If one more kid fresh out of school comes into my office and says, "I’m looking for a job," I might just jump out of the window (luckily my office is on the first floor).
Just wanting a job, to me, is lazy and shows the lack of a game plan. You don’t deserve anything just because you say you want it. I’m typically pretty good about meeting with all sorts of people and trying to help as many people as possible and give opportunities, but me sitting down with you for a meeting doesn’t mean I owe you anything.
My friend Gary Vaynerchuk says, “You’ve got time, it’s all about the long game!” He also talks a lot about adding value to the people you approach. If you come into my office wanting a job, tell me where you see an opportunity to contribute to the growth of the company or tell me how your specific skill set can make something we do better.
Maybe too many people are just asking for things because at the end of the day they don’t know what they really want. They say their passionate people, but I say, passionate about what? You have to know what you’re interested in before you can have passion. Have a purpose. That leads to commitment, which eventually grows into passion.
For all the kids that come out of school and get a job these days, I see a lot of them switching jobs really fast. Again and again. They say they’re passionate in their interviews, but they’re not committed. They’re not committed because they don’t have a purpose—they’re thinking about long-term success only as a dream and not something that’s attainable by taking positive action every step of the way through each opportunity they have.
If you’re looking for a job, or if you have one, but you feel ready to move on, do you know what you want?
Maybe rather then these students you blame for changing jobs all the time, perhaps you should look at the education and the fact that Business classes and business text books written of late teach that the best way to succeed in corporate America is to change jobs every 5 years, because companies don’t reward employees for staying with them any longer. Or perhaps you should look at the companies themselves for no longer rewarding employees for long-term committment. Having a purpose and working for someone else is a paradoxial desire you are seeking. If someone is working for you, they don’t have a purpose no.. If they had a purpose theyd be working for themselves, because companies decided that it was no longer worth their time to reward employees with a purpose. In fact a purpose usually will get you more hours, responsibility, for less pay because they can take advantage of that, use it against you, and will do so until they push you out the door. Instead they are settling to be treated poorly, and know that in a few years they have to start all over again because they wont be rewarded properly for what they do. This is what they are taught, then this is what is proven to them when they enter the work force. If you want them to behave differently then you need to change how corporations reward, so that the text books can be changed again back to the way they used to be. Those capable enough to think critically past what they were taught, including not to think critically, usually will turn their backs on anything you can offer them.