by: Adrienne Rodney

You think you got it bad? Try waiting in a mile-long line where a callback is like hitting the jackpot and landing a part is like going to heaven.

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First Lesson: CHANGE THE GAME

Darbi Worley, producer of the Everything Acting Podcast, knows that not every role is right for her. “I look at every project as a jigsaw puzzle missing one piece,” she says. “I am a puzzle piece and I only fit certain puzzles. If I jam myself into the wrong puzzle, both the puzzle and I are going to be really uncomfortable. Better to wait for the right puzzle. It’s out there.”

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Second lesson: RE-FRAME REJECTION

Lidia Ryan says most thespians go on twenty auditions before getting a job – sometimes more, sometimes less. There are too many circumstances to take it personally. “I may lose a part not because I’m not a good actor or they [casting agents] didn’t like me,” she says, “but perhaps because I look too much like one of the actors in the project that are already cast, or they decided to go with…the opposite sex. It’s never a rejection of you; they just decided to go with someone else. If you see it as a rejection of you, well then you will probably just give up.”

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Third Lesson: KEEP GOING

Brooke Lewis, a horror-film actor and producer, knows how hard you have to work to be noticed. “When you get in front of those people you better be prepared and you better be good,” she says. “However, how will these people ever know you exist if you don’t put the work in to get there? If you’re not putting yourself out there in the work sense, then you’re not moving. You’re not getting to the next place.”

Ms. Lewis put herself out there by staying busy. “I can’t tell you how many coffee and dinner meetings I used to take, with anyone and everyone in the industry who I could have some kind of beneficial relationship with – where I could help assist them and they could teach me. I mean, you really have to put the time in.”

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Fourth Lesson: TAKE ACTING LESSONS

Dan Nainan was a senior engineer at Intel touring around the world with cofounder Andy Grove as his “Demo God” doing technical demonstrations on stage. He says, “Although the technical part was easy, the public speaking was terrifying, so I took a comedy class to help with stage fright, and found I had an affinity for comedy.” Now he’s a professional comedian and actor who appeared in a “Get a Mac” commercial for Apple. Learn how actors and comedians deal with their fears and it will surely help your career, and perhaps even lead to a new one.

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Fifth Lesson: DO SOMETHING ELSE

Kai Soremekun, creator of the web series CHICK, says. “When you’re looking for a job and worried about your future you’re already afraid.” She recommends, “Stop watching the news.” and “Get a hobby or project.” She describes a friend who renovates houses, “Often she is so wrapped up in the latest house she’s working on that it almost becomes a hassle to drop what’s she’s doing to go to an audition. But the result is she’s less invested in the outcome of the audition and so books more acting gigs.”

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Kai brings up a very important point. Optimism, helplessness, and depression have been studied for decades by Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association, and director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

In his book, Learned Optimism, he describes how worrying about things out of your control (e.g., the economy, most news stories, etc.) will make you feel helpless and depressed. However, being engaged in an activity like a hobby or side business will keep you positive, particularly if it is meaningful and benefits others. Watch Dr. Seligman explain how to live a fulfilling life on this TED Video.

Interview by: Brooke Allen

LISTEN TO NEIL and learn to MASTER A JOB INTERVIEW from a master.

Years ago, Mike Myers (aka Austin Powers) taught Cambridge educated Neil Mullarkey how to be funny, and along the way Neil discovered his authentic self.

Neil has been in double-acts with Mike Myers, Nick Hancock, and Tony Hawks. He has performed in numerous radio and television shows, including BBC’s Whose Line is it Anyway. (The show began in1988, ten years before ABC brought it to America.) He has been in many films including Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Goldmember.

For 25 years, as a founding member of the Comedy Store Players, and as owner of Improv Your Biz, Neil has been teaching the art of improvisation.

I recently caught his performance in the British Comedy Invasion in New York City. The audience was thrilled when he introduced his colleagues and mentors, Eddie Izzard and Mike Myers, as surprise guests.

So I asked him if he would speak to NSoW about the importance of mentors, and he graciously agreed.

