Blog Post: Confidential to Job Seekers Part II: Write Fan Letters

Here’s my second favorite story about finding a job. This one happens to be about my brother, but I don’t think he’ll mind my telling it. Besides, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?

My brother was what anyone would call a late bloomer. Always brilliant, always smart and sensitive, blessed with a voracious curiosity, a killer sense of humor, he was also a child of the 60s. It wasn’t until he was in his 40s that he got around to finishing college.  The academic discipline he chose required that he learn Chinese. And so at night he studied his brains out surrounded by the delightful demands of three adorable daughters ranging from newborn to 8-ish – each one with the same lively, curious, busy (read: demanding) intellect of their parents.

So here was my brilliant brother, fully and formally educated, and newly equipped with Chinese. Only problem: What the heck was he going to do with this liberal arts degree with so extraordinary an emphasis?  It beat the heck out of all of us, including him. He knew what he didn’t want to do with this education, and that pretty much cut out all possibility of most of the obvious answers – like work for a company doing business in China.

One day, around about this time of year, he’s getting ready for his last round of finals, and we’re all scritchin’ our heads wondering how the heck is he going to cash in on his passion, brilliance and hard work. At just about then, he comes across a newspaper article about an organization that completely represented everything he cared deeply about. And so he wrote the executive director what can only be called a fan letter.  Within a couple of days, the phone rings in my sister-in-law’s kitchen: “Hello, is this where….lives?” Oh my gosh. It’s them. 

He was employed before he had even reached out to accept his diploma among the bajillion others in his class in the gigantic auditorium.  Fast forward 9 years: He’s still there, blissfully employed, deeply appreciated and that impressive noggin of his used to almost its capacity. It’s probably the only organization on the planet he would ever consider working for (or pretty much close to it), and this organization totally gets him.

So what’s the lesson here? Don’t be shy. Let the spirit of your passion move you. Write fan letters, true, sincere, well-composed, flattering (but not fawning), smart and specific.

After my first Confidential to Job Seekers article ran this weekend (and, I hear, was distributed in a separate Jobing newsletter), I’ve been getting tons and tons o’ emails from readers who wanted me to do the same for them that I did for the lucky guy I sat next to on the plane. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Scroll down and see if you can’t find the first Confidential to Job Seekers posting I did. Apparently it’s worth the effort; I’ve never received so much response to any of my other articles.)

A few of the emails were positive and relatively specific.  And motivated to take action on their behalf. But as the day wore on, the emails I received were increasingly bluesy, focusing more on the writers’ struggles and pain than painting any kind of picture of possibility and passion.

Don’t get me wrong, I know first-hand how frustrating it is to be in, as The Princess Bride put it, the Pit of Despair – more fluent in my pain and frustration and confusion than having a scintilla of a clue about what I actually want to do with myself. And I’m not about to be the one to tell you to “snap out of it.” Being wrongfully employed – or not employed at all – is the pits. And there’s just no happy-talking yourself out of that. So I’m not going to be the one to suggest that you give it a shot.

But I will suggest this: Start building up a fluency in your own passion and possibilities. You don’t have to be PollyAnna, but just start building up a clipping file or data base of organizations that really turn you on for whatever reason. And start writing fan letters. Write a bunch of them, so there’s no pressure on any one of them to produce a job.

Get in the habit of kvelling (I’m not Jewish, but I sure do love that word, and I hope I spelled it right).  Do it enough and soon the sheer weight of all that positivity is going to shift the luck balance in your direction. You’ll become more familiar with what brings you joy, what kinds of companies or organizations are most likely to be the right fit, and you’ll be able to speak their language. Dedicate an hour to just this positive research (notice I didn’t say thinking, I said research, you’re data mining right now not trying to talk yourself into being something you’re not).

And start hammering out those letters. Be sincere. Be specific. Be informed.

I don’t want to be mean or anything, but stop writing to me about your pain. Write to potential employers about your passion for them, what they do and what they stand for.

Then one of these days, your phone will ring. And all those who love you will get to stop scritchin.’

A special note from Martha:   If you’re a manager, your company is counting on you to be an engaging leader. But what exactly does that mean? And how do you do engagement? Just because you’re brilliant at your technical skills, that doesn’t mean that you’re a natural at people skills. New managers need a book that can help them figure it out in simple, straightforward ideas.

That’s why I wrote The Truth About Getting the Best From People. It’s a book made up of 49 short, simple truths designed to help new managers understand how their beliefs and behaviors directly impact their employees’ passion factor on the job.

Click on the title and check it out! I hope you’ll enjoy it!