In today’s competitive job market, many are asking; what is the “silver
bullet” for competing on the job market? My view on this is simple: Work
on your social skills, or face a hard life.
You can't make it in today's workplace without social and communication skills, period, no
matter how impressive your resume is, how much education you have, or even how
well you interview. And no, being able
to interview well doesn't equate to having good social skills. There are very few jobs today, even in the
tech and engineering fields; where anti-social and introverted people can earn
a living hiding in a corner somewhere working.
I disagree with those who call the "who you know"
thing unfair because the "best" candidates are not chosen. A great resume and work experience doesn't
guarantee the "best" employee much less the best fit for a
company anyway. It's very simple: Get to know someone in the company or field you want
to work in, or if you are really in a bind, anyone who is employed at all (a
common mistake is that people out of work form bonds with other people who are
also out of work). Chat with people in
settings outside of job fairs (which I find a waste of time frankly) and online
job search sites. Learn the ancient art
of face to face conversation. Trust me,
it pays. Why is this? It's been my
experience that employees make MUCH better talent scouts than recruiters, who
are often less than the best, because they can't get much past word matching with a resume
with the job opening. Hell, some of the
recruiters who spend hours looking at hundreds of resumes are themselves
socially challenged.
Plus, who wants someone with a bunch of education and
certifications that can't get along with their coworkers? I work for a consulting/tech company and we
have had guys with impressive resumes and work experience at our company that
some of our clients barely knew existed, because they didn't bother building
any sort of bonds with them (or their coworkers). They just did their jobs well, did the bare
minimum of communication, and called it a day. What do you think happens to those people who can't build relationships
with the people they work with (or for) when the belt has to be tightened?
If someone is savvy enough to use friends or acquaintances
to get a job, obviously, they can think on their feet and figure out how to
build relationships with other strangers to make the company money. This is much more than having "happy
shining people" holding hands at the workplace, but more-so the bottom line. Say your company wants to expand its
portfolio and move into other unfamiliar markets. Are they going to send the socially awkward
"smartest guy in the room" to potential clients, partners, and
subsidiaries, or are they going to send someone who knows how to have
conversations with complete strangers?
From a historical context, companies like IBM a long time ago
found out the hard way by focusing only on resumes and education to staff their workforce; they had a
company that full of brilliant, hard working, but inflexible and socially
awkward people and managers that were ill prepared for a changing tech market. What's worse, the few
employees that they did have social skills bolted to microsoft, google, and
apple. As such, the latter companies ate
IBM’s lunch. Eventually, IBM diversified
into other markets, but the damage had been done.
In other words, stop whining about cronyism and nepotism, and
work on polishing your social and communication skills. It will not only help you get a job, but
it will help you keep your job, and push you up the ladder.
