The Career Clinic Blog

Looking for a job? Brace yourself for a lot of rejection, the experts suggest. It's part of the deal. And you'll need a strategy for...dealing.

Writers get rejected. Lots. When I was pitching my first few books, I had one rule. If I got a rejection, I wouldn't go to bed that night until I'd sent another submission--or at least, query--right back out into the world.

Kenn Amdahl writes "entertaining books on dull subjects." When he was trying to attract the attention of publishers, he started collecting rejections. He made it a game. "I knew I didn't have any control over people telling me yes, they'd publish my book," he says. "But by God, they couldn't say no unless I sent it out again--so I did."

Have you been rejected by so many potential employers you want to give up?

Are you sure?

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You’re giving a presentation and people are taking notes. This is what occurs to you--if you’re like me, that is: “They think what I’m saying is worth remembering.” And then, “Cool.”

So don’t be shy about taking notes during your job interview. The hiring manager will probably be flattered by the attention. Not only that, but as one career consultant pointed out, it’ll help a potential employer imagine you already working there.

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If your resume sports typos, what's the potential employer going to think? That you're suddenly going to pay more attention to detail once you get the job? Probably not. So make sure you proofread everything you send out, electronic or otherwise.

I heard a great tip once, to proofread backwards. Start at the end of your document and look at each word on its own, working from right to left and bottom to top. This lessens the chance you’ll read for meaning and skip over mistakes. A spell checker won't flag the word "pear" for you, for example, when you meant to say "pare." But when you're proofreading backwards you're likely to exclaim, "Pear! What is the word 'pear' doing on my resume? I meant pare!"

I've proofread each of my three books backwards, and caught things I never would have otherwise. Not just typos, either. Any kid flopped upside down over a couch cushion will tell you how different the living room looks with furniture hanging from the ceiling. Get a fresh look at your material before you release it. You won't be sorry.

This is where I thank Darrell and Katie for their work on my blog! I have what I've heard is a typical husband who uh, loves to help. And a typical teenager who loves to point out my mistakes. Or did I get that reversed?

No matter what precautions you take, you probably won't catch every boo-boo until it's too late. That's when I hope you'll think of what I learned from an editor at the University of Minnesota Press: "Snowflakes aren't perfect, but they're still pretty cool."

If I were you, I'd still go for perfect when approaching potential employers. It would be a shame to take yourself out of the running for that dream job because you transposed a couple of digits in your phone number. Career consultants say you wouldn't believe how often that happens.

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When I think of networking I think of someone whipping out a business card at a wedding reception in hopes I’ll upgrade our life insurance policy. Networking is schmoozing is…insincere?

Or is it? Maybe it’s just the word that rubs wrong. It sounds forced. How about, “Staying in touch with people you’ve enjoyed working with?” Much better, at least to me.

We’re fond of saying on The Career Clinic that networking is to job hunting as location is to real estate: pretty much everything. You can take all those hours you spend at your computer looking for work, and get just as far by honing your Tetris skills. I’m exaggerating, but according to my career consultant friends, not by much. Personal contacts are statistically the best way to find a job, so much so that other methods are hardly worth mentioning by comparison.

The last person to share that feeling on the show is Lynne Waymon, co-author of Make Your Contacts Count. She says networking isn’t an event, it’s a way of living. I loved a couple of questions she says will get you beyond the same old boring conversation about the weather. How about, “What have you been working on lately?” Or, “What are you looking forward to?” Maybe the people you’re talking with will answer with a story about work, maybe not, but they’ll likely be flattered by the attention.

Consultants say the best time to network is before you need to, and the best networkers never stop. If you go with my way of putting it, staying in touch with people you’ve enjoyed working with, why would you stop? You wouldn’t. So your network is always intact, and there will always be people you feel comfortable asking for help because you’ve been helping them out, too.

Lynne thinks you should answer the question “what’s new” with a short story. I’d keep it to a phrase, but that’s me. More in the next post.

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Once upon a time I wrote a book about a Vietnam veteran. I was in foreign territory, all right. I knew very little about war, weapons, world history, world geography, and almost anything else that would have helped me translate this man's experience to the printed page.

How do you conduct interviews in that situation? Slowly. I'd ask a question but wouldn't understand the answer. It seems like I interrupted every exchange with a request for a definition, and interrupted every definition with a request for more definitions.

We spent so much time backing up I thought we'd never advance.

Every night after I finished transcribing the most recent interview, Darrell went over my notes with me. One night we came across a reference to an "M-1 Car Beam." He looked at me. "Car beam?" he asked. "Car beam?" And then, "It's carbine." Oh. "Did you really think it was car beam?" he asked. "It may as well have been lasagna," I fired back. It was like trying to write a book in Spanish. I can tell you my name, how I'm feeling, and what time it is in Spanish. I can even count to twenty in that language. But that's it. I can't write a book in Spanish, and that's how this task felt.

Left for Dead: A Second Life after Vietnam is written in first person--as if I had been the one in combat--and my biggest contribution was probably attention. I listened so hard during the interviews that I almost always got a headache. But slowly, slowly, I figured out what I didn't know, what I needed to know, and how I could share what I learned. My co-author was patient with me and so was Darrell, and the three of us are very proud of this book.

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Every Saturday after the talk show my husband, who's also my producer, gives me the news. All of it. Good and bad. What I did right, what could be improved. We listen to a recording of the program together--don't our weekends sound like fun--and pick it apart, exchange by exchange.

When we first got married Darrell told me that my lasagna was the best he'd ever had. I was so thrilled I told people at work. "You know he's lying," one friend said. "Yeah?" I fired back. "All it's going to get him is more lasagna."

Do you have people in your life who will tell you the truth? Darrell steps up after every show. I try to make that easy for him. I listen, take notes, thank him for the attention--and then use his suggestions. I trust his opinion, and he gets the fun of watching me--we think--get better at this.

Sometimes his assessment of the program is so good I need reassurance he's being straight with me. All he has to say is "lasagna" before I remember there's nothing in it for him to act like I've done a good job when I haven't. All it would get him--and you--is a boring show.

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My life changed when I quit worrying about whether my career plans made sense to other people. It wasn't their lives we were talking about. I suggest you pay attention to that little voice inside that knows going after still another corporate job is wrong. Sure, some careers command more interest at a cocktail party or will pay for fancier vacations. But if you hate what you do for forty or fifty or sixty hours a week, you'll probably spend more time at cocktail parties...or on vacation.

I once read a story about a man who loved his job so much he was embarrassed to get paid for it. What would you love doing that much? Think it's impossible, that you shouldn't get your hopes up? Not according to my sources.

Who decided you shouldn't get your hopes up, by the way? A few people who did, and were disappointed? That's their story, not yours. Do yourself a favor. Go after a job you're so excited about it won't matter so much what you put on your resume or wear to the interview. Passion for the work is one thing employers consistently tell me is irresistible.

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