Jobs: Getting and Keeping One -- Advice from One Boss

You looking for a job?  Or know someone who is, and you want to help?  Then read on.

(Potential employers are welcome to read this, too.)

America seems to be stuck with an unemployment rate of 9% or more.  But most people do not realize that even with so much unemployment there are still millions of job openings that are going unfilled.  Apparently, one of the big reasons that companies are not able to fill these openings is because they are not able to find enough qualified candidates.  Bloomberg Businessweek magazine has a current article profiling this situation; click here to read it.


When a business is hiring, the manager or owner usually wants to hire as quickly as possible, and hire somebody with the best possible qualifications to be successful in the new employment. Also, it is usually to the employer's advantage to choose an employee who will remain in that position for an extended period of time.  Most job seekers probably want to find a job sooner rather than later, and stick with it as long as possible.

So far, so good.

In my experience as a business leader, the candidates who were most likely to be hired and to be successful in the job for an extended time--perhaps even for an entire career--bring these things to the interview and the employment:

Honesty and trustworthiness -- the foundation for everything else; as a potential employer, my attitude towards a job candidate has always been "if you can't show me some evidence that you are ethical and can be entrusted with the responsibilities that come with the job's environment, then don't expect anything in the way of a job offer."  And it's worth stating that this should be reciprocal:  the employer should be able to convince the job candidate that the work environment is ethical and that management can be trusted to provide professional leadership, such as clearly stating performance expectations and giving regular feedback on the status of achieving those expectations.

Communications skills, both written and verbal -- writing skills are imperative to one degree or another in almost all jobs--irrespective of the job being blue-collar or white-collar--and amazingly this is the skill requirement that job-seekers seem to be least able to provide and is also most poorly screened for by employers; as for the verbal part of this, talking can be easy, but speaking can be very difficult:  "talking" is spontaneous and informal, but "speaking" is structured and premeditated; most employment has a requirement for verbal communication that conveys complex or creative concepts, or perhaps safety-related information, and this can be done effectively only with speaking that is thought through in advance of the time of need, and then is delivered in a clear and concise manner.

Communications skills, listening -- active and respectful listening is a characteristic that most employers look for in job seekers, even if it's sought out intuitively only and not explicitly.  Most work requires that the job-holder be able to listen for guidance or directions or customer requirements or other more subtle cues on what might be needed to perform the work in the best way possible.  Employers know that it is important to have this in their employees, even if they know it only in an intuitive sense; an employer who explicitly looks for this will naturally give extra points to a job candidate who can demonstrate the ability to listen as well as to speak.

Technical skills and qualifications -- these are the nitty-gritty operational things that each job needs so that the position, when filled, contributes to the goals of the organization; the skill could be the ability to operate heavy machinery or to operate a computer, or any of hundreds of other skills and knowledge sets.  The job applicant had better have an understanding of what skills and qualifications are needed, and then be able to provide evidence of possessing those skills and qualifications.  Likewise, the employer has to be able to clearly articulate these things, and the applicant deserves to hear of this in an immediate and up-front fashion.  Job seekers:  if you do not have the right skills, then find a way to get them and make it happen; once you have landed a job because you have the right skills, let the employer know that you want to keep adding to your skills so that you become qualified to do a better or bigger job.  A good employer will get your message and realize that the right things need to be offered to you in order to not lose you; keep in mind that in the long run, most employers realize that attracting and hiring new talent is expensive, and that retaining good talent for an extended period is better for the company.

Formal education -- education never goes out of style, even if different types of jobs can be satisfied with different types of education.  For the hiring employer, the most important aspect of an applicant's education is that a completed education indicates that the individual can set out to achieve a worthy goal and make it there in a timely fashion.  As a job seeker, do not underestimate how important it is to the employer to see the demonstrated ability to accomplish something as complex as an education.  This fact applies to all levels of education, from high school up to college post-graduate. 

This country still needs more job opportunities as soon as possible, but in the meantime it's a real shame that there seem to be millions of available jobs that are going begging for lack of qualified workers.  If what is written here helps just one job seeker to land a job, or one employer to find a needed employee, then doing this is time well-spent.