Listen to Neil describe his relationship with Mike and what he learned. He talks about how he mentors others, teaching people from all walks of life how to improvise. You will hear about his alter-ego, L. Vaughan Spencer, the world’s worst self-help guru and author of Don’t be Needy, Be Succeedy.

Neil explains how improv can help you discover your authentic self. While actors might play people they are not, improv artists have no time to be anyone but who they are. In a good scripted performance, each line leads to the next. In good improvisation, each person hands other performers an opportunity to carry on, using what is called an “offer.” You may not know where you are going, but you offer the opportunity for another person to go somewhere. However, in normal conversation, we often bring a conversation to a screeching halt with what is called a “block.” These are conversation enders.

But a really good improvisationalist sees a block as just another form of an offer. Neil and I role-play with what is probably the most dreaded block job seekers face: The Turn Down – “I can’t possibly use you.” You will learn how this is not a block at all, but an invitation to explore everything else you might do with your life. And the best place to start is in the hiring manager’s office; the best time to start is immediately after you are rejected. The conversation does not need to be over. You have just been handed an “offer” to begin an entirely new discussion.

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW NOW.

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Before there was Dr. Evil, there was Dr. Wicked.

Watch MIKE MYERS and NEIL MULLARKEY perform together at the Edinburgh Festival on YOU TUBE.

Read the Humongous Shortage of Work’s  review of Neil’s latest book, Don’t be Needy, be Succeedy. They even have a promotional video you can watch that is a real hoot.

You can always find or create a job for yourself if you are willing to change your job, change your location or change the amount you’re asking to a lower amount.

If there is insufficient demand for your particular skills and experience, first you will have to learn to do something else and provide skills that are currently in demand.  Employers don’t care about your past.  They care only about your future and your ability to contribute value to their customers.

You can change your location.  Sometimes you will have to move from one part of the country to another, from where there are few jobs to where there are more jobs.  Many people transform their entire lives by moving from an area of high unemployment to an area of low unemployment.

The third thing you can do to get back into the work force is to lower your demands.  Remember, because your labor is a commodity, it is subject to the laws of supply and demand.  If you ask too much, people will not hire you, because customers will not pay your demands in the price of the product or service that your organization produces. It is not the employer who is forcing this downward revision in wage requirements; it is the customer, through his or her buying behavior.

There is a small, creative minority in America who is never unemployed.  No matter what happens, they always have a job; sometimes two jobs.  If they lose a particular position in one place, they find another position doing the same thing, or something else, somewhere else.  They are fast on their feet.  They move quickly and they don’t accept unemployment as an option.  And they always have jobs.

There are always jobs to be done.  Even in the worst economy, there are always problems to be solved and consumer needs to be met.  For this reason, all long-term unemployment is ultimately voluntary.

There are more opportunities for you to fulfill your dreams and aspirations in the American economy than have ever before existed, or exist anywhere else in the world.  You can be, have, or do anything that you can dream of by preparing yourself for better and better jobs.  It is never crowded at the top.  There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.  Your job is to get good, get better, and then make yourself indispensable.

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, examine the trends in your company and your career. Determine where the market is going and what you need to do well if you want to be a leader in your field.

Second, be prepared to change your job description, lower your demands or move to somewhere else if necessary so you can get and keep the ideal job for you.

Refuse to put limits on your imagination.

By: Brian Egge

In the mid 1990′s the advent of the Internet promised to make our lives easier and markets more efficient. The availability of information and low transaction costs made sites like eBay and Amazon possible, and in turn changed many primary and secondary markets. The Internet has also had a large effect on labor markets; it has allowed people to work from home, and also allowed work to be performed where and when it’s most economical. Some of the most interesting changes have occurred only in the last few years.

When Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com, he decided to start by selling books because there were so many existing databases of book information. Taking the existing databases of standardized products, and offering a more efficient market for them, allowed Amazon to make an economic profit. The revenue for a website which improves the efficiency of labor markets stands to be larger than any of the existing marketplaces on the Internet.

