I got an email yesterday. It screamed at me in capitals.
I’VE BEEN OFFERED A JOB!!!!!!!
What a great email to get. But how much better it would have been for my client to write that email? Getting the job you want is tricky at the best of times – but if it has been a little while coming it is like magic when you get the letter or the email.
Job hunting is a tough gig. CV writing, research, covering letters and then the waiting. The waiting is what gets to my clients the most. The life-stopping holding of your breath while paper is slowly sifted – so slowly. Someone told me about having had no receipt acknowledgements to 28 job applications. Those “thank you but” responses are horrible and often plastic – sometimes rude. And the waiting goes on.
But after preparation and work – lots of it – and a bunch of persistence you get The Email. Getting The Email or The Letter makes spirits soar and transforms lives, moods and auras. You can almost smell success and failure. Self-named losers become winners in seconds, the impossible becomes reality and the horizon opens up.
Accompanying my clients on this traumatic, emotional roller coaster can be exhausting – but the celebrations are superb. This client has had a hard time which makes the win even sweeter. He has been looking for a job for a while now and it was tough. But he kept going, he kept getting up in the morning and he kept applying and writing CVs and covering letters and emails – he got smart and he went for haircuts and he did not give up. Like anyone in that position he had doubts and frustrations – but he kept going. Well done that man!
Now I have a question – do I give my client a bottle of that amazing red wine I have called Extra Ordinary Claret or do I get him a bottle of Champagne?