Jobseekers are expected to apply for every job they find. What if there was another way?
Jobseekers are often expected to rush around, applying for every job they find. Then people are surprised when we seem fed up and frustrated because we keep getting rejected.
What if there was another way? A way to work smarter, not harder?
It’s a question Quids in! editor, Jeff Mitchell, addresses in his ‘7 Signs’ events for people who are out of work. “Be more hedgehog,” he says.
“The idea is simple. There’s a fable about the hedgehog and the fox. In many parts of our lives, we try to be cunning like a fox foraging for food for survival. This usually feels like running around, trying lots of things, until something works. It’s exhausting. It works sometimes, for some people, but not for all.
Just one thing
“The hedgehog, on the other hand, knows just one thing. They know how to roll up in a ball and avoid being eaten. Survival is not about trying lots of things. It’s about sticking to the one special thing.”
There’s something you should know about Jeff. Before he set up Quids in! and our parent company, Clean Slate Training and Employment, he was already changing lives. In fact, he was managing director at The Big Issue – the homelessness project. He saw thousands of people getting their lives back on track through the benefit of work. He firmly believes that if rough sleepers can find jobs with the right approach, then anyone can.
“The trick is, how do we know what our one special thing is?” Jeff explains.
Key questions
“This is an idea I borrowed from a book by Jim Collins called Good to Great. It’s not about people, it’s about companies, but I realised the principles are the same. We need to ask ourselves three key questions:
“What am I really good at?
“What do I love doing?
“What jobs are out there, that will pay me what I need?”
He argues that the jobs we should be going for are where these three things overlap.
“This guy Larry was on one of our 7 Signs days in London a couple of years back. He was volunteering at a training centre, working on reception. He’d been doing it for years. I got him talking about the things he does in his leisure time. It turned out he played table tennis every single night at his local community centre.
“So, I asked him if he’d be interested in a job on reception, or in admin or buildings management, at one of the many sports centres around the city.
“His face lit up with the biggest, brightest smile. I don’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before – I guess it’s harder to join the dots when we’re thinking about ourselves. But it seemed so obvious to me. He was kind of a changed man after that. He updated his CV with a clear idea of who he was going to send it out to. It was a real breakthrough and he seemed inspired by it.”
In a world obsessed with jobseekers proving they’re doing all they can to find work, we have to play the game. But that doesn’t stop us thinking about where we might be a little more hedgehog.
