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Defining your value to employers in unique ways
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Jane Austen Can Get You A JobDefining Your
Value To
Employers In
Unexpected Ways
Before we get to Jane, a quick
exercise…
11/7/20132
How would you describe a friend if you were
referring him or her to a potential employer?
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Think about:
• What he or she does best…
• The value he or she might bring an organization…
While you think, some self-serving
background…
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Some of the places I’ve worked
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Some of the places I’ve worked
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Some of the places I’ve worked
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Some of the places I’ve worked
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Some of the places I’ve worked
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Some of the places I’ve worked
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Some of the places I’ve worked
While some of these experiences are
more directly applicable to my
“professional career,” each have
proven to be equally valuable
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While some jobs involved direct application of skills that I used in
previous experiences
All jobs benefited from the lessons learned and the act of learning
in previous experiences – inputs to who I am as a person
Application vs. Education
Now back to that reference…
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Why references? Because they are the most
powerful tool in a job search…
11/7/201315 Source: New York Federal Reserve Bank
Compared to non-referred candidates, those who are referred are:
• Twice as likely to be interviewed
• 40% more likely to be hired
But what is a reference at its core? What
does it tell you about a person?
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Application of skills?
• Things he or she knows how
to do
• Tools he or she can use
Description of the person?
• How he or she works
• How he or she thinks
• How he or she approaches
problems
Much of the value of references is that
they help a potential employer see you
as person, not just a set of skills
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And who you are as a person is really, really
important…
When new hires are let go within the first 18 months:
• 89% of the time it is for attitudinal reasons
• Only 11% of the time is it for lack of skill
11/7/201318 Source: Leadership IQ
So who are you?
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• Fallible, and so is their hiring manager
• An individual, not an example
• Evolving, not inert
Everyone is:
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Everyone fails (or should if they are really trying). So don’t be
fooled by stories of consistent success - they are incomplete.
Hindsight bias can lead people to a false narrative as to why something
positive happened – mistakes are overlooked or reframed, intelligence is
given too much credit, and the role of luck is mostly ignored
You are fallible, and so is your hiring manager
Source: Daniel Kahneman
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Have confidence in your unique capabilities – resist shorthand
characterizations that can short-change you.
The “stereotype threat” is real – just hinting to negative stereotypes (even
requiring gender or race be selected on a test) can raise inhibiting doubts
and anxiety that have been proven to hurt a person’s performance
You are an individual, not an example
Source: Steele, Aronson, Spencer
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In almost all cases, dedication and hard work can overcome innate
intelligence.
“With practice, training and above all, method, we manage to increase our
attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent
than we were before”
You are evolving, not inert
Source: Alfred Binet, Creator of the IQ test
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To find the your personal truth:
Take something from each experience in
your life to create the narrative of your
career
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What can you take? Here’s a place to start
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What’s the business value of an English major?
More specifically, what’s the value of reading Jane Austen?
And I mean all experiences
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Meet Natalie Phillips, Assistant Professor of
English at Michigan State University
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Professor Phillips instructed grad students to read a chapter of
Mansfield Park while their brain function was observed by an fMRI.
Significant differences were observed between:
• Close reading
• Reading for pleasure
A critical read of Mansfield Park is about
more than just the story
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Close reading engaged a much broader spectrum of the brain,
from the regions focused on attention to those involved in
movement and touch.
The findings suggest that an academic approach to literature can
train readers to better organize information, impacting (among
other things) their:
• Attention to detail
• Research and analysis skills
• Flexibility (the ability to pay attention to many things at once)
Close reading was shown to be an exercise
in cognitive training
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So ask yourself:
What’s the business value of the experiences
(all of the experiences) in your life?
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So ask yourself:
In an ever-changing economy where industries
are being disrupted all of the time, what are the
core attributes you can bring to any job?
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• Don’t be afraid of failure and don’t be limited by what others
might expect from you or what you are capable of now
• Think about your experiences as more than opportunities to
apply your skills
• Look to every experience as an opportunity to prove and
enhance the core attributes that define you as a person
And prepare for a long, rewarding career…
To define your unique value, check out
www.theThings.biz
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