Mark Hirschfeld

I’m going to finish up my series about my mentor Dr. Clifton with this story:

Don was an aviator in World War II. One day he was headed toward his plane for a trip across enemy lines, but at the last minute was bumped so a new navigator could join the experienced crew.

He stayed on the ground, and that plane didn’t come back, shot down in combat.

Don felt like every day he lived after that was a gift, and he wasn’t going to waste one of them.

Don’t waste your days.

This seems like good advice for living, but is particularly important for those in the job search. It’s easy to let a day or two “slide by” where you don’t work on your job search. You find some excuses not to follow up with jobs, you let networking calls slide, rationalizing that you’re not convinced that those calls will make a difference anyway.

Each day is too precious, and in a job search each and every day can be used to advance you to your ultimate goal—reemployment.

There are free training videos on the web site of my faith community: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

#career #careercoach #jobhunting #careers #jobsearch #strengths

Back in the day Don Clifton was advising college students who were applying for jobs. Several complained that the college recruiters didn’t really spend much time getting to know them, preferring to tell them about the benefits of joining their company.

Don said: “Write a list of questions that if the recruiters were to ask you they would know a lot about you. Give them the list and ask them to read you the questions.”

The recruiters did. Most of the recruiters were so impressed they asked if they could keep copies of the questions.

Don’t assume recruiters know the right questions to ask to learn about you. It may sound audacious, but you can use the same strategy—prepare a set of questions, give them to the recruiter, and ask them to ask them to you.

Just like Don’s students, you might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are training videos on the web site of my faith community. This content is free: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources  All the posts at www.markhirschfeld.com

#career #careercoach #jobhunting #careers #jobsearch #strengths

My mentor Dr. Donald O. Clifton often said: “If you want to destroy a person, consistently ask them to do something for which they have no adequate response.”

Yes, this sounds harsh.

What Don was referring to is that people often take on jobs that are unaligned to their skills and talents. They go to work each day, trying their best, but they don’t have the talents to do the job in a way that would bring them success and satisfaction.

In the world of academia it would be called poor “person-job fit”.

As you plan for your next job, consider the following questions:

• Is the work similar to other work you have enjoyed?
• Is in the kind of work that in the past you’ve quickly learned?
• Is the work similar to work where for which you’ve received recognition?
• Is it work that you could see yourself doing for a time?
• Is it work in a field where you could see opportunities for growth?

You don’t want to “destroy yourself” in a job that really isn’t you. To the degree you can, look for that fit.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are free training videos on the web site of my faith community: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

#career #careercoach #jobhunting #careers #jobsearch #strengths

I had blown it. I made a big mistake at work, and was now in the office of my boss, Don Clifton. I apologized, and promised I would “learn from this experience”.

He said: “You know, Mark, we really don’t learn from our experiences.”

I had no idea what he meant.

Then he said: “We often keep making the same mistakes, so we don’t learn from our experience. But we have a chance to learn if we take time to reflect on our experiences.”

Reflect.

This is great advice for any time in your life, but is particularly important if you are in the job search. Look back and reflect on your experiences. See if any patterns emerge as to when you have not been as productive, when you’ve failed. I reflect by writing, but you can reflect with your coach or former work colleagues.

When an interviewer asks about this, and they probably will, you will demonstrate that you have an awareness of your past mistakes and have thought about managing them.

Reflecting can help.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are free training videos on the web site of my faith community: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

I had an opportunity to interview a very successful sales rep. She had been recruited by her employer out of college with a degree in music, which seemed like a unique path to sales. I asked her why the company hired her, she said: “They told me they had training for new people, and they liked that I had been the lead fund raiser for the band for three years and had raised over $100,000 for new uniforms and equipment.”

Dr. Clifton would say: “past performance is predictive of future behavior.” While not every music major can be a successful sales rep, she had shown a behavior– fund raising– that could be a predictor of success.

Think deeply about your past behaviors, including work, volunteer and personal experiences, to gain clues as areas where you might have potential, and then tell your story.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are training videos on the web site of my faith community and a handout. This content is free: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

#career #careercoach #jobhunting #careers #jobsearch #strengths

My grandfather, Ed Moss, is one of my heroes.

He served in World War II as a navigator, stationed in Hawaii.

He served, and did so proudly.

