by Pete Carapetyan
This is one of my favorite tricks. I like to work hard, and I’m especially good at finishing things and getting a result.
But then, I won’t succeed, because I really wasn’t interested in that part, I just wanted to do the work and be acknowledged for same. This would of course, just be a “Pete’s personal” story, except I see students doing that all the time, here at CodersCampus.
“Yeah, the part about actually getting hired somewhere, that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.” That’s how my self-talk goes. How about you, what kind of pro are you?
This is a correlatation only. But we know what the number one correlation is.
Students who find jobs fast are almost always at a ridiculous number of checkins, and are typically super active within those same checkins, sometimes bordering on being a PITA. Just so you know.
There are so many different ways to avoid getting a job, so this document will only cover one, which is how to accomplish this using checkins.
The first thing you need is a “style”. Pick the style that suits you best, for this. It is based on the correlation pattern above - students who fail to get jobs tend to correlate with these patterns, for whatever reason.
Any or all of these can be used in combination. Here are some illustrative tips.
This is the KISS or Keep It Simple approach. Works better than any of the others for avoiding the job/checkin correlation.
These are highly preferrable if looking good is important, while still avoiding success.
I’m really good at this one, and it saves me from that uncomfortable feeling I get when I would think about actually getting a real job from my efforts.
The trick to this one is you always meet expectations, show up at the required minimums, always be polite, always be kind, and when someone asks you to check in or how is it going simply answer some variation on “fine” to deflect the attention.
This one is also super useful if success at changing your career makes you uncomfortable.
The best part about this format is it’s so logical.
To do this, you don’t skip checkins intentionally - you are simply too busy to attend them. You can even go intermittently so that every time you feel you are really making progress in grooming yourself for that interview, you get “busy” and then drop away long enough to prevent your preparations and confidence from taking hold.
Recommended.
Of course, maybe you really do want to get a job.
We know what those people look like, at least in our bootcamp, historically speaking. They are the ones asking too many questions, showing up at too many checkins, volunteering too many opinions.
Somehow these are the same folks that employers seem to glom on to. For some reason, apparently they interview well, and employers project on them all manner of capability that they either do or do not have.
It is especially important to note here, that - in fact - this group may not be any more qualified than the ones that do not get hired. This can be very confusing. If you figure it out, LMK. It’s a puzzlement.
But either way, now you know the path. It ain’t always pretty, but it does seem to be pretty predictable.