If you want a job, there are two kinds of people to hire you.
Alpha people. And everybody else.
Alphas are company owners, entrepreneurs–people who really care how the story comes out. Alphas work hard to hire somebody great. Alphas care about what you can do, how smart you are, and how hard you work. If you can get hired by Alphas–you lucky dog!
Most job offers, alas, are made by Betas. (I’m being polite here–hot-tempered folks might call them “Human Resources.”) Betas have one, only one, question in their minds:
Could I maybe get in trouble by hiring this person?
Betas look for “the obvious candidate.” But that’s only secondary to the main thing they’re looking for–to avoid the “don’t-hire” candidate who could get them fired.
If you don’t have a job but hope to land one–don’t blog yourself into oblivion with the Betas:
- Don’t blog your drinking habits, pet peeves, relationship issues, etc. in a personal blog that’s on the first page of Google when Mr/Ms Beta types in your name.
- Don’t blog your drinking habits, pet peeves, relationship issues, etc. in a personal blog that’s linked to from a site on the first page of Google when Mr/Ms Beta types in your name.
- Hey–limit yourself to corporate/geeky stuff on any page linked to from Google results for your name.
In a just universe, everybody would hire like Alphas. In the *current* Bush recession–hey, have some compassion for Betas scared for their jobs!
If you’re smart enough that an Alpha should hire you–take only a tiny step more. Be smart enough not to scare away the Betas.
One of my favorite jokes, hope it cheers you up after reading this post:
There are two kinds of people in the world, they say.
Those who think there are two kinds of people–and those who don’t.
1 response so far ↓
1 fp // Dec 11, 2003 at 11:47 am
There’s some word play in here around “blogger Beta blockers” but I’ll leave it to the professional humorists to sort that all out.