Talent Tips

Talent Tip #140: Lessons from Potty Training: 6 Hiring Mistakes Nonprofits Make

November 16, 2021

Katelynn Barbosa

Labor Day weekend of this year, my husband and I decided that it was time to get serious about potty training our two-year old and we decided to commit to the three-day method. For the uninitiated (untraumatized), the three-day method is a very popular potty training method where you stay home with your toddler for three straight days, never take your eyes off of them, and anytime they start to do their numbers, you rush them to the bathroom. The idea is that they will catch on, eventually discover they are unhappy being covered in their own bodily fluids, and start going to the bathroom on their own. By the end of the three days, you will have a fully potty-trained toddler and can throw away the diapers forever! Yeah!

Well, when I dropped off my daughter at daycare this morning, I can assure you she was very much wearing a diaper. Why? Because try as we did, she simply wasn’t ready for potty training. She didn’t mind being covered in filth, no amount of reminding her to use the potty was effective, and the only thing we accomplished in three days was teaching her to say “I made a bad decision” when she relived herself on the floor.

I know what you’re thinking: Katelynn, what in the heavens does this have to do with hiring? Well, it turns out that lessons from potty training also apply to hiring!

How so?

Don’t start until you are ready. This is the first lesson of both potty training and hiring. If you try to hire before your organization is ready, you’re going to be extremely frustrated, waste a lot of time, and have lots of metaphorical pee on the floor. So before launching a search, make sure you have full approval from the powers that be and funding for the role. Finally, talk to your team about the search so they are not blind-sided by a parade of candidates coming in to interview.
Don’t launch a search unless you have the time to devote to it. Potty training doesn’t happen overnight (or even in three days!), and neither does hiring. These things take time.With hiring, involved parties will need to devote at least several hours per week to be fully engaged in the process.
So, if a team member essential to the interviewing process will be going on his dream trip to Turkey rendering you unable to schedule interviews for three weeks, it’s probably not the best time to launch a search. Or, if your organization’s biggest annual event is coming up and you won’t have time to open your email for the next month, launching a search right now is a bad decision. See what I did there?
Communicate regularly. I am pleased to report that a couple of weeks ago, we attempted the three-day method again and were a lot more successful this time! But every time we take our toddler out of the house, we have to communicate with her and encourage her to use the potty before she leaves and when she gets to a new destination. Otherwise, she will have an accident.Similarly, you will want to remain in regular communication with candidates throughout the search. If you don’t let candidates know what is going on with the search, they will get frustrated, contemplate if you are really serious about filling the opening, and worse, wonder if your organization is just so disorganized that it’s about as fun to work there as it is to potty train a toddler.
Don’t get distracted. As successful as our toddler is using the bathroom at home, as soon as she is hanging out with other kids and having fun, she gets so distracted that she forgets everything she’s learned and makes a mess.Likewise, when hiring, it’s easy to get distracted. That big grant proposal is due next week. You’re launching a new program next month. Expense reports were due yesterday. Performance reviews are coming up. Before you know it, three weeks have gone by since you even thought about the search. And when you finally come back to it, you learn your top candidate accepted another job and your other two finalists are disillusioned with your absence. Now that’s a mess.
Don’t get hyper-focused, either. When our toddler is successful using the ladies’ room, she gets an M&M. Unfortunately, she has figured out how to game the system: she insists that she has to use the bathroom every few minutes to the exclusion of all other activities. Sure, she gets a lot of M&Ms, but eventually she finds that she is tired and has wasted a perfectly good evening spending all of her time on the porcelain throne.Likewise, when hiring, you don’t want to get hyper-focused on one candidate to the exclusion of all others. Even if one candidate looks stronger than the rest, it’s usually wise to keep all solid contenders in the mix until a decision is made. Otherwise, you might find yourself with soiled pantaloons and no change of clothes. You didn’t really think I would take the analogy this far, huh?
Don’t wait! When our toddler says it is time to go potty, we better deliver her to a latrine within five minutes or we’re in trouble.With hiring, you want to employ this same sense of urgency. It’s a candidate’s market right now, and dilly-dallying can cost you a candidate or three.
In fact, we’ve had several clients recently who understand this and have made a hire within 30 days of launching the search. They didn’t cut corners; they just moved efficiently because they knew they would miss out on good candidates if they didn’t.

