Baseball, Pain, and Winning the Job-Search Game
By Kevin Donlin | July 22nd, 2008
My favorite 3-6 hours every week in summer are spent playing center field for my over-35 baseball team, the Braemar Bees.
There’s no better feeling than coming home covered in dirt and blood after a hard-fought win. It brings out the 12-year-old in me.
Which is what happened on Sunday, when we beat our rivals, the Union Hill Pitbulls, 6-3, in a battle for second place in our 17-team league.
In the third inning, I reached first on a headfirst slide (after a pathetic bunt), stole second and third, then scored on a sacrifice fly.
Wait a minute.
What in the world does this have to do with your job search?
Re-framing pain, that’s what.
This story is about how to look at negative things a little differently.
If your job search seems to be dragging on and on in these dog days of summer, fear not. The pain won’t last forever. And when you’re hired, you’ll soon forget it.
This is where baseball comes into play …
After Sunday’s game, I looked like I had been in a motorcycle accident — bloody, torn pants … a quarter-sized chunk of flesh missing from my right elbow … gashes on both knees.
My 10-year-old daughter took one look and said, “Wow, Dad. Are you going to be OK?”
My reply was, “Sure. It doesn’t hurt after you win.”
Now. That may sound a bit too “Vince Lombardiesque” or “General Pattony,” but it was a useful way to re-frame the situation.
Like a job search, a baseball game has no time limit. It may take you only a few hours of pleasant effort to get hired … or your search may go into extra innings, leaving you exhausted and discouraged.
But no matter what pain or frustration you may feel now, it doesn’t hurt after you win — after you get that job offer.
And the only way you can lose is if you give up before landing your dream job.
As I’ve recently written about here and here, you may need to follow up 14 times with your ideal employer before they let you prove yourself on the job. Fourteen times. Are you willing to contact an employer that often to prove you’re the best one for the job?
If so, good. You have what it takes to win in the job-search game. And any pain you feel now will soon be forgotten after you win.
But most people quit after the first ”No” and move on to other employers, careers … even other states. They get mired in long, frustrating, financially crippling job searches. Or they settle for a job at the wrong salary, with the wrong employer.
Don’t be like most people.
It doesn’t hurt after you win.
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