In a perfectly competitive market, each participant is a price taker and has no influence over the price of the product it buys or sells. One of the requirements for a competitive market is homogeneous products. A product, like a new book or a bond, is homogeneous because every unit is alike. As no two people are alike, it makes it difficult for buyers and sellers or employers and employees to agree on a rate and transact business. The easier the output is measured, or the more quantifiable the skill, the easier it is for markets to become competitive. Some jobs, such as sales, have quantifiable outputs, and pay is often tied directly to the revenue produced. While the output of many knowledge based jobs is difficult to quantify, the knowledge and skills required can often be quantified and measured. Various industry certifications exist to help validate a candidate’s skill, though it varies to the extent in which employers rely on these measures.

For a while now, sites like eLance.com have attempted to connect buyers and providers, or employers and employees.  The majority of the projects on these sites ask for bids for a specific project. One of the difficulties with the project based approach is again the homogeneity.  Each project is unique as is each provider (or worker). This results in an increase in higher transaction costs and requires parties to bid on less than perfect information. Each bidder has to attempt to estimate the time the project will take and convert that into their rate. If bidders were to spend 25% of their time bidding on projects, that time would be added to the cost of the average project. Additionally, one often has the problem of the winner’s paradox. That is, the bidder who submits the lowest bid and ‘wins’ the project is also probably the same bidder who either underestimated the project time or has the least skill to complete the project. The buyer doesn’t have to accept the lowest bid, but instead evaluates each bid and may look at the provider’s history and background will contribute to their choice. While this can help prevent ‘a race to the bottom,’ it increases the transaction cost even further. The time the buyer spends evaluating each bid adds to the transaction cost as well.

One way of reducing the transaction cost is to agree on a time based rate. Traditionally, most employers pay either an hourly wage or an annual salary. If each time a boss wanted to worker to do something they had to negotiate a fixed price, huge amounts of time would be wasted estimating and negotiating. This model is very easy to implement in a brick and mortar setting, where employees may time in using a time card, or for call centers where when you’re on the phone, you considered to be working. The site oDesk.com is working on changing this, and allowing people to work remotely and charge an hourly rate. The solution oDesk has come up with is for workers to run a program on their computer which takes a screenshot about every 10 minutes, while the worker is signed in to a project. At the end of the day, the worker can remove screenshots during periods that they weren’t working, and their employer doesn’t get billed for them. On oDesk, a provider can offer their service, say Ruby on Rails programming, at a fixed hourly rate. Buyers can then post projects and accept bids, or directly contact a worker at their posted rate. This creates a double sided auction, a more homogeneous offering, and results in lower transaction costs.

In a market, if one party has more information than the other this can create an advantage to the person with more information. If the information asymmetry is too large, it will discourage trading. Jewelers allow customers to get an independent appraisal of a potential purchase, not because they want to be nice, but they want to reduce the information asymmetry just enough to encourage trading to occur. Consumers in this situation recognize they have virtually no ability to price a product, and the dealer has near perfect information. Allowing for a third party appraisal gives the consumer enough information so they will trade, but still gives the dealer plenty of room to make a profit. Outside of government jobs, salary information is usually kept fairly secret, and generally the employer has more information than the employee. Many websites and salary surveys have attempted to gather this information, but the results they gather are incomplete at best. The website oDesk.com makes all transaction information publicly available. A provider can see what a buyer has paid other people for similar work, and has visibility into the market as a whole. This also benefits the buyers, by seeing their earnings history. While, it can be a bit uncomfortable at times, the market as a whole becomes more efficient. Not only can skills and projects be priced better, but it allows the market to adapt to changes in supply and demand. When the iPhone SDK was first released, there was a shortage of workers with the skill to create apps. As the information became known – through higher wages paid to those with the skill – many people around the world taught themselves the required skill.

