Be Positive

Be Positive

The last few years have been tough for public servants, especially teachers and you can find yourself down in the dumps.  Around this time of year the jobs market generally gets a lift and opportunities begin to reveal themselves. For teachers these opportunities maybe thin on the ground, but they are there and websites like educationcareers.ie can help you find them.  But if you’re down in the dumps, those opportunities are more difficult to grab. And especially when you’re job hunting.

Be enthusiastic, positive and resilient. These are vital components in successful job hunting. David Maister, the English consultant who has written some excellent books about the whole process of management consultancy talks about the importance of hiring “the people with the shining eyes.”

Meeting a person with “shining eyes” lights up everybody’s day. Just like the pupil coming into your class, happy, energetic and full, getting the chance to work with a “shining eyes” person is a gift – in a meeting, interview or even on the phone, they light up others’ days. They have energy, enthusiasm and the get up and go to keep chippin’ away and succeeding.

One of the most interesting chunks of supportive evidence for what I’m saying comes from the work of an American Professor of Psychology named Martin Seligman. Seligman has a theory called “Learned Optimism”. It refers to the acknowledgement people make when confronted with failure or setbacks. He has rigorously researched this topic for over 30 years and has found that optimism and resilience are vital component to predicting high achievers.

His research and tests reveal whether or not a person will become defeated by a setback and give up, or if they will overcome it and keep fighting. You need to keep this in mind. When hunting for a job and going to interviews, and not succeeding, don’t lose faith, keep working at it, ask for feedback on how you could improve, apply it, and you will overcome.

In research at MetLife, Seligman convinced them to launch a highly original pilot programme to hire new recruits. Managements best predictor of success, Seligman argued, is the candidate’s level of optimism. Met Life were unsure, but intrigued. Martin, sure of his theory, said to MetLife if the salesmen he picks don’t outsell the others he’ll pay them, and if they do, MetLife pay them. Seligman and his colleagues found that new salesmen who were optimists sold 37 percent more insurance in their first two years than did pessimists. When the company hired a special group of individuals who scored high on optimism but failed the normal screening, they outsold the pessimists by 21 percent in their first year and 57 percent in the second. They even outsold the average agent by 27 percent.

Seligman’s research shows the incredible impact and affect that optimism has on achievement and well-being. For example, he studied a cohort of 99 Harvard University graduates who were veterans of World War II and had physical examinations every five years since they graduated. The men who were optimists at 25 were significantly healthier at 65 than the pessimists.

When hunting for a job keep positive. Getting a job is a series of no’s followed by a single yes: but you only need the one yes. To be successful you must learn how to cope with rejection, be resilient, positive and keep going.

Eoghan McDermott from The Communications Clinic will be giving you advice on your job hunt. If you have any questions that you’d like Eoghan to answer, just drop us a mail at careerdoctor@educationcareers.ie