Fear And Trepidation in Job Search. Stop Being A Chicken.

Cluck.  Cluck.  Cluck.  I can hear you from here.  Don’t get me wrong, though.  I’m not blaming you.  Only pointing out the obvious.

Someone needs to do it and it might as well be me.

Your fear of networking has you stuck at home, sitting in front of your computer.

Pecking away at the keys.

But why?  What are you afraid of?  So what if you are not traditionally comfortable in front of a crowd.

So what.

The reality is that there is an 85% chance that your next job is floating around in a room somewhere. Or will be delivered to you by someone in a room somewhere. Some night.  On the night you decide not to attend.

Your internal rationale sounds like:

“I’m not good at networking”

“No one will come up and talk to me anyway”

“Everyone is out for themselves”

Ready for this?  Let it go.  Forget everything you know about fear and anxiety. And walk into the next scheduled event and do the following.

Walk up to the first person you meet and introduce yourself.  Terribly complicated, I know.

But the truth is that your habit of walking around the room in a big circle is not working.  You end up like a spaceship in orbit bouncing off the atmosphere. Back up into space.

Super Chicken.

If this sounds a little harsh then go prove me wrong.

Now sometimes a practical idea can help.  I got one the other night at the orientation meeting for one of the finest job search groups in Southern California.  The Saddleback Career Counseling and Coaching Ministry in Lake Forest, CA.

One of the group’s founders, Ron Feher, talked about this fear and had a great suggestion.  I will paraphrase:

“If you are standing in a corner of the room (scared to death), look to the opposite corner for the person just like you.  Go say hello.  Then the two of you go to the other two corners and find two more people.  Before you know it, your new gang will be pushing through the crowd and attracting others who feel the same way.”

His point, as I see it, is that you are not alone in the way that you feel.  The concerns that you have are shared by others at that same event.  The only difference between you and those people that look like the life of the party is (1) initiative and (2) time.

OK.  You also have to be interesting.  And I can help you with that too.

If you take the initiative.  And meet two or three people at each event.  After a few weeks, you’ll be increasingly comfortable sharing your objectives with others, making friends and setting up deeper one-on-one meetings.

Another thought?  Forget about what you need.  Pick one event and focus ONLY on the needs of others.

Because, as Ron also said, there is always someone worse off than you.

Someone who you can help.

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Tags: Career | Career Networking | chicken | fear | Job Search | objectives | trepidation
Categories: Career Networking