I am often bugged by people who want me to give them personal advice on how to get a job. I talk to them, and it turns out that they don’t want advice at all; they just want me to give them a job. or to reinforce their theories of why they fail. Now I ask them what job hunting advice books they have read, and invariably, they haven’t looked at a single one. (My recommendation: What Color is Your Parachute.)

If you are trying to contact someone you want to work for, but can’t think of a single reason they might want something you have to offer, than why would they want to hire you in the first place? Start by asking yourself, “Why would they want to talk to me?” and if you have a really good answer, persist. They will thank you for it.

I used to have a problem with persistent sales people because I was a wimp. Because I was afraid of offending, I would waste other people’s time, and drive them nuts, by trying to make them guess what my unresponsiveness means.

Now, I take the time to tell them I am not interested, and that I don’t want them to call any more. They don’t persist, why would they? They need to make sales. Or I will tell them that I might be interested in November, and please call then. Or, I’m not interested, but I can think of someone who might be and I’ll introduce them.

They thank me for that. In fact, once I took a sales class, I got a newfound respect for salespeople. If you can befriend them, they are more likely than anyone at getting you the next job. Good salespeople understand what Karma is all about. And they know everyone.

The best way of not being perceived as a “creep” is to not be one. Sure, some people will still think you are one, but so what, you are not one, so what do you care what they think? Just make sure that when people spend time with you, it is time well spent.

My Grandmother summarized it well… it is a matter of whose interests you have in mind.

My Grandmother’s Advice

One final thing that bugs me: People will call me and ask me to change their mind about something, kind of how you are. I’ll make a case. Then they will argue with me some more, as if they will convince me that I’m wrong. But I did not ask to have my mind changed, they did. If they want to change their minds, stop arguing with me, do the experiment, and collect a statistically significant amount of data.

So, before you say I still haven’t convinced you that Ken is right about being persistent, read up on how to be pleasantly persistent, and then over the next 50 instances where Ken might say “be persistent” and you might say “back off” just flip a coin to pick one. Keep track of your results, and see if being persistent pays off. If it doesn’t, before rejecting his hypothesis, see if you can get someone to do a postmortem for you and see if you’re doing it wrong.

If it still turns out that being pleasantly persistent with people, when you have their best interests at heart, is inferior to going away and forgetting about it – well then, I want to see the data. That would be news.

Regards,

Brooke Allen

I figured everyone else was like me. No response (or a response of NO), especially after asking a few times, means “go away.”

Show up to lunches? ??? If some strange person that sent in an application just starts showing up in your lab and asking people to go to lunch, you trust this person? Now you want to hire them?

OTOH, I totally get the correspondence about the lab’s papers and previous work. Although it’s still pretty much a thinly veiled version of the over-persistence bit. The only difference is that you can see that the prospect knows their stuff and is generally motivated to work in this area of research.

Can someone please explain why I’m wrong about over-persistence? Why, if I submit a constant barrage of inquiries, is this seen as anything but obnoxious and a nuisance?

:>

No worries, there. The most important peice for me, however was this:

“People over-interpret the lack of response to an email as a negative reply.”

That happens to me quite often. I need to remember that until someone tells me to stop contacting them they may not even know I am contacting them.

Brooke’s Article at Science Careers

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Science Careers Blog Entry

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Jim Austin, Editor
Science Careers
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