The Internet has greatly reduced many of the barriers to entry/exit the labor market. Generally, it’s easier for the suppliers (employers) to enter and exit the market. An employer simply needs a credit card and some work to be done to enter the market. For most firms, labor is a variable cost, but property and equipment are fixed. When sourcing work online, generally the provider has their own office space and equipment. This allows firms to rapidly enter and exit the market, and means they can shutdown quickly in the event their average total cost exceeds the price of their product. At the same time, it allows employees to rapidly enter and exit the market. While there is some barrier, as buyers prefer providers with longer histories, it generally takes only a short while to setup an employee profile. Unemployment figures might make people assume that the supply of workers fixed, but it reality it is quite elastic. Consider a stay at home mom who as a four year degree. Her indifference curve might make her willing to work part time if she can do so at home and earn more than $30 an hour. If the demand of a skill like medical insurance processing causes wages to move into this range, then she will enter the market. If, absent any regulation or unions, there are 10 workers for nine jobs, the wage for the workers will drop to the point in which one of them decides they would rather not work than accept the offered wage. The more elastic the supply of workers, the better off those who are working will be.

The same low barriers to entry/exit in the online labor market also discourage larger employers and higher paying jobs. First, it is not easy to filter the supply of workers and determine who is serious and capable about working, and who is not. Despite the large number of online job sites, recruiters or head-hunters are still used by employers, and provide an important benefit. Qualifying and filtering applicants is time consuming and certainly a skill. Finding someone who can commit to working for 2000+ hours in a year can be difficult to do, and is even more difficult online. This causes employers who want long term work to avoid looking at sites like oDesk and eLance, and also means it’s difficult to find workers there. The company which runs oDesk.com hires most of its employees as full time non-telecommute positions.

In an efficient market transactions are costless. Even if costs related to non-homogeneity are minimized, there are many other exogenous costs. These costs create a gap between the supply and demand curve, and causes less trading or employment to occur than would otherwise. Both employers and employees pay taxes, and the amount of taxes largely depends on where there are physically located. This gives an advantage to firms who choose to locate themselves in a lower tax area, and also to employees whose location offers lower taxes. For example, News Corp relocated itself from Australia to the USA largely due to the lower corporate taxes. In general, this is good, as it can encourage governments to find other methods of raising revenue other than income and corporate taxes. oDesk charges a 10% transaction fee on all payments going through the site. Other sites charge listing fees and one may be exposed to exchange rate fees or other costs. When transaction costs are low, it makes it possible to profit from arbitrage opportunities. Subcontracting work out is an arbitrage. One can simultaneously change a higher rate for the services for which one pays for at a lower rate. The less friction involved in the transaction, the easier this is to do. The existence of these parties who are neither have work nor have employees, but rather make money by either connecting buyer and sellers as recruiters do, or by being an intermediary as consultancies and agencies do, can have the positive effect of increasing liquidity.

I’ve used the site oDesk.com to find workers to help me with design and programming projects. The hourly model, salary transparency, low barrier to entry, and low transaction costs make it one of the better online marketplaces for employers and employees to meet. The site is most suited for employers with small projects and defined work, and for employees who value working where and when they want. The efficiency gains being made by sites like oDesk and it’s competitors will benefit employers and employees alike and both traditional jobs as well as jobs performed online.

Learn how to have purposeful conversations with anyone, and the job interview will be a piece of cake.

by: Brooke Allen

When Darya Gorlova met Lola Falkowski through No Shortage of Work, they did not just chat; Darya interviewed Lauren about her business, LolaFalk.

And Darya did not just write down notes, she wrote up an article.

She published it on her blog.

I am often asked by colleges to speak to their seniors about interviewing. I ask the colleges why they don’t want me to speak to their freshmen.

By the time a student is a senior, and ready to apply for the first serious job, she could have dozens, perhaps hundreds of interviews under her belt. And, I’m not talking about “practice interviews,” I’m talking about real ones. An interview is little more than a purposeful conversation intended to obtain information. If you want to learn something from someone, interview them.

A college friend of mine was never satisfied simply referencing publications in her schoolwork; she often called the authors on the telephone and interviewed them.