By now, our darling toddler terrorist is doing pretty well on the potty training front (with the exception of daycare…anyone have advice?) and it is all because she was ready, we seriously committed time to the process, we always communicate with her regularly, we don’t let her get distracted, and we move quickly when it’s time. So if you want to have success in your search, approach it like potty training!

Talent Tip #139: Hiring Horror Stories (Just in Time for Halloween!)

October 19, 2021

Katelynn Barbosa, Stephanie Keaveney, Claire Kittle Dixon

In the spirit of Halloween, our team wanted to share our best hiring horror stories with you. Names and identities have been changed to protect the innocent (and the ghoulishly guilty!).

—
The Candidate Who Ghosted Us

A couple of years ago I was working with a nonprofit who wanted to hire for a senior level opening. We identified an impressive candidate who had worked for one of the most reputable think tanks in the country. He did well in the interviews and the organization made him a great offer. He accepted and they agreed on a start date three weeks out.

Then, like a ghost, he disappeared.

At two weeks before the start date, we were confused but thought maybe he just took a few days off in between jobs. By one week out, we were concerned. We started searching online, thinking maybe Jason Vorhees had visited the candidate. Both the hiring manager and I tried everything we could to reach him: emails, voicemails, texts, and social media messages. Radio silence. By three days out, we finally accepted that he had ghosted us.

To this day, we’ve never heard from the candidate. If the candidate had changed his mind, the right thing to do would have been to just let us know and we could all move on. This probably wasn’t the first or last time the candidate displayed such unprofessional behavior, and no doubt these actions will haunt him throughout his career.

—

Trick….or Treat?

Near the end of my final semester of college I began looking for my first full-time job where I could leverage my shiny new degree. The opportunity came in the form of a verbal offer to become a low-level government bureaucrat in a neighboring county. Within a few hours of getting the call, I quit my job at a car dealership and made plans to break my apartment lease. About an hour into my final shift at the dealership, I received an email letting me know that the offer had been revoked. I was left jobless and apartment-less.

Many years later, I’m still not sure what led to the rescinded offer, but I learned the very important lesson to not count my chickens before they hatch (although I’m grateful my career ultimately took a very different path) and to always, always wait until you get it in writing.

Oh, and you can’t trust the government.

—

Ghastly Behavior and Horrifying Hurl

Years ago I was at a social gathering with free-market friends when I was introduced to a sharp gentleman. He was a recent college graduate who was in between jobs. I was immediately impressed with how articulate and charismatic he was. And he was brimming with confidence! I wondered how someone so sharp could be unemployed. I told him about the internship program at our organization and invited him to apply. He applied, we put him through the typical hiring process, and next thing you know, he was in our program.

For a while, everyone thought he was terrific. But it didn’t take long for the shine to wear off. What I had initially seen as confidence turned out to be an extreme case of arrogance. And his articulate and charismatic personality gave way to one that was manipulative and self-serving. Staff members were starting to see his real personality and no one liked it.

The nail in the coffin came when he went to a work function, got completely trashed, and threw up on the shoes of a VIP who worked for one of our allies. I was mortified (though mildly disappointed that I didn’t actually get to see the grand finale…my associates assured me it was a sight to behold!). Thankfully, he quit the program before we could have the satisfaction of asking him to leave.

The lesson for me was two-fold. First, vet the heck out of anyone with heaps of confidence. If they don’t have humility, they will eventually cause you trouble. Second, if someone seems too good to be true, they probably are.