For the last twenty years of his working life he held a job where he again felt he provided a needed service to our country…

He was a postal worker.

If he were alive today, he would be enraged at the thought that the Postal Service was at risk of not providing services to our communities.

The Postal Service is codified in our Constitution—that’s how important our Founders felt.

I read yesterday that an 85-year old man in Houston was without his heart medication for TEN days, as it was delayed in a processing center just a few miles away because staffing hours had been cut.

Thank God he didn’t die.

Over 80% of our beloved veterans who need medications from the VA receive them… via the Postal Service.

Whether it be the big city where I live now or in rural areas where I’m from in Nebraska, the mail is delivered.

I voted in-person last week in the primary election in Minnesota, but I have already requested a ballot to come to my home for the general election in November. I will drive my completed ballot to the court house to place it into a designated drop box. I will also track my ballot to make sure that it is received by the Election Commission so that my vote is counted.

Although I will take these extra steps and am willing to do so to make sure I can exercise my Constitutional right to vote, I am deeply saddened and angered that I and many others must do this because of threats to what I see as a cornerstone of our country—the ability to receive and send mail in a reasonable time.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

I join my grandfather, who deeply believed and lived out this motto every day he was a postal worker.

I hope you will too.

Do you remember the movie Jerry Maguire? Jerry was initially ridiculed because he had a mission statement.

He succeeded in the end, and fell in love to boot!

I can’t promise you that having a mission statement will help you find true love, but it could help you find the job of your dreams.

Dr. Clifton talked frequently about having a personal mission statement, a simple message that would help folks understand WHY you did the work you did and HOW you gain meaning from your job.

It doesn’t have to be long or flowery, but it does have to be honest and reflect you. His assignment to help you write your statement: “what is it that you do that makes a difference to other people and to mankind? Why do you do what you do?”

Write it down. Practice it with your coach. Proudly tell your mission as part of your story.

Make Jerry proud. Claim your mission.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are free training videos on the web site of my faith community: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

#career #careercoach #jobhunting #careers #jobsearch #strengths

I’ve been asked many times by job seekers how they can measure certain aspects of their job. This is important, because the degree to which we can measure things can help prospective employers better understand what we’ve done and how we might contribute in their workplace.

My mentor Dr. Clifton said there are four ways you can measure aspects of any job:

1. Can you COUNT it?
2. Can you RANK it?
3. Can you RATE it?
4. Did you ACHIEVE it?

For most tasks you perform in a work setting you can use one of the four ways illustrated above to provide some measurement to your work. You can use insights from this to enhance your resume, and can also quote these results in interviews.

As has been said: “what you count, counts”. Measure your successes and then go tell your story.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are free training videos on the web site of my faith community: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

#career #careercoach #jobhunting #careers #jobsearch #strengths

As referenced in prior posts, Dr. Donald O. Clifton identified five indicators that can help you determine if you have strengths which you could promote and apply to a new job. The fifth and final is the total performance.

Are you better than 10,000 people? This seems like a provocative and perhaps audacious question, but we all have strengths, and some of those can be so profound we can be better than 10,000 people.

If you’re that good, folks will hire you for that talent.

If you have not found that yet, use the previous four indicators to determine if you’re on the right track. If you make it into a role where you are seeing evidence of the first four indicators, you may be on your way.

Louis Pasteur said that “genius is one or two talents maximized.” Find those talents, work to develop them, for they could make you exceptional.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are training videos on the web site of my faith community and a handout. This content is free: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources

As referenced in prior posts, Dr. Donald O. Clifton identified five indicators that can help you determine if you have strengths which you could promote and apply to a new job. The fourth are glimpses.

Don told the story of a track coach, Bob Timmons, who saw potential in a young runner by seeing a short “glimpse” of performance.

The coach worked with the young runner, helping him build on those glimpses.

The runner, Jim Ryan, eventually became a world-record holder.

There may be times in your past when you’ve experienced a “glimpse”, when you weren’t necessarily at peak performance but were showing moments of success. Glimpses can be built upon and nurtured. Those moments can be highly predictive of work where you could be, eventually, very successful.

Want to use your strengths at work? Think about your glimpses.

The posts for the next couple weeks are inspired by a man who inspired me, Donald O. Clifton.

There are free training videos on the web site of my faith community: https://www.thetablempls.com/jobresources