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

Conversation Tip #1
There is no such thing as “employers.” I’m referring to the way jobhunters
use that word, to reach conclusions after just two interviews at two
different places. You conclude “Employers just won’t hire me or someone
with my background or someone with my handicap,” or nonsense like that.
My friend, you’re reaching way beyond the facts.
Fact: You interviewed with two employers (or six, or twelve) and they
wouldn’t hire you. Those two. Those six. Or those twelve. They hardly
speak for all twenty-two million active businesses that are out there.
Fact: “Employers” are individuals, as different from one another as
night and day. “Employers” span a wide range of attitudes, wildly different
ideas about how to hire, a wide range of ways to conduct hiringinterviews,
and as many different attitudes toward handicaps as you can
possibly think of. You cannot possibly predict the attitude of one employer
from the attitude of another. All generalizations about “employers”
(including those in this book) are just mental conveniences.
Fact: There are millions of separate, distinct, unrelated employers out
there with very different requirements for hiring. Unless you look dirty,
wild, and disreputable, and smell really bad, if you know what your talent
is, I guarantee some employer is looking for you. Even if you’re crazy,
there’s some employer crazier than you. You have to keep going. Some
employers out there do want you, no matter what the others think. Your
job is to find them.
Fact: There is a big difference between large employers (those with
hundreds or thousands of employees) and small employers (alternately
defined as those with 25 or fewer employees, or as those with 50 or fewer
employees, or—the most common definition—as those with 100 or fewer
employees). The chief difference is that large employers are harder to
reach, especially if the-person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you-for-the-jobyou-want
is in some deep inner chamber of that company, and the
company’s phone has a voice menu with eighteen impenetrable layers.
Don’t think your interviewing experience with small employers will
necessarily be at all like that.
Fact: There is a big difference between new companies or enterprises,