—

Hiring at the Pace of the Walking Dead

Before Talent Market, I was a career counselor at a law school and it was my job to help students find their first job out of law school, which involved helping them apply for jobs, weigh offers, and ultimately decide where to work. I remember working with a stellar student with great grades, an awesome personality, and basically everything an employer could want. She had applied for her dream job and was waiting to hear back from them after a great interview. For weeks, she waited and waited. Each day that went by without hearing from them, she got sadder and sadder, then she got frustrated, and then she got annoyed. She ended up accepting a job somewhere else.

Time passed. Then, she finally heard from her dream job 8 weeks after she interviewed with them. They wanted to offer her the job. By that point, she didn’t even want to work for them anymore. Taking that long to get in touch with her made her think they were inconsiderate, scattered, and the type of place she wouldn’t want to work.

My key takeaway from this experience is that when an organization is hiring, they need to treat candidates with respect. Leaving candidates to wait, wondering what is going on, even if they aren’t interested in the candidate is bad for their organization. Candidates talk and this type of behavior can impact an organization’s reputation, leading people to think of the organization as either disorganized or inconsiderate, both bad traits. That is why Talent Market is so committed to never leaving our candidates hanging and always keeping them updated no matter what!

—

Hey there Pumpkin…I Think You’re in the Wrong Patch

I often conduct first round interviews with candidates. During one particularly memorable call, I asked a candidate to explain why she’d applied to the role. The candidate launched into an impassioned soliloquy on why this position was an ideal fit not only in terms of her skills but also because of how well the organization’s mission aligned with her personal values. It was an incredibly compelling answer… for a different role, at a different organization.

As gently as possible, I reiterated what role and organization our call pertained to. And while I was willing to cut the candidate some slack, the mistake clearly threw her off for the remainder of the call and she ultimately did not move forward in the hiring process.

The key takeaway is that when you’re job searching, you’re likely applying (and interviewing!) for many different roles at many different organizations. There’s nothing wrong with that! But it’s absolutely critical to make sure you’ve done your homework and adequately prepared for the (correct) interview.

—

Getting Hiring by Dr. Jekyll…or is it Mr. Hyde?

My first job out of college was as a sales rep for a design firm. During the interview process, the president of the firm came across as Mr. Perfect. He was smart, charming, kind, and had plenty to say about his firm’s success and how easy it would be for me to sell its work. I happily accepted the meager salary and had hopes about the big commissions he assured me would come.

Young and eager, I worked my tail off cold-calling, visiting clients, and trying everything under the sun to get a sale. After a few months and very little success, I started questioning my own sanity. Finally, a client with whom I had built a strong relationship pulled me aside to tell me how terrible the president’s reputation (and, by association, the firm’s reputation) was. He shared stories of undelivered results, missed deadlines, lack of follow-through, and jaw-dropping unethical behavior. He gently told me that no amount of work on my part could correct the reputation of the firm and that this was why I hadn’t had more success in my role.

Two hiring lessons have stuck with me since then: 1. Do your homework about an organization before you accept a job there. Had I done more digging, I may have discovered that this man and his firm weren’t as he described. 2. Reputation matters. If you go to work for an organization with a questionable reputation, not only will it make your job infinitely more difficult (whether you’re in fundraising, communication, policy, etc.), but you also risk damaging your own reputation.

Talent Tip #138: What HGTV Can Teach Us About the Market for Talent

September 21, 2021

Katelynn Barbosa

A couple of years ago, I was home sick with a bad sinus infection and chose to spend that time in the most productive way possible – reading seminal novels I had never gotten around to. Just kidding. I binged watching HGTV. If you haven’t watched HGTV before, the basic format of every HGTV show involves the following:

Act 1: Couple wants to buy house and meets with realtor to tell them what they are looking for in that house. Their expectations are always wildly unrealistic for their budget. The realtor passive aggressively smiles and nods along and then shows up by herself on camera to politely explain that the couple clearly has no clue about the local real estate market.

Act 2: Realtor shows them different houses at various price levels so they can see how insane they are.

Act 3: As the reality that the house they want is at least $300,000 more than what they can afford dawns on the couple, we watch them slowly adjust their expectations with each viewing and then they ultimately pick a house that meets 50-70% of their original criteria after seeing the market for themselves.