In a classic scene in Annie Hall, Woody Allen gets in an argument with a pedantic professor. Woody finds Marshall McLuhan behind a movie poster and gets him to straighten out the professor. Likewise, my friend could tell her professors, “Well, when I spoke with the author last night, he said…”

I admired my friend, but I did not emulate her, and that is why, when she graduated, she had many more useful contacts than me, and she was much more at ease speaking with strangers – particularly ones more powerful or knowledgeable than her. She had practice. I did not.

Here are some suggestions for how you can be more like my friend:

When you interview someone, your goal is to learn something. You will soon discover that people love it when you take an interest in their interests, and they will be very forgiving if you are amateurish at first.

It is important that you take notes. Not only does it make it clear you respect the person’s words, it will help you remember later. And if you don’t remember a conversation, it may as well not have ever taken place.

Take some time and write up your notes in more formal prose. As you do, you will uncover follow-up questions. This will give you a reason to call or write and that will solidify your relationship.

Everything is interesting when viewed from the right angle. Occasionally, you’ll find yourself interviewing boring people, and you’ll start to lose focus. Here’s a trick I use: I ask myself, “How am I going to make this interesting when I write it up?” Committing to producing a finished product gives you a goal that will motivate you to continue. You will discover that almost everything can be made interesting.

Learn to interview like a reporter (and get lots of practice), and you’ll ace the job interview. Few hiring managers know how to conduct an interview, so it will help you greatly if you do. My suggestion: don’t just make the other person’s interests (or yours) the topic of the interview. Make the conversation be about the WORK. Look to learn all about what needs to be accomplished, how it gets done, and why. Don’t try to impress people with your knowledge (reporters don’t do that) but rather with your interest. People would rather hire a learn-it-all than a know-it-all.

Look for every opportunity to interview people, and there is a good chance you’ll get job offers without needing to answer ads or go on “job” interviews. Hiring managers know how hard it is to find people with a sincere interest in the job at hand, and when they run across you, they will wonder if you might be available the next time something opens up. They don’t enjoy conducting “job” interviews any more than you like going to them.

So, take the initiative as Darya has.

A No Shortage of Work networking party is a good place to find people to interview – we’ll even help you. Of course, so is every other place in the world – wherever you find people.

IS A BIG HIT

Seventy No Shortage of Work subscribers converged on the offices of New Work City on Wednesday, April 7, 2010, for what can only be described as our best networking party yet.

Unlike our prior party there was no music, which was a welcome relief; our crowd was loud enough. By 8:00 p.m. it got so crowded that some people moved into the hall for one-on-one discussions. New Work City is moving soon to a bigger space, and we are all hoping we will be invited to hold a party there soon.

(Note: The next party will be on May 10 – look for an announcement on this site.)

Humor was provided by someone identifying himself as Kotow Shergar, an editor at Humongous Shortage of Work. Mr. Shergar handed out a flier recommending attendees go home, and if they chose to stay they avoid talking to strangers and be very suspicious of offers to help. Ironically, Mr Shergar stayed until the very end, and his handout made the claim that he wrote for the Onion and was offering to help people with their writing.

Elissa Desani, of Glass Ceiling Films, collected stories and suggestions from attendees. She even caught on tape a heated argument between Kotow Shergar and Brooke Allen, regarding the reasonableness of people helping people without money changing hands.

Below are more photos from the meeting:

NSoW Volunteers meet for dinner before the party.

NSoW Party attendees brought their own beer, wine, soft drinks, and munchies.

Left to Right: Kotow Shurgar and Brooke Allen argue while NSoW subscriber, David Brett, looks on in disbelief.

Attendees wore color coded tags identifying them as willing to be mentors, looking for work, or looking for help.

There was more than enough to drink and eat.

Elissa Desani of Glass Ceiling Films

Tony Bacigalupo, Founder of New Work City.

About Our Hosts: NEW WORK CITY

New Work City is a co-working site where membership gets you access to their workspace, their mailing list, an excellent community of NYC independents, and much more.

To learn more, go to: nwcny.com

Why is it that lazy people accuse people who are helping themselves of acting out of desperation?

I was waiting for the uptown #6 subway train in New York City when I overheard a conversation between two men in early middle-age; one standing and the other sitting.

