It’s not about getting the job, it’s about fitting the job

Have you ever felt nervous during a hiring process? Like you have to cover the knowledge for a lot of topics that recruiters or companies interviewers might expect you to know?. Believe me, I’ve been there (as well as all of us at some point in our lives). The way I see it, it’s because you are not having the right mindset for this process. Therefore, you need to change it. In this post, I’ll present an analysis of why we tend to have this behaviour and how you could make it right. Moreover, I’ll also talk about what benefits you can have by making a difference between getting and fitting a job. Your new job is coming.

Reasons for a wrong mindset

Let’s list some of the common things that you might have spinning around your mind when looking for a job:

• Need for money or the willingness to raise a lot of it because you want to be rich.
• Personal (or family) projects you want to achieve. Those can be buying a house, go for a long trip that could last for months, creating a business, etc.
• In other words, any other thing that is not related to the job you are looking for.

The first thing you need to do, is to put all of this aside. If you keep them in mind all along the process, what would end up happening is that it won’t allow you to connect with:

1. The people inside the company that is trying to solve a specific set of problems that a role could cover.
2. Your actual skill set.
3. The upcoming future if you get the job and its meaning for you.

And, if you get the job anyways, you might end up:

• Having a job that you’d never like.
• Having the feeling that you are not getting along with the people inside the company (because you can’t connect!!).
• Feeling depressed after a while.
• Finding yourself doing stuff that you hate.

Also, if you are not getting the job, you could be feeling pursued by the idea that your bet will start having a very high cost and risk. This, of course, will start to put pressure on your shoulders that will bring stress sooner or later.

Before I dig more, I want to discuss why you need to move aside all the wrong reasons highlighted at first above.

A job is not what you think it is

If you are thinking that a job you might get is the resource to raise a lot of money, achieve personal projects, take long trips, or whatever, you are deadly wrong. Why? Because a job would never naturally connect to that. A job is about:

• Doing
• Make progress
• Evolve
• Create
• Challenge
• Connect
• Grow
• etc (you get the idea)

Of course, if you get a job that pays you U$S 200k per year, you will definitely raise money. Nevertheless, do not let this confuse you. The reason behind this might actually have to do with the reason that you are executing a role that is critical for a company which is profiting very well and the risk of losing you it’s really really financially expensive. So, it’s easier to pay you that amount of money instead of losing millions. Moreover, if you made it to be this valuable, it’s because you had connected very well to each item on the list above and not because you were thinking about money or some other thing.

Don’t get me wrong, it is absolutely cool to have all of those personal projects and you might really need them, but maybe, you should lookout for another way to achieve them:

• You want to raise money and be rich? Maybe you should talk to investors in order to build strategies that could help you. Who knows? you might even raise it sooner than expected.
• Do you want to take a long trip with your couple in order to get to know the world? That’s ok, but don’t try to get any job. Look for something that would mean something to you. Also, have you also thought about what will happen after you come back from your adventure? Why not get a job that would allow you to come back and maybe collaborate even with more than before?
• Maybe you do need money to pay basic life costs but, whatever job you got to cover this, doesn’t mean that you have to keep it for the rest of your life. If you got to a point like this, it means all you need is balance. Get that balance and then you should be ready to look for something that really fits you.

By having different ways for achieving these goals, you will start making room for the actual reasons that you should actually care about when looking for a job. Try to do some work on this. Put these kind of reasons aside and start thinking what other reasons could connect you more naturally with a job.

Ok…, you are doing some room…, the connection is starting to take place… can you feel it? What should you do now? Let’s discuss about the hiring process.

Just like the kids toy

I’m pretty sure that by now you know how a hiring process goes. It should look something similar to this:

1. Recruiter interview
2. An interview with someone from the team
3. Technical interview
4. Company values interview (behavioural questions)
5. Department interview
6. Job offer

Sometimes, you might feel this process as a meat grinder and you need to do whatever you have to in order to make it through. This is a stress-generator idea. In order to stop it, my suggestion for you is to start seeing that this process works like a shape sorter toy:

Shape sorter toy.

In the picture above, you have the ball and the shape piece. The last one is you. The ball has all the shaped holes on its surface. This could represent the job market. The ball’s interior has other pieces. This can represent the industry, which is run by other previous successful candidates. So, it is valid to say, then, that you (piece) want to get into the industry through a job offer (shaped hole). So, how can this idea be put together with the hiring process?

While this analogy might look simple to start to incorporate, it’s not that simple. There are 2 problems. The first one needs to be solved by you, the candidate. The second, needs to be solved by the company, which is offering the job. As a result, the hiring process is the right procedure to follow in order to solve both of them. Let’s see those problems in more detail.

Candidate’s problem

The candidate’s problem is that he/her has not a clear picture of what the job is all about (what kind of problems are needed to be solved, skills required to improve the product, etc.) in order to understand and see clearly if he/she is the right one for it or if the job could cover his/her personal interests. By reading the company’s job post, you can have an idea what it is about and see if it is worth the try, but this is not enough since the description is intended for a general public and not for you. Following the toy example, this might look like:

From the candidate’s point of view, it’s still not clear what the job position can offer.

