Inspiration for your job search

by Chet Manchester

A friend of mine is in the executive job placement business. He’s what you call a “head hunter” — someone who helps businesses find the right person to lead their corporation or organization. Because he’s been doing this for the last couple of decades, he has a pretty good instinct about what businesses are looking for in their leaders. In these tumultuous financial times, what do you think was on his “top ten list” of most sought after characteristics? Experience?  Integrity?  Self-confidence?  A capacity to lead?  Yes, all those things.  But it was what he said last that really inspired me, “People with optimism about the future — those with a sense of possibility!”  He added that these kinds of attitudes are especially important in bleak economic times.  People are down enough about today’s problems and challenges, so employers are seeking people with vision and hope — those who can see solutions and opportunities.

This reminded me of a time when I was questioning my own sense of possibility. I was a freshman at Dartmouth College and after only a semester of classes, I had decided that there was something more out there for me. I withdrew from the College and was taking time off to focus on my art and to feed a hunger for spirituality that I felt in the pit of my stomach. To me, the world’s problems looked overwhelming — from over-population to environmental decline to the imbalance of wealth and resources around the world. For the first few months after leaving the routine of academics and familiarity of my college friends, I was feeling a little rudderless and uncertain about my future. But I was also beginning to look at life through a new lens as I read through for the first time a book called “Science and Health” by Mary Baker Eddy. If ever there were an author who had a sense of possibility, it was Eddy. Writing at a time when most of the scientific world was attempting to reduce everything to material causes and effects, she held that there was an underlying spiritual reality to life that held the solutions humanity was seeking. And that this spirituality was universal, accessible to everyone on the planet. As I read her book, I began to feel a shift in my thinking — from fear to hope, from self-doubt to a sense of possibility. Then, one night about midnight, a poem poured out of me in about a half-hour. It became the basis for a children’s book and I began to illustrate it the next day. I won the top prize for these illustrations at my art school later that year. And this project gave me the push I needed to continue pursuing my art — and to take the road less traveled with the rest of my life. I’ve never looked back.

So, how alive is your sense of possibility about your job search? How optimistic are you about your future? If you were to sit down today with the manager of a company or organization you really wanted to work for, would they see fire in your eyes, or fear? Possibility or uncertainty? What would set you apart from many others who may be interviewing for the same position? These are the kinds of questions I’m looking forward to exploring with students at Amherst College next week — and here on this site when we launch a podcast on the topic of “Inspiration for your job search.” I’m hoping that this event and podcast will begin a wider dialogue here and elsewhere about the search for meaningful work — how to find it and how to find out more about oneself in the process.