You’re at a gathering with family at some holiday or at a get-together with friends when someone tries to make conversation with you by asking “The Question.”
Or maybe “The Question” is asked by someone out of the blue who calls you.
What’s “The Question?”
“The Question” is, “How is your job search going?”
Or maybe it’s, “How did that interview turn out?”
We all have questions like that in life. Mine is, “How is your book coming along?” It used to turn my stomach because it is asked by people who want to see me fail and have no real interest in my succeeding. Maybe your circumstances are different but those are mine.
So the hardest task you have in looking is managing your own emotions throughout the process. Even when an interview is internal to your organization, the impact of interview failure can be really upsetting.
A friend (whom I hope remains a friend after reading this) had a disastrous internal interview that would have involved a transfer. His failure was humiliating and took several months to recover from.
You cannot afford several months of recovery time after coming in second.
More than a decade ago, I ran and finished the New York Marathon and, from that experience, I learned that much of life is more like a running a marathon,
not a sprint. You need to be prepared to go longer and further than you ever have, instead of just running for nine or ten seconds.
This is another of those cases where patience is a virtue.
© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2008, 2016