Episode after episode, not a single buyer ended up purchasing a house that fulfilled 100% of the criteria they had specified at the beginning of the show.

And episode after episode, I’m reminded of how similar the real estate market is to the talent market.

When we work with an organization to create a job description, it is not unlike a relator working with a prospective buyer to come up with a list of what they want in their dream home. (Fortunately, the organizations we work with are much more realistic than the buyers on HGTV.) A job description is basically an organization creating a list of qualities they are looking for in their dream candidate. Rarely does the organization hire someone with every single requirement listed in the job description.

With this in mind, here are some key takeaways that HGTV can teach us about the market for talent.

First, two key lessons for candidates.

You don’t have to check off every box. If you are reading a job description you are really excited about but find that you only have 7/10 things they are looking for, go ahead and apply. It’s rare that an organization is going to find every single thing they are looking for. For instance, the organization seeking a talented development director who has extensive experience with DonorPerfect is akin to an HGTV couple’s desire for an amazing house with an infinity pool – the latter is something they want in their absolute dream but will quickly jettison in favor of what they really need.
But you should check off most of the boxes! On that same point, if you only meet 3/10 of the criteria in the job description, you may not want to apply. If the organization wants 3-4 years of policy experience and you just graduated from college a few months ago and completed one communications internship, you’re a studio apartment when the organization wants a 5 bedroom house.

And here are three equally important lessons for hiring organizations.

A job description for the equivalent of a Beverly Hills mansion may scare candidates away. As you craft your job description, be sure to denote needs versus wants. If you are hiring for a communications officer, do they really need extensive social media experience and a Rolodex of media contacts in your city and a master’s degree in communications? If not, make sure to say “Preferred but not required” next to your dream house items. Don’t refuse to tour a 4 bedroom house that meets all of your must-haves just because it doesn’t have a pizza oven and firepit.
Be realistic about your budget. If you want a Beverly Hills mansion but only have the budget for a trailer in Tuscaloosa, you’ll need to adjust your expectations. For instance, maybe you don’t need a turnkey candidate with 10 years of experience in a similar position. Perhaps you can get by with someone more junior who needs training?
Don’t let your listing get stale. Has your job been posted for 6 months? Think of it like a house that has been listed for 6 months. What would you think? Something is wrong with that house, right? The sellers are asking too much for it, the plumbing is totally whack, someone got murdered in it, it is haunted, or all of the above. By the same token, if your job has been posted for a long time, candidates are going to think something is wrong with the role or the organization or both. Maybe you need to offer a higher salary to get someone with the experience you’re seeking or consider a virtual candidate. Maybe you need to tweak your requirements or stop looking for that perfect new build on a hill with a white picket fence. Or, maybe you just need a fresh start and should take the job posting down and relaunch the search later with adjusted expectations.

You don’t need an HGTV binge-watch session under your belt to understand the wisdom behind viewing a talent search like a house search. Consider what qualities are most important in the new hire, be willing to compromise, and if you are a candidate who meets the key criteria for the job posting, throw your hat in the ring!

Talent Tip #137: How Networking Can Make (or Break) Your Job Search

September 15, 2021

Many moons ago I was at a networking function in Washington, DC when a gentleman strolled up to me with the Worst Networking Line Ever™.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a graduate student at….”

Before I could finish the sentence he turned around and walked away. I kid you not. His exceptional deductive reasoning skills led him to believe I would be no help in his quest to take over the world, so he left me high and dry without so much as a, “I’m sorry, my mother is calling” or “I need to rescue a puppy that fell into a well.”

While his deductive reasoning skills may have been above-average, his people skills and long-term thinking abilities were abysmal. After all, today’s graduate student might be tomorrow’s nonprofit manager running an entity dedicated to helping people find jobs in the liberty movement! Ahem.

But wait — it gets better.

