Job Hunting: Finding the win in the loss
Feeling good about being authentically you is a win.
I didn’t get the gig.
A while back I threw my hat in the ring for a gig I had no business pursuing. Sure, I had lots of functional expertise, but I had literally zero industry/sector expertise. And it was in a sector that is kind of inherently conservative. I don’t mean conservative in the political sense, but rather in the sense that my constant insistence on telling you what I think about everything, and leaving it on public record doesn’t exactly fit the norm for this sector.
But I have been nothing in my career if not peripatetic (if you ignore my total of almost 12 years working on BlogHer, that is). And when I think about what I want to do now, it’s not to go replicate what I’ve already done. In particular, I have been feeling the call to put my energy where my #RoadMap4Revs mouth is, and government, advocacy, and non-profits sound pretty interesting right now.
Anyhow, the gig. After explaining why on Earth I had even submitted myself for this gig (along with, from what I heard, about 40 other people who made it to the first screen), I made it to the second round, and after running that gauntlet I made it to the final three in a third round.
Imagine my surprise that meeting #3 was an in-person meeting with a whole team of people. You can’t imagine how long it took me to dress because I just hadn’t put together an outfit with a bottom half in more than a year. (Seriously, it’s going to be weird for a while, folks.) I had to make a creative presentation, and it had been a long while since I had to make a new one of those too. (PS: I tried out the tool beautiful.aiand was really pleased with its capabilities and ease of use!)
I walked in, did the weirdness of meeting a whole room full of people for the first time in person without shaking hands or even moving towards each other, presented my ideas, dealt with some people being in the room and some on video, had a robust discussion afterwards, left everyone with a copy of my book (and learned at least one person had already ordered it!) and walked out an hour later.
From my perspective the meeting went great, and it still went great even after I found out two days later that I did not get the gig. Because when it whittles down from 40 to 3 people, it’s going to be pretty subjective to make the final call. And the entire experience was a win.
What ingredients created this win, because no, I am not a Pollyanna type of person, and no I’m not wildly well-adjusted. No I don’t always feel this way in life. So what can I learn from this?
I remained unattached to the outcome going a particular way.
From the outset I knew I was a long shot, and that wasn’t about self-deprecation, but about a realistic view of the landscape. I also knew I didn’t know all there was to know about what it would be like to actually get the gig, so a part of me was able to honestly say that as much as I didn’t know if I was right for it, I didn’t know if it was right for me. The lesson here is that separating the outcome from your ego and self-worth is a key ingredient to learning something from every experience, just like the gurus tell you to do. Can you find a way to remain unattached even if you’re more sure than I was in this moment about how much you want something or are perfect for something? I have a feeling it is a lifelong pursuit.
Being unattached made it easier to be authentically me
I’ve had this experience multiple times. When you detach yourself from requiring a particular outcome, you stop trying to figure out who to be to obtain that outcome. (I mean, let’s be clear that we can never know exactly how to be the right who to be anyway, but oh boy, do we try.) In this case I knew I couldn’t pretend to be deeply experienced in their sector, so I had to assume I had made it to even the first round because they were intrigued by something different in my experience. I decided to double down on being that “different” choice that I knew I was, and to be completely transparent about what I thought I would need to learn, what it would take for me to get up to speed. I made no effort to not emphasize my outsider and possibly non-traditional perspective to their particular challenges in the first, second, or third round.
Being authentically me (and being seen) reduced the “what if?”s and second guessing that usually have me re-thinking things I did and said YEARS ago.
I know I’m an over-thinker. I know I’m someone who hangs on to every bad or embarrassing or not-OK thing I ever did, and I know that NO ONE is out there thinking about those things like I am; no one is obsessed with my flaws and foibles. Hell, I give people advice all the time to remember that no one is thinking so much about you. It’s one of my top #BuffyLifeLessons (see below) from the episode Earshot. As Buffy shares with a boy convinced everyone is thinking about what a loser he is all the time and actively shunning him for it, “Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own.” Easier said than done right? But I will tell you that what makes it easier done is walking in, unattached to a specific outcome, ready to be authentically you, because being anyone else is too much work, and dare I say it…having fun.
Did you say it was FUN??? Yes!
In the very first round I got asked a question, “What would team members from your former jobs say about you?” Part of my answer was that I thought my team would say that I believe it should be fun to work together. Being a team should be fun, even when you’re serious about your work. Taking our jobs seriously doesn’t mean we have to take ourselves too seriously. So I did indeed crack wise. I laughed. It helped, of course, that the most senior person in the room was a joke-teller and seemed to have a humor-based rapport with his team, but it was part of being authentically me to meet them in kind.
At the end of the final meeting I had some feedback reflected back to me, and you know what? It sounded like the me I want to be, the best part of the me I am.
So yeah. That loss was a win. I feel great about defeat. And it’s sure going to make the next time even easier. How do you find the win in your “losses?”