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  • CAREER PLANNING 2019
  • Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year from the team at Pohlen Partners
  • 2018 Market Intelligence
  • Managing Skills-Short functions
  • Talent Intelligence 2018
  • New CV service for Executives and Leaders
  • Career Services Global Conference provides insight on the Digital Future
  • Career Management Intelligence 2018
  • Leaders forum: Optimising trans-Tasman Business Relationships
  • Recruiting Intelligence 2018
  • Is outplacement the new must have employee benefit?
  • Waste Management wins prestigious Skills Highway Award at Diversity Awards NZ 2017
  • Retaining Competitive Edge in the Workplace of the Future
  • Is your performance management system effective ?
  • Beatrice Roets joins us to strengthen resources in our Executive Recruitment Team
  • Career Services Global Conference provides insight on the Future of Work
  • Performance Management Systems - are yours relevant?
  • Overcoming anxiety in Psychometric Assessments
  • Dear Candidate....... you are important to us
  • Poor Interviews Hurt Companies
  • Rejuvenating your career plan in 2017?
  • A year in review - 2016
  • Challenge current hiring practices to reflect the employment market
  • Candidate Experience Forum & Survey Results
  • Your Talent Strategy - Balancing the Human Factor with Technology
  • Optimising Contract and Temporary Resource
  • Paula Bennett captivates at recent Business Leaders Forum
  • Evaluating Employment Market Contradictions
  • Strategies for overcoming talent shortages in NZ
  • Growing team capability to service customers
  • Leadership in elevating your employer brand
  • Market Insight Update
  • Bobux wins silver at coveted 2015 Best Awards NZ
  • Customer Experience needs to be reflected in recruitment strategy
  • Attitudinal Skills for 21st Century Workplaces
  • Top Marketers share Big Data knowledge at our recent event
  • Market Insight Update
  • Milmeq wins Auckland’s ‘Best of the Best’ Supreme Business Excellence Award
  • Pohlen Partners hosts a Customer Experience Forum
  • How current are your recruitment and talent strategies ?
  • Ziera shoes named supreme topshop
  • Market Insight Update
  • Watch Emma Gordon highlight the five key attributes of a good temporary employee
  • Organisational Development – mutual benefits in 21st century workplaces
  • Organisational benefits of career planning and management
  • Market Insight Update
  • In this video Odette Shearer shares key insights for aspiring marketing candidates
  • Make-A-Wish
  • Market Insight Update
  • Our Global Partnership Annual Conference
  • The importance of global experience in careers today
  • View Robyn Webb as she shares some trends evident within the HR portfolio
  • Pohlen Partners presents at the HR Analytics and Workforce Intelligence Conference
  • Auckland Museum wins Excellence Award
  • Congratulations Milmeq
  • The NZ Employment Market
  • Design Thinking Forum
  • Your Professional Life is Going to Get Slashed
  • Pohlen Partners supports Springboard Trust
  • Five basic tips for the graduate job hunt
  • Your Life Is Like a Three Ring Circus
  • HR Trends and Conversations
  • Talent at Work
  • Standing Out from the Crowd
  • Talent Mobility
  • Design: more than just lipstick on a pig
  • Pohlen Kean progresses to Pohlen Partners
  • Villa Maria takes out top prize at Sustainable Business Network Awards
  • Energizing your Workforce Conference
  • Les Mills - Winner of the Westpac Supreme Business Excellence Award.
  • Individual Performance
  • Contractors Replacing Employees
  • Put Your Job Hunter to Good Use
  • Orion Health - international Business of the Year
  • Redundancy Loses Its Stigma
  • International Removals
  • Eco Warranty Certification
  • Moving across the Ditch - without tears
  • The Year in Employment
  • Happy New Year?
  • Putting the work in
  • Sustainable 60 Awards
  • Bridge to success built on reputation
  • How to say 'no' - in the nicest way
  • Career Transition Case Study
  • Who you going to consult?
  • Career Transition Update
  • Branding - and your people
  • Strategic recruitment partnership
  • Succession Planning....
  • Graduate recruitment
  • Employer branding
  • The Win-Win Approach to Employment Contracts (Part One)
  • Ambivalence to Commitment
  • Don't You Trust Me???!!!
  • Are You Still Using a One Dimensional Approach?
  • Good Bosses Are Hard to Find: Here's How
  • Looking for Work? Keep a Diary
  • 'Seal the Deal' in Job Interviews

Are You Still Using a One Dimensional Approach?

