What Color Is Your Parachute 2018 by Richard N. Bolles copy

The Last Handicap: Shyness
During the whole job-hunt, what’s going to torpedo you most? What
handicap is king? Well, shyness is near the top of the list. Call it anything
else if you want to—low self-esteem, fear, anxiety, nervousness, sweating
—but shyness it is, and shyness it remains. Often, we, the unemployed,
who may be absolute experts at connecting and communicating with
faceless people on the Internet—through computer games, apps, Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media—suddenly turn to
jelly when we have to go face-to-face with people.
Shy. A lot of us would never think to use that word to describe
ourselves. But surveys have found that as many as 75% of us have been
painfully shy at some point in our lives. Many of us still are. (This always
comes as a great surprise to my European friends, because they picture
Americans as assertive, aggressive, and similar words. And sure, some of
us are; but that’s not who most of us are, especially when we’re out of
work, and have go sit across the desk from employers, face-to-face. I
myself have been painfully shy, much of my life. But no one ever guesses.)
So, what to do if we are shy and feel utterly unequipped to deal with all
the social interaction we’re going to have to do during our job-hunt? There
is an answer, and a method that works. First, a bit of history.
John Crystal often ran into this problem. So John suggested that the way
anyone cures themselves of shyness is through enthusiasm. If you’re
talking with someone, for example, and you are enthusiastic about the
topic under discussion, you will forget that you are shy, in your
excitement. Everything depends on what you’re talking about, and how
you feel about that topic.
So, he said, if you’re shy, only go after a job you feel really enthusiastic
about. Seek information only about a curiosity that you feel enthusiastic
about the prospect of learning the answer to. And so on. And so forth.
John followed this up by inventing a practical three-stage plan of action,
to cure job-hunters of shyness. Those who have followed John’s advice in
this regard have had a success rate of 86% in overcoming their shyness
and fears, and finding a job.