ll find out what other companies you may want to target if this one doesn’t bite.
• Functional market-research: your company/customer will be looking for specific features in you, and you have to position yourself according to what is required. The functional job-description = feature requirements.
• Targeted advertising: You CV and application letter are like a brochure about yourself. You’ll be competing with tons of other “products” and you have to speak the language of your customer.
• The pitch: your “marketing-brochure” may get you a foot in the door, but that’s only 30% of it. You need to present yourself to your customer, the way he would present himself to his customers. If those are a tough sell, he will be a tough sell, and vice versa.
• The negotiation: after finding your target, marketing to it, and pitching it, you’ll need to get a good deal too. That is a whole other science into itself.

Seriously, if this wasn’t a non-paying gig, I think I’d be doing this for some time. Learning a lot here. I’ll go as far as to say that if you were either a sales/marketing person or an entrepreneur, you’d be doing some pretty similar things.

But beware! You shouldn”t use job-applications as an excuse to get your foot into the door to sell products & services from other companies! That’s like calling someone during dinner-time, because you know they’ll be home, and trying to sell them insurance. It’s Just Not Done!

Vincent

(I’ll write more about tech tomorrow, I promise)

Addendum: I predict, I won’t get too many comments on this one. Maybe it’s an age thing; 5 years ago, I would’ve felt differently about this process. But these days, pretty much any interview I go to ends up being a pretty interesting conversation about how to run a company, and the process beforehand, the homework, is pretty versatile too. Just thought, I’d add that.

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