Some people are specially good at selling themselves during job interviews and -are also capable of- maintaining the expectations set during it, once they get hired. But there’s a group out there that once they are hands on with the job, they miserably fail to keep up with the expectations they generated during the interview process.
Do you remember when you first fell for you girlfriend/fiancee/wife? Do you recall the things you use to do to trap her in your spider web? An then, do you remember when you stopped doing all those things? Here’s my story.
Yesterday marked my second anniversary with María. Exactly 2 years ago, I stopped jogging. From May 2008 until that August, I used to take every opportunity to jog around our neighborhood with her. The day we started dating, that stopped. Of course she takes every opportunity to bring that up whether in private or during social venues. She still doesn’t believe me when I tell her that I used to jog before meeting her. What is hard to explain is why I stopped, but that’s a completely different story.
A friend of mine once told his new girlfriend that he had 6000 acres (500 ha) of farmland. She found out the truth, but it was too late. They got married a few months after that. She used to make fun of it (him) whenever my friends and I hung out with them. That was until they got divorced.
Thing is, we do whatever it takes to get the girl but once we achieve our goal, we lay to rest. We fail to recognize that conquering the lady is only 50 percent of the equation. The other 50 is keeping up the hard work to make the relationship work.
The same concept applies to our jobs. We go in in full throttle, make an impact at the interview, get hired… and soon after it, the truth gets unveiled. Turns out you weren’t that proactive meteorite that once crashed into the HR office, you never meet deadlines, you are always late for work. OK, that may not be you, or it may.
There is a factor considered in some of the most recognized personality tests (such as NEO-PIR or MMPI) called the tendency to acquiescence, which is the voluntary effort to portrait one-self in a favorable light, and we all resort to it when challenged with a job interview.
There’s a couple of reasons for not keeping up with expectations:
- Once you got hired you realized it’s not the job you expected. Solution: next time, ask more during the hiring process, research more about the company, find friends, relatives or acquaintances that work or have worked there and… only apply for what you are looking for.
- You are an X in McGregor’s theory (in short, you are lazy). Solution: there’s no easy fix for this. But if you want to have a successful career you’d better get your act together.
- You are over qualified for the position, translating into lack of motivation. There are two solutions for this: get a job that adequate better to your qualifications/capabilities or, learn how to find motivation when it’s gone on vacations.
- You are under-qualified for the position. Then, expect high stress levels. Lean on your team to get support and training and be aware that it will take time for your team/boss to regain the lost confidence in you.
Finding a solution to this situation can also become a paradoxical game of chicken and egg. If you know you may under-perform at the job or you are under qualified for the position you could refrain from displaying a high profile during the interview, although this will jeopardize the chance of you getting the job. In this case, being realistic about yourself in the interview won’t help either since it also conflicts with the personal goal of every candidate: to get the job in the first place, then deal with it. As you see, there’s no easy solution.
In this case I think the best advice is to remember the 50/50 rule and how vital it is to live up to the expectations you generated during the interview process. Your job is just like your girl/boy so if you want to keep it, don’t let it down.
Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments section.
Image credit Divorced Discourse
Article by Fernando
This is my blog - I write about careers, talent management and organizational development. I've been featured at Monster.com, Alltop, WeBlogBetter and BloggingPro among others. I hope you leave this blog with more than you arrived and I look forward to discussing your ideas and projects with you. See you in the comments section.
Fernando has written 230 awesome articles for us at Fernando Tarnogol – Careers Blog
| Blog → Careers Blog
{ 2 trackbacks }