|
Shooting for 100% in job search
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
.
Many years ago, too many years ago, I was working in a job I didn’t particularly like for a person I neither liked nor respected. I was desperately unhappy and wanted, no, needed to make a change.
.
I saw a job advertisement for a youth employment counsellor in a small rural town nearby. I didn’t know much of anything about the career development sector or what it took to be a youth employment counsellor. In fact, this is just a few years after Service Canada handed over employment services to private contractors, so even the career development sector barely existed.
.
What I did know, is that I was working for a large Canadian corporation and I didn’t want to do this work anymore. I had several years experience working in the non-profit sector developing youth programs and most recently was a manager who regularly hired and trained youth and I felt that there was some transferability there.
.
I vowed to myself that I would do everything in my power to get that job. If there was anything I had control over, I was going to do it as well as I possibly could.
.
I dissected the job posting to address every element I could in both my resume and tailored cover letter. I dressed in a suit and drove down to the employment centre. I asked to speak to the manager and handed her my resume personally with a quick elevator pitch to express my interest in the position.
.
I researched everything I could about the organization and the youth employment centre and practiced interview questions.
.
When I was finally invited in for an interview, I came with questions prepared; dressed and acted as professionally as possible; and used my practice to be engaged, positive and enthusiastic. I wrote out questions ahead of time and brought along multiple copies of my resume and cover letter just in case there were other people interviewing me who didn’t have a copy of their own.
.
The next day, I wrote a very professional thank you note and went to the office in-person to drop it off for the manager.
.
When I was called in for a second interview, I repeated all of the preparation, the planning and again was on my very best behaviour.
.
When asked for references, I had them ready, typed, with multiple copies.
.
As it turned out, in the end, I was offered the position and was very pleased to accept the offer.
.
About six months later, I was attending the staff Christmas party and I overheard my boss say, “I only hired Christian because he sent me a ‘thank you note’.”
.
My entire career to this point, more than 25 years in career development, came down to remembering to send a thank you note. Little ripples turn into giant waves over the course of time.
.
You never know what is going to be that one thing that makes the difference. The insightful comment that impresses an employer in an interview or the one derogatory comment that turns the employer off.
.
Even now, I can look back at how I approached that job search and say with a great deal of certainty that I think I did just about everything I could to improve my chances and yet it all came down to a thank you note.
.
How good are your clients or students at job search? I think we all have a spectrum of capability. Someone with little or no experience with computers, is going to be more challenged than someone else who’s grown up with them.
.
Someone for whom English is not only a second language, but perhaps one they’ve only recently been exposed to is going to be far more challenged than someone who was raised speaking English.
.
People have genuine challenges that are rooted in areas such as education, training, disabilities, culture, demographics or perhaps just never having had a role model or the mentorship necessary to understand the expectations of employers.
.
I don’t believe everyone should meet the same standards in job search.
.
You may have clients who need a lot of support in preparing their resume, or cover letter, or in completing an online application. They might need a telephone call to remind them about the interview this morning or interpretation when reviewing the job posting.
.
This is the question for me: is ‘this person’ doing everything THEY can do to secure the position?
.
My wife and I talk about experiences being a ‘ten’. That if we go to Disneyland, that perhaps we don’t have a meltdown; or a child who demands to go back to the hotel halfway through the day; or that no one gets a migraine; and we call that day a ‘10’.
.
To another person, that day might be a ‘5’. Are you telling me you waited 90 minutes for the Pirates of the Caribbean; it rained and they were sold out of ‘churros’? What a terrible day!
.
And even though all of those things may have happened, I also know a member of my family could have had an emotional meltdown; or a kid who wanted to quit halfway through the day; or a migraine and so in my mind, this was a really successful day, in spit of the rain and the churros and the pirates. It was definitely a 10!
.
I have interviewed hundreds of people in my career and the one thing that always strikes me is that often the person you think will get the job, the person who looks best on paper, often doesn’t do very well.
.
Many times, these leading candidates are unprepared, unresponsive, disorganized, late, critical, sloppy or disinterested. It’s often someone who is really eager and well prepared that impresses me the most.
.
I’m fond of saying that effective job search is about doing 100 things as well as possible. One of those things might be a tailored resume and another might be applying the same day the job is posted. One of those things might be stating the most availability possible while another might be a well-prepared elevator pitch.
.
There isn’t a specific list of 100 things, but there is this idea of questioning whether a job seeker is doing everything they’re capable of doing.
.
I think we often give clients a free pass because we know they have challenges. Essentially, we’re expecting less of them then they are really capable of doing.
.
We need to strive for ‘best practices’ in the career development sector. We want our clients to achieve a personal '10' in their job search. Often a client or student has a lousy resume and we say, "well, at least they wrote it themselves." This is going to be of little consequence to the employer reviewing it.
.
How many times do we see clients failing to do the very basic things that would make a real difference in their job search. Instead of tailoring a resume and cover letter to a few employers where they might be a really good fit, they are blasting the Internet with a hundred email applications with nothing other than a generic resume and maybe an equally generic cover letter.
.
We need our clients to summon the internal motivation to do as much as they are capable of doing. We need them to say, “I’m tired of getting what I’ve always been getting and I’m now prepared to do something that will make a real difference.”
.
We need to help them understand that all the well-intended encouragement in the world is not going to make a difference if they don’t care about changing their lives more than we do.
.
You may indeed be a brilliant job developer, or employer engagement specialist, or co-op educator. In fact, I don’t even doubt it, because your reading this. And while we spend a lot of time each week talking about better connecting with employers, the single activity you do every day that is going to make the biggest difference in your success is as a job developer is making sure your clients or students are doing the best job representing themselves.
.
We titled this article: ‘Shooting for 100% in job search’. One hundred percent is not reasonable but it is aspirational. Work with your clients to help them shoot for 100% and not ‘just enough’.
.
Don’t just be a job developer. Be a job development manager – your clients are your crew. Spend your time motivating them, encouraging them and accepting nothing less than their very best work; they’re very best effort!
.
If your clients or students are doing their very best it will do far more to support your reputation with local employers than if they are doing ‘just enough’ and slowly eroding your reputation with employers.
.
We’ll be discussing the growing use of AI at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday September 8th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
.
On the morning of Monday September 8th 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
.
.
.
'2025 Labour Market
Year-in-Review Workshops'
December 2025
.
Last week, we were thrilled to announce this year’s schedule for the annual Labour Market Year-in-Review Workshops, taking place respectively in British Columbia and Ontario. In BC, the in-person workshop will take place in Vancouver on November 28th, with the online version on December 1st. In Ontario, the in-person session is taking place in Toronto on December 5th with the online version taking place December 8th. We’ve been doing these LMI year-in-review workshops for more than 20 years and for many career professionals, it’s their annual opportunity to stay on top of the very latest labour market changes. Plus, until September 25th, we’re offering everyone who registers a 35% discount on their registration.
BC Workshop Link | Nov. 28th / Dec. 1st
or
Ontario Workshop Link | Dec. 5th and 8th
.
'National Networking Day for Job Developers'
NETWORKING IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES
.
Just a reminder, the National Networking Day for Job Developers, is taking place next week, Friday, September 19th. We still have space in some communities if not online. To learn more or reserve your space just visit: www.jobdevelopment.org/nnd
| 
