In addition to long-term motivation, individual situations in the job search, such as a job interview, call for increased energy and focus. For every job interview, you will need to be at your best, regardless of whether the commute to the interview was tiring, whether you woke up feeling a bit down, or whether you stubbed your toe on the reception desk right after you walked in at your appointed time. This short-term motivation provides an immediate and necessary boost to whatever is the focus of your search right now.
There are many instances across your job search where you need to harness short-term motivation:
- Each and every job interview (and most companies will have multiple rounds for one job opening)
- Each and every networking meeting
- Career fairs
- Professional group meetings or mixers
- Phone calls to your target companies (e.g., for information, for a status update)
- Offer and salary negotiations
If you are a better student in the research paper class or you like to ease into a situation, then you need to ramp up your preparation for the high-stakes events like job interviews. Prospective employers form impressions very early in the process. You will not have the first five minutes of an interview to ease into it. Your interviewer will already have an opinion of you from meeting you at reception or from the small talk you make at the start of the interview.
A good example of maintaining short-term motivation is the case of K. V., an experienced executive who was negotiating an end to her contract at a major firm while negotiating a new role at another one, all while continuing to do her high-profile management job. K. V. would often have very different types of meetings in the same day, from contentious negotiations with her bosses to enthusiastic sales meetings with her future bosses. She had to maintain composure and advocate hard for herself in a severance negotiation, and then turn around and be cheery for an offer negotiation. She was able to be at her best in each scenario, came to an amicable end with her former employer, and is now enjoying a bigger role at her new employer.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- There are two types of motivation, long-term and short-term, each playing a critical role in your job search.
- Long-term job search motivation is akin to a multiweek research project, while short-term motivation is more like weekly class exams.
EXERCISES
- Do you do better with exams or research papers? Based on this, on what areas of the job search will you pay particular attention so that nothing falls through the cracks?
- Do you prefer exams or research papers? This gives you an indication of what areas you may enjoy in your job search.
- How do you currently prepare for exams or research papers? What strengths do you have in one or both areas that you can bring to your job search?
- What bad habits or tendencies do you need to avoid, for example, procrastination, nervousness?
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