A private client of mine, who I will call Tess, was like a soldier suffering from PTSD. She had been out of work for nineteen months and had failed in fifty-nine, straight job interviews at twenty-nine companies. She was very smart (MBA from the University of Chicago), accomplished, likable, and engaging, but she no longer believed in herself. A tape kept playing in her head that said, “Loser! What happened to you? Your career looked so promising. Why did you screw it up?”
Nineteen months of negative self-talk can make you a stranger to yourself. She no longer knew who she was, and she desperately needed to reconnect with her real self before she disappeared. So, we had a conversation:
Me: Are you smart?
Tess: Yes. I believe so.
Me: What makes you think that?
She looked at me a little surprised. My tone was challenging. I was saying, “Prove it.” She then said:
Tess: Well, I went to a distinguished undergrad program and did very well. I also did well in a post grad program at one the top universities in the country.
Me: Oh, so you have objective evidence that you are smart. This is a fact, not a fantasy, am I right?
Tess: Yes.
Me: Are you likable?
And so the conversation went. It became something of a game, and she would smile with each question. I finally ended it by saying, “When I tell you that you have every reason to be confident because you are smart, likable, and engaging, I am not saying things that aren’t true just to try and make you feel better. I’m sharing objectively verifiable facts. So will you please start believing me and believe in yourself.”
After our conversation she would wake up each morning and say, “I’m smart and I have objective evidence to prove it. I am likable and engaging for the following reasons….”
Her negative self-talk was now replaced by positive self-talk based on reality. A week later she interviewed with a company and was hired. Their salary offer was $20,000 more than her previous salary. This indicates she was able to transform their “need to fill a slot” into “an intense desire to have her fill this slot.”
The hiring authority can feel what we feel. Human nature was designed to have this capability through the mirror neuron system. When the hiring authority feels our anxiety, fear and a lack of confidence this can outweigh the objective reality that each one of us may actually be a great hire. So we need to regain our confidence and when we do, and the 60th opportunity comes around, this same person who failed the previous 59 times can hit the ball out of the park.
When I spoke to Tess after she received her job offer, I could feel what she felt: the pure joy that accompanies the end of a nineteen-month, brutal slog through a wilderness.
THE PATH TO JOB SEARCH SUCCESS:
The following link will take you to my eBook, The Path to Job Search Success: A Neuroscientific Approach to Interviewing, Negotiating and Networking. It details the system used to help Tess and others.
http://amzn.to/1dETvOC