This very same gentleman reached out recently asking for help finding a job. You can’t make this stuff up! Needless to say, his networking efforts haven’t done him any favors when it comes to job seeking!

Networking can play a key role in your job search or, if done poorly, it can undermine your chances of getting a job.

With that in mind, here are four ways networking can make — and four ways networking can break — your chances of landing a job.

MAKE: Asking someone who knows you well to put in a good word for you. A nonprofit executive recently reached out to us to throw his support behind a candidate who had applied for a job through Talent Market. It turns out the competition for the opening was incredibly stiff (50+ candidates, many of whom were very impressive). The executive knew the candidate well enough to speak to her passion and how her strengths would align well with the opening. His feedback was thoughtful and it was clear he believed in the candidate. Guess what? She ended up landing the job!
BREAK: Calling in favors from someone you just met or haven’t yet met. An associate of mine reached out a few months back and said, “John Doe told me he applied for the X role with Y organization and he asked me to put in a good word for him.” I eagerly awaited the actual “good word” but no such luck. I pressed for more details.
Lo and behold, it turns out my associate wasn’t able to provide any substantive feedback about Mr. Doe because he had never worked with him and only met him once. In fact, my friend admitted he felt awkward even reaching out to me because he just didn’t know Mr. Doe well enough to vouch for him.
While John Doe thought he was improving his chances by asking my associate to put in a good word, Mr. Doe ended up making himself look a bit foolish. Unless you know someone well enough, don’t ask them to vouch for you!
Perhaps even worse is emailing someone you don’t know who works for the organization you applied for after you applied, trying to network at the 11th hour. Networking is like roofing. If you wait until it is raining/until after you have applied for a job, it is too late.
MAKE: Asking someone who thinks highly of you to serve as a reference.
Nearing the end of a search last year, one of our clients was torn between two candidates. He asked if we would check references for both candidates in an effort to break the tie. The references for the first candidate were solid. This is going to be tough, I thought. But the references for the second candidate were….glowing…like Clark Griswold’s house at Christmas. Every reference talked about how the candidate would exceed expectations and they each provided multiple examples of things the candidate had done to knock their socks off. All of them were effusive and they were very, very sincere. The client hired the Griswold candidate and he was not disappointed.
BREAK: Including frenemies on your reference list. A few years ago I thought I was about to wrap up a search when the client called to tell me her top contender was out of the running. She explained that one of the candidate’s references (who also happened to be close friends with the client) had given such a tepid review of the candidate that she couldn’t bring herself to make an offer. Turns out the candidate didn’t have an accurate sense of his reputation, at least with the aforementioned reference. If you have any doubts about whether someone will actually cheerlead your candidacy, do NOT ask that person to serve as a reference.
MAKE: Building a positive reputation by doing great work. If you do great work, you will build a positive reputation with your network and beyond. How? The people in your network will start talking about you and word of your awesomeness will spread organically. Have you ever introduced yourself to someone at an event and they responded, “Oh, I’ve heard good things about you.” That’s your positive reputation in action! This means your future boss might hear good things about you before you’ve even applied for a job there! Your positive reputation is the most powerful tool you’ve got when it comes to job searching.
BREAK: Taking “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” literally. This saying implies you don’t need to have skills or experience; you just need a thick rolodex. Malarky! Most of the time it’s your skills and experience that will land you a job. Does having connections help? Sure! But the clients we work with care most about the value you will create for their nonprofit. We’ve found that having a connection can open a door for you, but that alone won’t secure the job.
MAKE: Developing genuine relationships with people in your network. A friend of mine in the liberty space likens networking to a bank account: the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. If you cultivate authentic relationships with people and you take an interest in helping others, you’ll build a great network over time.
BREAK: Treating people like rungs on a ladder. If you seek to build a network solely to advance your own career, your network will reflect this. Just as it was evident with my aforementioned networking buddy, people will see through you! Just imagine how different things might have been if he would have taken the time to talk to the lowly grad student that evening so long ago. We could have built a great friendship over time. It’s sad for him, but a great lesson for the rest of us!