Is That One Dimensional Approach to Your Job Search Not Working for You? By Laurence Stybel, Ed.D., C.M.F. in Platform for Success

Click here to view the article on Psychology Today


Hockey great Wayne Gretzsky was once asked what differentiated him from other professional players.

"Others look at where the puck is. I look at where the puck is going." Gretzsky's perspective is worth remembering when looking at opportunities.

Let's examine one sphere of professional life: job search.

Spending time staring at your computer screen for jobs is like skating to where the puck is at a hockey game:

Your competitors are looking at the same job at the same time. When you respond, you are one of hundreds of resumes on a recruiter's screen.

In hockey, a puck on the ice does not remain stationary for long. Available jobs do not remain unfilled. An opportunity may appear "fresh" when looking at the date that it was posted on the Internet. But the opportunity may already be "stale." For example, at my firm we sometimes advertise on the web for candidates for jobs we are seeking to fill on a retained search basis. When we post the ad we are seeking to create a second or third tier candidate pool. The first tier candidate pool has already been found by us through our own networks and referrals from our networks. We are seeking to find another pool in the event all the candidates we present are rejected. You think the job is "fresh" but it is "stale." The puck has moved by the time you spot it.

Job Searching in a Three-Dimensional World

Looking at ads is an example of "linear thinking." It is the type of thinking most often taught in school: take x courses and score a grade of y and you will achieve z diploma. And having z diploma will result in XYZ job. The world of management self-help books often has a linear logic behind it: adopt these seven habits and you too will be successful.

We don't live in a linear world. We live in a three dimensional word that is linear, non linear, and random all at the same time.

A non-linear event operates within fuzzy boundaries. For example, you attend professional association cocktail parties in the hopes of meeting someone who will steer you to a great job opportunity. Ten times you go to the event and come up empty-handed. And on the eleventh time you strike gold.

Conducting an aggressive direct mail campaign using snail mail is an exercise in nonlinear thinking; you send our letters to three hundred companies and hope that three companies ask you in for an interview. And you have no clue which three companies will be positive.

Job search within the nonlinear dimension is skating away from where the puck is to where you suspect it might be.

Managing Randomness in Your Professional Life

Nonlinear logic has a fuzzy logic. But the random dimension has no logic at all. The idea that we live in a random world can be a disturbing idea for some people. But how many of us have had life changing events that took place by random?

It is a paradox, but you can manage random events to some degree.

For example, we recommend that job candidates randomly "spin dial" their electronic address books and call the person whose name appears. We call it "Spin the Dial for Dollars."

We tell our clients to say, "Just thinking about you and called to say 'how are you?'"

At Stybel Peabody we manage random events with techniques like this. We have been delighted with the number of responses that begin with, "It's amazing that you should call. How did you know we have a need for your services right now?"

In hockey, a random approach is skating around the rink and waiting to pounce for the right opening.

A Thre-Dimensional Approach to Managing Your Job Search

Skating to where the puck is going requires giving up the illusion of living in a linear world. Grasp the implications of structuring your professional life along a three dimensional framework of linear, non-linear, and randomness.

                                                            ###

Larry Stybel received his doctorate in organization behavior from Harvard University and is co-founder of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire, a talent management company with offices in 31 countries. He also is Executive in Residence at the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University in Boston. You can reach Larry at linkedin.com/in/lstybel or twitter at lstybel.  His website is stybelpeabody.com

CAREER PLANNING 2019


Thinking about your career goals for the year? Contact us to explore... more

Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year from the team at Pohlen Partners

We value your contribution to our business and look forward to working... more

2018 Market Intelligence

Contributing to our customers’ commercial goals and individual careers,
insights are provided... more

Managing Skills-Short functions

Manufacturers are meeting talent needs through sustainable attraction and retention tactics
Pohlen... more

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