The one sitting said “The market sucks; I can’t get a job.”

The one standing said, “I know. I lost my job at the end of 2008 and I couldn’t find anything for nearly a year.”

“Tell me about it. I haven’t worked since then either. At first I wondered what was wrong with me, and then I realized it wasn’t me, it was the economy. It isn’t even worth sending out resumes.”

“I gave up on that too, and if I got an interview, I stopped trying to sell myself. I would just ask, ‘What do I need to know to get this job?’ and usually I didn’t have what they wanted anyway.”

“Me too.”

“Then I asked everyone I knew, and everyone they knew, ‘What’s hot now?’ It turned out, just knowing HTML and Java isn’t good enough. And the big thing is social networking.”

“Don’t worry. It will come back when the economy recovers.” The man on the bench said this in a reassuring tone.

The train came, and I followed them into the car. I had to hear the end of their conversation.

“I’m not so sure. I signed up for this thing called MeetUp, and I found some people who told me about some free classes and study groups.”

“Sounds like a scam.”

“Well, I learned a lot and worked on some projects. I didn’t know anything at first, but it was good just to be with people. It didn’t cost me anything except my time. It took five months, but I landed a job.”

His friend said, “I’m not that desperate.”

When I got above ground, I Googled the definition of “desperate” on my Blackberry, and the first definition was, “marked by despair or loss of hope.” Perhaps our subway rider meant, “frightened and in need of help,” another one of the definitions.

Funny, I find that people who say they are not desperate are the ones who aren’t helping themselves. Could it be that they aren’t frightened enough yet? But, why wait until you’re that far down that road?

And, I’ve noticed that the people I admire the most, especially during hard times, are the people who don’t wait for someone to manage their lives, and who don’t need to be bribed, coerced, or even taught in order to learn or do something new.

And yet, these are the very people who are called “desperate” by the people most in need of help?

And psychologists have discovered that, if you work really hard at improving your circumstances, it is almost impossible to become depressed, and that if you wait until you feel like doing something before doing it, you might be waiting a long time.

Are you doing nothing? Or doing things that don’t work, time after time? I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I don’t think that your situation will be improved by accusing people who are doing something of only doing it out of desperation; at least not before consulting a dictionary.

But if you’re reading this, you’re already doing something, so I doubt I’m referring to you.

- Brooke Allen

David said, “Every day, I want working here to be your best option.” David is the founder of the company I work for, and we were discussing what would go into my employment contract. It is standard, in this industry, for people in my position to have two year non-compete clauses, which mean that if I quit the job, I could not work at what I do for two years.

I did not want to have such a clause, but the amazing thing was that David did not want me to either. He and I both knew how important it is to know that you choose to do what you do, not that you are doing it because you have no choice. That conversation took place 15 years ago. I’m still here, and happy, even though I have never worked at a place where it is easier to go somewhere else.

Most people aren’t bound by a clause in a contract. Their constraints come from an inability to create choices for themselves. Or, they can’t see the options staring them in the face. During hard times, they will take the first job that comes along because they feel they have no choice. When times get better, they will jump at the first opportunity to jump ship, without doing the due diligence it takes to determine if they will be better off. Finally, they have a choice, so they feel compelled to move, discounting the value of the choice to stay put, or mustering the courage to ask for something better of from the boss.

The ironic thing is that almost all employers require that you be good at finding a job before they will hire you.

The difference is that, I don’t require you to be good at it before we first meet.

I went to a jobs fair, not to find work, but to interview HR people and recruiters to learn how to better help NSoW readers.

I asked the head of HR for a large firm, “What do you look for in a job candidate?”

“I want a well formatted resume, and their cover letter must be well written. They must be good at presenting themselves in a positive light. They must know all about our business and our needs. They need to look sharp; dress for the part. They need to be personable; at ease in the interview.”

“They need to be good at finding a job.”

“Correct.”

“And they have to know how to sell themselves?”

“That’s right.”

“Is it a sales job?”

“No. We’re hiring engineers.”

