Helpful Advice for New Job Seekers and Students on Avoiding Social Pitfalls

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Josh Simon, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Being a job seeker at various times and being an adjunct for a graduate engineering school over the last 15 years has exposed me to some amusing interactions. At times, I have been the source of amusement, but more often I am the recipient. 20/20 hindsight provides me with endless fun, but sometimes I cringe at the jobs, impressions, and opportunities that get lost, and preventably so.

Here is an example, but not the only one of its kind I have received. (Modifications protect time, people, place.):

Hello Professor,

I hope everything is going well. My name is <Name>. I am enrolled in your class <Number>. I know that the first in-person meeting is today January 25th but unfortunately I will not be able to make it because I do not have classes today and my commute is an hour and a half. I do apologize for that. Hope to see you in person another time.

Thank you.

My response:

Dear <Name>,

Thank you for the heads up, and I will reflect on your reasoning and the first impression you are making for me as I spend two hours driving to <School> to teach tonight.

Regards,

—Dr. Simon

We can chalk this up to student laziness or roll our eyes at “Millennials”, but that would not be entirely fair in all respects. This person, for all we know, could have issues with gas money, or with family, or with work, and they may have a legitimate reason that is not expressed here, and that is fine. The error is not in their life circumstances. The error is in how they conveyed and communicated. The error is also in their planning because in this case I warned the class two weeks ahead of time that they needed to clear their schedules for this date or notify me well ahead of time.

So many intelligent people have botched opportunities, jobs, impressions, classes by asking the wrong question or volunteering the wrong information at the wrong time (myself included). Much of it, I suspect, is because we do not spell out the “unwritten code” of social interactions in business and academia. We tend to learn them the hard way.

Though this code is long and tortuous, here are several pieces gleaned from it and encapsulated in writing. Maybe this will help avoid certain eager job seekers and students from becoming the next amusing dinner table conversation about an eliminated candidate.

The Dont’s

Don’t give reasons. – If you are unable to make it to an appointment, just say you cannot make it and apologize. If the authority figure wants to know why you cannot make it, he or she will ask. Then you can tell them. Otherwise, leave it out. It’s your business, and people who are confident in their reasons tend to just assume they are evident without naming them. Under-confident people have to list reasons before being asked. In some cases, asking you for your reasons on a job interview would even be illegal, such as times when it concerns whether or not you are married, where you live, and if you have children. Many times, you will not be asked.

Don’t seek information from an authority figure’s close social contacts. – If you have business to conduct with someone, and you are trying to see how the interaction went, tapping into a spouse, child, friend, close contact of that business contact is out of bounds. Tapping into contacts that are several steps away is iffy but doable if you know it won’t backfire, but it can easily go wrong. Best to avoid seeking feedback this way.

Don’t volunteer the fact that work is not the center of your life. – Work should NOT be the center of our lives, in my opinion, unless it’s a truly special job or circumstance. However, you shouldn’t SAY that it isn’t when talking to an authority figure who is trying to figure out whether or not to hire you. You don’t have to lie and say it is, either. Just don’t talk about it. This does not have to be explicit either. For example, asking about vacation time three minutes into an interview is not explicit, but it’s saying that you are looking for the exits before you even get to the building. The interviewer immediately will get that perception. It IS appropriate to talk about vacation time if asked, and if the interview is ending and certainly if it comes time to talk about benefits. Asking about the vacation before asking about the job, however, is not ok. If you are a Millennial, this will produce a LOT of dinner conversation not only about you, but your whole generation. Wrongfully or not. It looks bad.

The Do’s

Be a good planner. – Much of this mishap occurs because people are terrible at planning. Work on that. When you get a syllabus or an interview date, compare them immediately to all your other plans that day or that semester. Notice the conflicts immediately. Mark them down. Figure out which item can be moved in the schedule. Move it to another time if possible. Look at the relative importances of the conflicting things. Do this EARLY, not the day before the conflict. Sure, things will sometimes come out of the blue. If they do, see Don’t #1.

Accept uncertainty. – Unfortunately, the people teaching classes and interviewing for jobs are doing a lot of multi-tasking. Though there are definitely some flighty people out there that just never get back to anyone, most of the time the fact of the matter is you just aren’t the center of that person’s universe. They’ve got stuff to do, and a lot of it. Sitting with you and giving 15 minutes of feedback is just not going to happen. It sucks. Anyway, it would be awkward to even ask, so accept the fact that you will never hear feedback on any of your interviews/meetings, ever, and when you occasionally do get feedback you will be surprised at the treat.

Be adaptive. – Look, I’m fairly certain I have botched some interviews in my career and left some bad impressions. (I don’t actually know, since I’ve never really gotten the feedback, seeing as I am not the center of anyone’s universe except maybe my dog.) I’m also pretty certain that I have at least once committed all three of the Don’ts, so I’m speaking from experience. However, that is not going to end me. I moved on and I prospered. Take the hit and keep going. If you mess up, learn from it. Try not to do it again. If you take the lesson with you into the future, you will be that much better at all of this.

Happy hunting, students and job seekers!