Talent Tip #136: On Cake and Virtual Work

July 20, 2021

By Katelynn Barbosa

I’ll never forget the day my daughter first discovered cake. Her eyes lit up in a feeling of pure bliss, discovery, and shock. How had we been keeping this food from her?

Ever since, cake is never far from her mind. We recently hosted a large family gathering where she walked around to every person in attendance inquiring “Cake? Cake? Cake?” And now, even in the midst of a classic two-year old tantrum in which she has thrown herself on the floor in tears, all it takes is a serving of cake to turn her into the most pleasant and charming toddler the world has ever seen.

The discovery of cake changed her forever.

And so it is with the American worker and virtual work. During the pandemic-imposed year of remote work, millions of employees discovered they were more productive, got more sleep, had more free time, and were free of the shackles of a grueling commute and daily makeup for the first time. Asking many of these workers to return to the office is about as palatable as asking my daughter to eat boiled Brussels sprouts when she has a gooey triple layer chocolate cake in front of her.

I won’t go too deep into the data because in a Talent Tip we published earlier this year, we already talked about how hiring virtually will double your candidate pool. But it’s worth highlighting how seismic this change in employee mentality is proving to be. Surveys show as many as 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs to get more work/life balance, that the percentage of workers leaving for new opportunities is at its highest level in more than two decades, and that even if employees do return to the office post-pandemic, they expect more autonomy and to take on additional managerial responsibilities.

And with the pandemic hopefully nearing its end, it has changed workers’ expectations for the foreseeable future.

So how can free-market nonprofits adjust and maximize their appeal to current and potential employees? Here are a few ways:

Be as open to virtual work as the role will allow. Are you willing to let employees be 100% virtual? Great! If not, are you open to employees working virtually from the state or region in which your organization is located as long as they visit the office once per month?
If you can’t go virtual, incorporate as much flexibility, autonomy, and independence as possible. Many workers liked the independence they gained by working outside of the office and do not mind returning to the office as long as it means they can retain some of that autonomy. If you can’t go virtual, would you allow employees to work from home two days a week? Or maybe let employees work off-hours to avoid rush hour? Whatever you do, make sure you don’t welcome employees back to the office by breathing down their necks. They hopefully mastered virtual work over the last year, so they don’t need to be micromanaged when they return to the cubicle!
Understand that flexible schedules (i.e. work from home two days a week and work in the office three days a week) are NOT the same as virtual work. In other words, if you need an employee to make an appearance in the office at least once a week, you are essentially requiring them to live within close proximity of your office.
Take me as an example. In my previous job before I joined Talent Market, I had to commute to the office just once a week, but it was an hour and forty minutes each way. This arrangement became really burdensome after a few years, especially after I had kids. Pretty soon, I found that my entire week revolved around that one day. I had to wake up at 4am and was completely exhausted when I got home. I began to long for a full-time remote opening with no weekly commute, and here I am!
While flex-schedules are good, don’t mistake them for true virtual work. Only when you eliminate geographic boundaries will you see your candidate pool increase exponentially.
Can’t offer more virtual work or flexibility? How about more money? Ceteris paribus, some candidates prefer to work virtually. But if you’re willing to pay a candidate 20k more than another organization for a similar job in order to have them in the office every day, ceteris paribus just flew out the window!
Make your value proposition clear as day. While it’s true that the pandemic has put the spotlight on virtual work, that’s not the only thing candidates care about — especially in the free-market nonprofit sector. They want to work for an organization that is truly making a difference!
Make sure your website and job description clearly articulate how your nonprofit is changing the world.

Obviously, not every job can be virtual. You aren’t going to start seeing a bunch of job postings for a Zoom bartender (at least I hope not…imagine how dry the Martinis would be). But candidates’ desire for remote work is as strong as my daughter’s desire for red velvet cake. So to the extent free-market organizations can go in that direction, they will maximize their chances of finding good candidates!

