Hungry to Succeed

I was teaching a technical course at Walt Disney World a couple years ago. I shared a lunchtime with some Disney workers, who are called "cast members" at Disney, not employees. Three of these cast members were from India. Our discussion focused on technology and I said that I was disturbed that so many American students know how to use technology but do not know how it works. I mentioned that American enrollment in engineering and science peaked almost 20 years ago and most of the students now in these curricula were non-American. Then one of the Indian cast members quietly said, "That's because they are not hungry."

I believe she is right. All three of them concurred that they had spent 12-15 hours a day in their school studies. The competition is fierce in India. Social advancement is predicated on education, and these three were not unusual. They were representative of the simple fact that they are indeed hungry and willing to work to reach their goals.

In job search the same hungry drive is required. The best way to feed this hunger is to plan, execute, and evaluate your search.

Plan each day the night before. You will not have time to do this in the morning as you try to get yourself or your family started on their day's activities. Write down your plan for the day in a little notebook or your smart phone. Don't think you can keep it in your head. Sloppy planning makes for sloppier execution.

Execute your plan. Have tangible, measurable milestones: you did or did not make those phone calls; you did or did not revise your resume; you did or did not go into a business to introduce yourself to one of the managers. If you cannot measure your activities, you will not be able to manage those activities. If you cannot complete your day's plan, add those remaining items into your nighttime planning session. Be realistic: make sure you have the time and capacity to actually achieve what is on your plan. Successfully executing 3 items on your plan is much more important than have 30 unachievable items on it.

Evaluate your results. Are you meeting the goals of your plan? Are you trending in the right direction? Are you getting demonstrated interest from the companies you are contacting?  If you cannot answer Yes to all of these, then you need to ruthlessly examine what you doing and change it. Do not continue doing the same things and wishing for different results - it won't happen. Wishing is not a plan and hoping is not a strategy. You should not only be willing to change your plan, you should insist on doing so if you have gone 2 weeks without any positive feedback. Digging a deeper trench where you don't find anything of value is not progress...it's a rut.