As a candidate, is your task to remove whatever is blocking your sight in order to see clearly if you could fit right in (based on your skills and personal interests). To be successful, you need to make use of the hiring process to make the company collaborate with you and clear any doubt about the job position and/or the company’s values.

Company’s problem

The company got your Resume or CV. After reading it, they might have the idea of you looking like a good candidate (at least an interview-worthy one). Although, is not enough and they will need to know more about you. They might see that you mention some of the main tools they use, some successful achievements in previous experiences that might make sense for them, but they don’t have a clear picture of how well you could do in a context they manage everyday. Following the toy example, it might look something like this:

From the company’s representatives point of view, it’s still not clear what the candidate’s skills and values are.

As the job offer owner, is the company task to remove whatever is blocking their sight in order to see clearly if you could be the right fit. To be successful, they need to use of the hiring process to make the candidate collaborate with them in order to see what his/her skills, knowledge, and values are.

The result

If each side has done their part successfully, it will ended up solving both problems. Now, both parts should be able to see if a fit is possible. Following the example, the different points of view will now look like:

From the candidate’s point of view, now the job position offer is clear.

From the company’s representatives point of view, the candidate’s skills and values are now clear.

Here, the key point is that both sides have collaborated between each other in order to clear each one’s sight and be able to decide. This is what a hiring process is all about.

The hiring process and the benefit you could get from it

I’ve mentioned that sometimes you could feel this process as a meat grinder. What I suggest is to start seeing this process as a collaborative procedure between the candidate and the company. They both have problems to solve, so why not help each other?. Start trusting this process because it is not only for companies to find their future employees, it’s also a procedure to help you find a job you would actually like and love.

Sure. You, as a candidate, need to get a job for whatever the reason is. If you are seeing this process as the grinder, it is because you are in a rush and you don’t care what you might get into. This approach is what could make you land into a job you won’t like and possible hate with time. If this happens, it’s because you didn’t use the hiring process as the procedure to help yourself find the right job offer for you.

Patience is critical in order to carry a calm and stable expectation. The process will help you navigate through the job market to finally land in the job that will make you feel it’s right for you and has been waiting for your arrival.

I’ve used this mindset for the last job I got. Do you know how many jobs I had applied for before this one? None, just this one. That means that I got 100% of effectiveness. How did I get to this particular job offer? By reading a lot of job offers from many companies and by asking myself if I was the right fit. The answer was no, so I didn’t apply because I didn’t feel as a fit and that’s it. When I was reading about the company that was offering the job I finally got, every little thing I was learning about it was starting to make sense to me. I knew there was something special for me there and I had to try. It ended up being a beautiful experience.

Recommendations for a successful process

As I mentioned, both the candidate’s and company’s problem needs to be solved. Take this knowledge as a leverage to encourage both sides to do whatever necessary to make the interviews more efficient:

• Be honest. If the interviewer is requiring knowledge you don’t have, then don’t waste more time and just share your truth with him/her. Maybe the reason why you don’t have that knowledge is because you are not interested in it. So in that case, that job may just not be for you and you should keep navigating the job market. On the other hand, maybe the interviewer was just curious and it wasn’t required for the position. Try to understand that if the job is not for you, it might just be due to natural reasons. Following the shape sorter toy analogy, you just don’t have the shape to fit that job offer and that’s all.
• For behavioural questions, hiring consultants will tell you to follow the STAR method to succeed them. This is very good advice but try to see even further than that. I recommend doing a quick course to get example questions and answer every single one of them. Use these questions to clear up stuff about yourself. The more you know about yourself, the efficient your process will be.
• Know exactly what kind of problems you solve. This is a very important detail that the company will need in order to reveal your shape. Because of this, you might learn something new from their job offer that will ended up helping you to reveal more about it.
• Try to think about what would make you happy within a company or about the job you are applying for. Elaborate questions that will help you to know this and ask them. But be aware, you might get an answer you don’t like at all and that’s fine. If this is not the place for you, that just means that you will be nearer than before to the place where you will find yourself really happy and well. This will be actually making progress and not the other way. You’re doing well!.
• If you feel a little bit rusty in some of your skills, do something about it. Things will not happen just because, it will happen because you’ve made it happen.

In conclusion

Finding a job is not an easy task. I had experienced this process many times under the pressure of achieving my own financial independence or the need to pay the bills. I was never happy being driven by these reasons. Because of that, I found myself obligated to find different reasons that will allow me to set a different mindset. Once I did that, I ended up realising that it was never about getting the job, but instead, it was about fitting the job. That’s the right call and I felt the need to share it.

If you want to follow what’s in this article, you need to change your mindset. Put your common worries aside and connect to yourself. Use the hiring process as a surfing board to navigate the job market until you land in the right one. The one that will actually feel right. Don’t waste time, be efficient, and don’t be afraid. After all, you will get what you want!.