For those who don’t know me, I’m a mum to two school aged children, a Director /Owner of a HR/Recruitment Consultancy, blogger, avid reader and internet nut. I’m busy (Aren’t we all! Is this the manic age?)
My husband works shifts. He gets up at 5am and leaves the house and me to get the kids up, fed, pack lunched, co-ordinated and off on the school run.
Now, my youngest doesn’t stir until 6:45am (My oldest needs removing with a crow bar) and so theoretically I could get up with my husband and use that hour and 45mins. The time management experts point out that this equates to an extra day a week. A whole day to myself! I could write posts, read my RSS feeds, emails, sort CVs, strategically schedule tweets and so much more…
And yet, I don’t. With the entire bed to myself, I turn over, stretch out and snooze for the full duration. Never once in three years has my toe ever touched the bedroom carpet!
Now I’m a morning person, I do my best work before lunch. I should be able to do this. Yet reclaiming this time is very much how I imagine land reclamation to be – slow, painful and against mother-nature. The story of King Canute springs to mind as he tries to push back the waves, for me, impossible.
The name of my Recruitment business: ‘Mcginnis Loy’ was inspired by an Alan Loy Mcginnis quote:
“Focus on your potential and not your limitations”
I aspire to this every day. I try to hold it close to my heart as I interview and assess applications. Yet I also realise that you need to at least recognise what your limitations are.
I won’t get up at 5am unless the house is on fire. I need to acknowledge that, stop beating myself up and move on.
Today I unfortunately rejected 74 CVs in a row. It’s not big or clever. It made me depressed. You see all of those 74 were completely irrelevant for the role/s they had applied for.
They were missing vital pieces of the requirement which was specified on the advert. The ‘essential criteria’ completely ignored. Some were so far removed that it is probable that they just applied for everything they saw. I know they are going to be receiving lots of rejections and I’m just adding another onto the pile.
I wondered what the impact those rejections would have. How it would affect the rest of their search.
Focus on your strengths and dare to dream and aspire. Just don’t set yourself up to fail. Know the limitations of what is being asked of you.
P.S thanks to my husband, who after a full shift then picks the kids up and gets the dinner. Go team Cooper!
If you found this subject of interest, you may also like the following related posts from Approachthemarket.com:
Size 5 Feet? What About Potential?
It’s Not What You Say But The Way That You Say It
Sarah Cooper has over 14 years Recruitment experience gained in both an internal and agency environment. As one of the founding Directors of McGinnis Loy Ltd, specialist Finance and HR Recruiters, she is still actively recruiting in the marketplace today. Follow her tweets @approachmarket
I agree that it’s silly going for jobs where you don’t match the “essential criteria” except that for the three jobs in my career so far I have managed to get jobs without having that criteria.
The classic one is companies asking for someone with a degree. I don’t have one but all three jobs I have had have it on the spec sheet… including the job I got out of college (I’m very proud of that) as I managed to convince them them to hire someone with less skills and that training me up was cheaper.
Admittedly, the job industry has changed a lot since I went to college :-p
That’s because you would have to be crazy not to hire you!
The reality is though if you were just relying on your standard non targetted CV today and didn’t hit the essential criteria you may not get a look in. The Recruiter selects by rejection today as they have too many applications.
What I would suggest is if you do hit the majority and have relevant experience pick up the phone and call the Recruiter to highlight your application. Attitude and personality still trump ticks in boxes, so play to your strengths: in your case great communication and influencing skills.