“But I don’t get it.” I was astonished. “Most good engineers I know are nothing like that; they are introverts, they don’t look you in the eye, they don’t have a business sense, they can’t sell for beans, and they dress like slobs. They have spent their time honing their engineering skills, not their people skills. And the last thing I think you’d need your engineers to be good at is finding someone else to work for.”

Suddenly he remembered he had to do something else, and the conversation came to a screeching halt.

I bet if I hired engineers the way he does, I wouldn’t get the best engineers, I’d get the best people at convincing me they are. And, they will leave because it is easier for them to convince someone else somewhere else, than to actually be a good engineer for me.

So, before I hire you, I want you to be good at most of what I need you to do. And be a good enough student to learn the rest. If you are good at finding a job, I won’t hold it against you, but if you aren’t, let’s work on that.

First you need to be good at creating choices before you and I can determine if working for me is your best choice.

But there is another reason to be good at it.

The skills you need to be good at finding a job are skills you need to be maximally effective at doing the work I want you to do.

Let’s take networking, for example. Most “networkers” give networking a bad name. When they lose their jobs, your acquaintenances suddenly want to become your best friends. They will have discovered a fascination with how well your children are doing. Yet, if they land a job by December, they won’t return your Christmas card.

That’s not what networking is all about. It is about making deposits in the Karma Bank. It’s about being useful to others, and not keeping score. And, it’s about asking for help, but only from people who can give it, in a way that doesn’t piss them off, and that allows them to bow out gracefully. It’s about being someone people want to spend time with, not about spending people’s time.

Almost all the people I know are interesting, and charming , and will help you if they can. But when they become unemployed, they withdraw and become depressed and are of little use to anyone. Or they become self-centered, shallow, and pushy – in short, they become their own worst image of a bad salesman. Both these reactions are natural, common, and forgivable. But would you want to hire someone like that? I don’t.

Most employers want to hire you only if you are currently working somewhere else and already doing what they want done. They do this because they they think that if your boss wants you, they probably do too. They also do it because the employed come with less expressed baggage than the unemployed.

But there are downsides for me in hiring someone currently doing what I want.

I like to feel that working for me will be a step up for you. If you are coming from the unemployment line, that’s easy. And if you don’t work out, I want to be able to send you back, without you being worse off. Few employers will t take you back, but the unemployment line will.

Also, if you want to work for me doing the same thing you are unhappy doing for someone else, perhaps the problem is that the work and you aren’t a good fit. Or it once was, but now it is time to move on to something new.

In conclusion, you don’t need to be good at creating choices for yourself right now, but I would like you to be by the time we both have to make a decision. You don’t need to be already doing what I need you to do, but if you learn much of what the job entails between now and when I make a decision, I won’t hold that against you. In fact, if you can learn things quickly, it is evidence you’ll easily learn the rest after I hire you. If you learn things with a spirit of adventure, and because you have a love of learning, and not just because I said so, then you are much more likely to be the kind of person I, and others, want to hire.

My approach might seem upside down and backwards, but there is a certain logic to it, and it works for me. It might work for you too, and reap benefits even if I don’t hire you. If I don’t choose you, you will still have given me something very valuable; a choice. I hope I can show you how to create choices too.

- Brooke Allen

PS: Someone just wrote to ask if this some kind of come-on, and if I’m going to try to sell training to you. The answer is: absolutely not. I do not charge the people who work for me to learn things – I pay for their education. And if someone wants to learn something from me before I hire them, I do not charge for that either. I always wanted to be a teacher, but it doesn’t pay nearly as well as running the business I run with the well-educated people I’ve hired.

I don’t have much turnover in my group. Everyone has been with me for between 5 and 10 years. Sadly, Darla, who I only hired last year, has had to leave. She did wonderful work and we all loved her. And she liked it here too, but something unfortunate came up.

So, I’m hiring again.

We placed an ad in Craigslist.

Within three days, hundreds of people replied. If they were interesting, or they asked good questions, I responded, by sending them everyone’s questions and answers.