Talent Tip #135: From Student to Professional: How I Feel Pretty Can Help You Transition To the Real World

June 22, 2021

By Katelynn Barbosa

Do you remember coming out of college thinking you were going to light the professional world on fire?

I sure do. And I remember feeling confident that everyone was going to be so impressed by my political science and history double major and my 3.7 GPA. I made sure to pack my resume full of that and my impressive college activities:

· Vice President of the Student Alumni Association? Check!

· Mediocre rower for one year before I quit because I didn’t want to get up at 4AM every morning? Check!

· Semi-committed member of the pre-law society who went to meetings when I felt like it and skipped when I wanted to watch the latest episode of House (I went to college in the mid-aughts, ok)? Check!

My plan worked because I heard from numerous hiring managers. But you can imagine the shock and confusion I experienced at the very bizarre questions I was getting in interviews:

What experience do you have that will make you successful in this role? (Why would they even ask that? Can’t they see that I studied abroad in Prague?)

This position requires a lot of writing. What experience do you have writing in a professional environment? (I wrote my senior thesis over the course of six months after sleeping in until ten every day in between The Office episodes. Next question.)

Have you ever worked in an office and showed up consistently from 9-5? (What is with these people? It’s almost like they didn’t notice that I earned not one but TWO humanities degrees.)

And then it hit me like an 8am Mesopotamian History exam: I might have been a successful student, but that didn’t mean I was ready for the real world.

The professional world is dramatically different from student life! There is a reason I didn’t start drinking coffee until I had to go to the office every day. Showing up to a job for eight hours, consistently meeting deadlines, keeping your word, and maintaining your professional reputation are all things for which college doesn’t prepare you!

When you enter the workforce, it is vital that you make the mental transition from seeing yourself as a student to seeing yourself as a professional.

Did you ever see the Amy Schumer movie I Feel Pretty? In that film, she hits her head and then afterwards, whenever she looks in the mirror, she sees a gorgeous model. This new perspective completely shifts the way she behaves and her life changes overnight. She lands her dream job, gets a boyfriend, and has more confidence and poise in everything she does.

Metaphorically speaking, I wish every graduating student would hit their head and instead of seeing themselves as students, they would see themselves as professionals.

Once you hit your head, so to speak, and make this critical mental transition, everything else will naturally fall into place.

· You will start emphasizing how your experience translates to the professional world. Specifically, you will highlight relevant internships, jobs, and other accomplishments that demonstrate your ability to work hard and get results. As time goes on, you’ll start replacing the college activities on your resume with your real-world experience.

· You will start reading application instructions closely. One of the most common reasons recent graduates get declined for openings is they fail to follow basic instructions. Unlike your favorite college prof who will let it slide if you write a term paper about Impressionism instead of Post-Impressionism, the hiring manager will be quite happy to relegate you to the digital trash heap if you don’t follow directions.

· You will start taking deadlines seriously. Unfortunately, professors have a habit of relenting easily when students ask for extensions and failing to follow through on any real world consequences. But the professional world is full of real world consequences! If you don’t meet deadlines in the work place, you will very likely lose your job.

· You will keep your word and understand that your professional reputation follows you around. In college you said you were going to attend a Young Beer Lovers’ meeting and then bailed at the last second with no consequences. Not so in the real world! If you accept a job offer and then back out of it, that will have a negative impact on your reputation and cause employers to be wary of you.

· You will dress like a professional instead of a student. If you wore that cute dress to a bar that had sticky floors, I bet it’s not appropriate for a job. And if you wore that shirt whilst doing a keg stand at a frat party, I am thinking it’s not meant for the workplace. When you stop shopping at Forever 21 (because, you know, you aren’t 21 anymore) you’ll know you’ve crossed the Rubicon to adulthood. Welcome. It’s not as bad as you think.

If you are entering the workforce (or even if have been in the workforce for a while!) and find that you are struggling to get where you want to be, skip the painful part where you hit your head and focus on making the mental transition from a student to a professional. (And don’t worry, you can still wear that keg stand shirt on the weekends.)