Employment

In The Box Podcast

Episode 42: Length Of Employment, Unplugging, Your Legacy And More (Podcast)

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast we talked about people being employed at one place for shorter amounts of time than those in previous generations. We also tapped into ways to unplug, how often to consider the legacy you want to leave, one tip on how to exercise patience and – without any context – if it’s better to start small or big.

Episode 42: Length Of Employment, Unplugging, Your Legacy And More

Length of employment – Is it harmful for someone looking to be employed to not have worked at any place prior for longer than a year or two?

Big or small – Is it better to start off small or to start off huge?

Unplug – Best way to unplug?

Legacy- How often should one think of their legacy?

Bonus – One tip on how to be patient?

 

Stay Positive & Here’s Just A Piece Of Our Legacy

A Riff On Job Security And What It Means To Be A Linchpin

Garth Beyer

I didn’t know what was going on 10 years ago. I didn’t experience it. I only know what work, employment, the successful were all like because I’ve studied them. What I do know from experience is how difficult it is to grow up knowing that society is dysfunctional. That everything that my parents grew up with worked for them, but not for me. I felt pulled into an abyss because I knew that the world needed, not just someone, but some type of people. I grew up understanding factories and what it took to work there. Until I realized everything turned into a factory, that 2/3 of the jobs I ask friends what they want to do say “factory worker” without actually saying it. In the middle of everything that is no longer working but was being forced, I couldn’t become what I wanted to be until I decided to fight the world back and join the Tribe of Linchpins.

The job market got personal by giving stagnant wages, health insurance and a false illusion of job security. Job security is what everyone fights for, or rather procrastinates for. Every job began as a job where people didn’t have to think until their job was on the line. Then, instead of becoming a linchpin, an artist, a creator, they chose to make the tasks of the job last longer. Job security became self-controlled. This is what I grew up noticing. I say it in past tense because job security isn’t a result of always having stuff on your to-do list anymore. No. Job security has become something else, something better, something beneficial. 

Job security is only available to linchpins. The ones who do the jobs and all the other tasks that aren’t getting done. It may not be their job, but to a linchpin, that’s no reason not to do it. This is what job security means. Instead of being told what to do -which is repetitive and produces the same exact dull results over and over- linchpins figure out what to do. Figuring something out taps potential on the shoulder and tells her to get to work. It produces greater, more important, more human results and 95% of the time more profit than dictated results.

Linchpins produce emotional labor, not the kind of work you’re doing now where you come home frustrated and exhausted from doing what you’re told (always more exhausting than doing art). See, cogs are people who have been manipulated and brainwashed not to stop to think if what they are doing is different, human and actually productive above the average standards. Linchpins not only stop themselves, pause and find out how to be more creative, but they have the ability to stop other cogs, redirect then, and turn them into creative linchpins because being a linchpin means being leader and being a leader is about making other people leaders. Leaders are indispensable which means job security is universal. This job security doens’t mean you will stay at one job forever, it means that you will always have a job, a place where it will be your responsiblity to do what linchpins do best.

 

Stay Positive & This Job Security Is Sooo Much Better

Garth E. Beyer (secured since 1992)

Knowing People and The “Informal Credential” Fallacy

Garth Beyer

Though “time” is the only constant in life, it is also the largest change we must adapt to. It’s a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it?

The farthest back that I have experience with the job market is when people walked into a business, asked for an application, filled it there, called them to check up on the application in a week, got an interview, and then got the job if their first impression and behavior was acceptable.This is just one process that was “the right way” at the time.

Though there are hundreds of different processes to acquire a job, job seekers are being grenaded with two specific processes.

1. Know Someone – No one cares about the olden days of apprenticeship and working for your parents. Kids grow up usually wanting to do the exact opposite of their parents. That leaves the fact that to get a job in an area of your interest, you have to know someone in the department. I don’t know why companies bother asking for references on the resume, the only reference they care about is word of mouth. The only opinion they care about is that of someone who they work closely too or that is already in the department. Your focus needs to be on people who love you and could talk about you all day THAT IS IN YOUR AREA OF INTEREST.  How do you do this? Well, I can answer that with a couple of options.

  • Don’t have the bachelor’s degree that’s required for the job you want? Apply free. Send the application in requesting that you would like to be the assistant to the person who gets the job you are after. Make sure that it is clear that you will work for free and help with whatever tasks that are assigned to you to help the person fulfilling the position. You are only after experience — to begin.
  • Anyone who types or writes a word can call themselves a journalist. So go to the business that you want the job at and request an interview with the owner or highest ranked person. You simply want to write a report on the company for your blog, school, website, etc. Sweet, you got your interview. Don’t let others tell you that your first impression is everything. It’s not. What you want to do is take your 15 minutes you got and turn it into a 30 minute interview. (Have enough questions prepared, but you should be having more of a conversation than an interview). You can talk about your interest in the field, but do not state your education or interest in a job. After you write your article and send it to the business, you can wait a week and call them back for a follow up interview. All of your visible or invisible readers want to know more and were interested in your content and the business itself. You are already on a friendly level with the owner and now you can focus the interview to bring out your knowledge of the business in question. Before you leave, have a card or contact information ready to give to the employer and bring up the idea of working for them for a pay check or for free. If you do not feel you are acquainted enough to accomplish this you can ask that you would like to interview some of the employees. Instead of winning over “the big-man”, win over the employees so they can put a good word in about you. They will only reassure “the big-man” of your qualities and abilities

2.  Informal Credentials – Who cares about a piece of paper, a few letters before your name, or how hot it is to be called Doctor “Smith”. What you can do to get a job without a degree is to surprise the employer with a list of different experiences related to the field. In the “education” area of your application write “Check out my experience in my Resume”.

  • The only way to get a job this way is to step out of your box and travel the world and to go after every experience in the related field. If you are into working for an Environmental group, start traveling to Australia and Ireland to see how they use their green bags and the politics around the topic there. Get acquainted with all angles of your interest from all the different parts of the world. An employer wont turn you down. Better yet, you may end up creating your own business instead.
  • For more on how to gain informal credentials, I will push you towards Tim Ferris http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/09/29/8-steps-to-getting-what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/

My question to you is, why is it not pushed to do these two processes IN ADDITION to getting formal credentials? I’ll help you with the easy questions here..

The only way someone is going to be successful in helping others find jobs is if they focus on a niche area of getting people employed. I have just shared with you the two largest ones. People share these concepts with others because no  one will listen unless it is quick and specific. We have since passed the era of receiving all the information on one topic. We only receive all the information on one small piece of the grand topic.

I am not saying that this information is unworthy and not should be followed, I am proposing that you combine these topics to create the original knowledge base that they were taken and separated from. Only then can you truly achieve absolutely any job you want at the same time as being surrounded by incredible people with the same interest and traveling the world.

A person walks into a job interview with a master’s degree in the field required from an Ivy league.

The next person that will be interviewed has the same degree from Australia, has worked in a similar company in London, and created another similar company in Hawaii which made just enough money to make it self-sustaining.

Which one gets the job?

Stay Positive and Self-Credentialed

Garth E. Beyer

I say, ” If you can’t get out of your box, at least take it with you when you travel the world to get your informal and formal credentials.”