Having had almost 60 trips around the sun, I've seen some things. I'm not a
world traveler, or someone who's had a great deal of formal education, but
I've been paying attention most my life. Paying attention to the world around
you is like taking a class on how the world works.
Some people go through their life without even noticing what happens around
them. Their only concerned with what happens to them. The rest of the world is
much like outer space. They know it exists, but it's just 'out there' and they
can't be bothered with it.
They're focused on themselves. What just happened to me? What did that person
do to me? How did this or that affect me?
I get it, we can only see the world from inside ourselves. What we think of
the world, both the true and false, are seen through our own lens, through our
own set of experiences. You and another person can see the same exact set of
events and come away with two completely different explanation of what
happened, and why it happened. One maybe true, one maybe false, but it's more
than likely they are both right in certain aspects, and both wrong in other
ways.
Not paying attention to the world around you can make you fail the small
pop-quizzes that come up in the "How the world works" class you are
taking.
Wait, you may say, I didn't sign up to take a "How the world works" class!
When did I do that? Well, let's just say, the minute you drew your first
breath, you were automatically enrolled, and baby, the test are coming
fast.
Failing a pop quiz is one thing, failing the midterm, or the final, is a
bitch.
I was watching a YouTube video the other day, where a lady was explaining why
some people, especially these days, don't get the job they applied for. These
were qualified people, who made it to the job interview, but did not get the
job. They were told the company found a better qualified candidate, or they
simply didn't hear back at all. Her main point in the video was that many of
these people drew a false conclusion from this process.
They though the reason they didn't get the job was basically what they had
been told; they didn't have enough qualifications. The conclusion they reached
was they needed to go back to school to get their Masters, or their MBA, or
some other certificate, trailing qualification, or some other document to show
they were the most qualified. They missed the point....
She explained the real reason many of them weren't hired; They didn't have the
people skills, or the social skills, they needed.
That hiring manager was trying to imagine them working with their team, or
imagining if their people would want to work with them. That Masters, or MBA,
or whatever shiny certificate you had, may have gotten you into the interview,
but you still must get past that manager, or owner of that company. No manner
of education, or training, will make that person look past their conclusion
of, 'Yeah they look fine on paper, but they have zero people skills."
This was a great study guide for your "How the world works" class: Your resume
gets you into the interview. Your people skills, and communication skills at
that interview, will make or break you.
There are exceptions to this rule.
Sometime they just need a person with a pulse to do the same simple task, hour
after hour, day after day. Sometimes they need a person to lift heavy things,
or break big things into smaller things. If you're fan of the movie
Caddyshack, you will remember the line from the judge when the caddy was
telling him, he wants go to college, he just didn't have the money. The judge
said in a matter of fact manner, "Well, the world needs ditch diggers
too."
True enough. I have done that kind of work. Growing up on a ranch. I bucked
barn-loads of hay, built miles of barbed-wire fences, and many other kinds a
hard work. I also worked at a concrete cutting & breaking company. Nothing
like loading 80 pound chucks of broken concrete by hand into a excavator
bucket in the 100 degree heat all day to make you think, maybe there's a
different way to make a living......
Over those 40 years, I've done a lot different jobs, and had many different
titles. Some I liked, some I didn't, and some that I flat out hated. I started
as a junior technician, pulling communication wire, then worked up to a lead
position in that same field, running crews. I was moved up to the project
estimating side, then inside sales rep, and finally worked as a project
manager/product specialist. I've worked in the private sector for most of
time, but spent the last 20 years in the public sector at UC Davis.
I recently retired as a technology construction project manager at UCD. It
sounds a lot cooler than it is.
I worked in the field about half my time, walking jobs, inspecting jobs,
dealing with other project managers, contractors, and sub-contractors. The
other half of my time was spent in the office reviewing upcoming projects,
filling out the dozens of forms, requests, and submittals for our
projects.
Project management is quite challenging. Your knowledge of your trade,
construction division requirements, specifications and materials, along with
understanding the way your organization operates, all play into how well you
manage your projects.
The other thing that can lead you into a successful career, or set you up for
failure, is your people skills. I have always been told I have good set of
people skills. I have seen other people in my field struggle with this. Many
who have had much more experience, and knowledge that I possess, did not, or
could not, play well with others. Sometimes it was simply their personality
traits, and sometimes it was their communication skills, but working with all
the different entities in a large, complex project, you need both to succeed.
So, here is my free advice to all who are applying for a job: Work on your
people skills.
I get it, some jobs require a degree, or certification to even get an
interview. You will need those to get through the HR department, (or more
likely an AI Agent these days) to make it to the applicant pool for an
interview. The hiring manager may look at the pool of applications and think,
there are no qualified applicants, and they may be right.
This is especially true these days where many positions are asking for someone
with years of experience, all kinds of certifications, and degrees, but are
only willing to pay half or two-thirds the going rate for someone with those
qualifications. If no one in the pool has all the paper certifications, but
they need to fill that spot, that is where your people skills can really
shine.
I have been involved in the hiring process throughout my career, being on
interview panels, developing questions, and such. I haven't had too many
people where I got them wrong, or plain got fooled. I use a bit more insight
than others who look just at the paper application. Does this person know how
to work? Have they ever started at the bottom and worked up? Can they explain
themselves to others? Are they full of shit?
That's the other end of the spectrum, people who are great talkers, but will
not tell you "I don't know the answer to that." when they are stumped. They
will just give make something up. Those folks are dangerous.
So what is the conclusion? How can you have a better chance at your next
interview? I wish I knew a foolproof way, but I have done some mentoring to
young people through the years, and I do know one thing that works; Practice
speaking in public.
I know, that's like saying, just eat less and exercise to lose weight. Yeah it
works, but for some people it's very hard to do. Well, just like doing hard
things to get in shape, you can do some very simple, very challenging things
to get your people skills in much better shape.
Find a mentoring class in your community. If you're an adult, find a
Toastmaster's club near you. That was the driving force behind the mentoring
program I was working with. We would have ten or some high school kids, or young
adults, gather once a week, and everyone at the table would take a paragraph
and read it aloud for everyone. Sometimes, especially at the beginning, it was
almost painful to hear these kids struggle to speak.
The rules were simple, when you were not speaking, you sat quietly, and waited
for them to finish. When they had completed that paragraph, everyone would
pick one thing they thought they did well and tell that young person. No
criticism, no jokes at their expense, just find one thing you thought they did
well, or at least improved from the last time they spoke.
It's amazing to see how young people don't know how to look someone in the
eye, shake their hand, and introduce themselves. This was all part of that
mentoring class. We practiced all these basic things, everytime we met. In a
few months, the progress these kids made was outstanding.
It's amazing what practice can do. I think it's one of those things where you
need be okay with being terrible at something, so you can work at getting
better at that skill.
The employment market is changing so fast right now, it's truly frightening.
Artificial Intelligence agents are going to replace so many data-entry,
customer support, and administration jobs in the next few years, entire groups
of white-collar jobs are going to be replaced.
Let's say you are a customer
service representative or back office administrator, what will you do when you
HR pulls your entire 8 person team into a Friday morning meeting and tells you
that they are firing all but two of you?
You better have a set of people skills to grab that next job. It's going to be the thing that will separate you from the crowd.