If a candidate was still interested, I then invited them to attend one of a few open houses.

We had our first yesterday where I met nine interesting and wonderful people.

I introduced myself, the team, and described the work. Because there are so many of them, and only one job, I suggested that, rather than having them all try to compete to impress me, we all work together to help everyone get a job. That way, I can differentiate the people who are only good at selling from the ones who like to help others.

If you are one of my applicants, please feel free to post a comment about your experience of this way of hiring.

Thanks,

Brooke

(Or anywhere else, for that matter.)

NSoW recently caught up with Ken Caldeira at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a climate scientist working at Carnegie Institution’s Dept. of Global Ecology on the Stanford University campus. He is also a Professor (by courtesy) at Stanford University’s Dept. of Environmental Earth System Science.”

We asked him: What is the best way to get a job in a lab? This is what he wrote:

My experience is that people come in and want to start at the top. They typically come and say “I have these great skills that I want to apply to your research.” Then they get offended when you say that you don’t think you can maximize your marginal return on investment by paying them to do the thing that they were trained to do.

Instead people should come in and listen to what we do and try to figure out what we need that would make our work become more efficient and productive and then offer to do that thing (or those things).

If people are local, they should ask if they can join us for lunch on “nothing special, just ordinary lunch” days. They should come to seminars, ask if they can sit in on group meetings. If you hear some little thing that you would be able to help on, say “Oh, I can do that.” At first, make it something small. Do it fast and well.

Start out by being helpful. Let people discover your skills and abilities. Look for chances to demonstrate your skills and abilities. If you sit in a bunch of meetings and never see an opportunity to make use of your skills, that might be a message.

So, rather than presenting your wonderful skills, show that you can fill a need and improve group productivity. Rather than asking to work, entrain yourself into the life of the lab.

If people really do not like you, they will eventually tell you to go away.

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I just offered a part-time job to one of my former students who asked to have a social lunch with me and my group. The issue of work never came up at lunch, but when I needed something done I thought, ‘oh, if this student is asking to have lunch with us, she probably is interested and wants to be entrained in our activities, so I will ask her first to she if she wants the part time job.’ Even though there were better students, I didn’t offer the job to them because they did not demonstrate to me the same level of interest or motivation. When I asked her if she wanted part time work, she was very happy.

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People over-interpret the lack of response to an email as a negative reply. I would recommend interpreting no answer to an email message to mean “I am busy and do not have time to read every incoming email from people I have never heard of.”  Be persistent and keep emailing until you get a response. After the third time, you can start putting in your emails “Please let me know if you want me to stop emailing you.”

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I hired a post-doc who I never would have hired except that she was so persistent. First she kept on emailing me saying she wanted to work with me. I said that it did not really look like a fit and that I would not pay for her to fly overseas to interview her. She offered to pay her own way to come out for an interview (we usually pay travel for prospective employees). I thought “If she is that motivated, let her come out to visit us.” She was familiar with my work and enthusiastic about how much she wanted to work with me. I thought, if she is so highly motivated to work with me, I should give her a chance. So, I offered her a post-doc position.

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Most scientists are egomaniacs. Before you interview with a group, read their papers. When you visit, ask the scientists and post-docs about their work. Show that you are familiar with their work and the questions they are addressing. Mostly, you should be asking questions about their work, not telling them about your own.

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Start the job in the interview. Pretend it is your first day on the job and you are figuring out what you are going to do. Ask the questions you would need to ask in order to start working.

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When you read a scientific paper and you have a question or comment, email the lead author (or authors) with your comment or question. Be complimentary if you can. Most scientists love it when people are interested in their work and saying nice things.

Chances are, if you are interested in their work, you will bump into them in the course of your career. Having that email contact gives you a connection that could lead to a job, a positive review, etc.

I made an offer of a post-doc position to a graduate student who I never would have offered a job to except that he had emailed me several times over the prior year asking intelligent questions about my papers.

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Best,

Ken

PS, After this is published, I will probably be saturated with people attempting these strategies on me. Your best bet may be to try these strategies on someone else.