Generating opportunities – You must be GAGA!!

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Generating opportunities – You must be GAGA!!

by Paul Mullan on March 24th, 2010
19 Comments

I watched Jonathan Ross a few weeks back and Lady Gaga was his final guest. I always thought of her as “flamboyant costumes” but taking the time to listen to her performance on the show made me realise that this Lady Gaga has an amazing voice with energy and passion to match. I started thinking about how Gaga got her break. Did the costumes get her noticed providing opportunities to showcase her talent? Is there more than just getting noticed? These questions are relevant to the current job market as jobseekers with great skills/qualifications are not creating the opportunities to showcase them. Equally there are many businesses with the same predicament.

Should we use flamboyant costumes to get noticed?

Lady Gaga certainly stands out in the crowd and gets herself noticed. I don’t know how much influence the “get noticed” costumes played in helping deliver success but I assume an important part. After all you hear about many talented singers who claim they never got the break or opportunity. There are many jobseekers and businesses who claim they never get the opportunity to present their talents. Two jobseeker issues I regularly hear (a) I apply for jobs and tick all the boxes and still don’t get called for interview or (b) I can’t seem to find any available jobs. Perhaps a flamboyant outfit would help stand out in the crowd for advertised jobs and raise visibility to access unadvertised jobs. Before anyone dumps their pin stripe suit please read on. When I say flamboyant costumes I mean strategies to get noticed and not peacock feather outfits. For example – taking risks or injecting creativity when applying for jobs/ pitching for business or bravery to move from our comfort zone to help employers/ customers find us. But is there more than just getting noticed?

What’s beneath the flamboyant costume?

There has been much debate in the case of Lady Gaga but that’s for another day Getting noticed creates the opportunity to present and help opportunities find you BUT landing a result requires more. Another key issue for jobseekers/businesses is not delivering at the final interview/pitch. Lady Gaga offers more than singing skills with great passion and energy. Jobseeker qualifications, experience and skills provide a strong platform but there is more to getting hired. Relying on qualifications and experience alone is a risky strategy. Having worked in careers and recruitment for 15 years I know the most skilled and qualified candidates don’t always get the job. Ability to do the job obviously plays a key role in any hiring decision but so does personality, ability to fit into team/organisation, passion and desire to land the job. Anyone who watched the two guys pitch their domestic wind turbine idea on Dragons Den last week will understand this. Great idea but not backed because the presentation lacked energy, passion or desire.

Love to hear you comments, views or costume ideas for my next business presentation ….

Category: HR and recruitment, Self- development

Tags: Advice, business, Career, creativity, Job Hunting, Job Search, Risk

The Author: Paul Mullan

Paul Mullan is an experienced career and outplacement professional with 14 years experience working within careers, outplacement and recruitment in the UK & Ireland. He is a former owner of Eden Recruitment and founder of career firm Measurability in 2006. Paul has delivered outplacement programmes for many leading organisations and ran graduate career workshops for leading third level institutions. He has worked with many individuals helping them define and achieve career goals through creative approaches to personal marketing and job hunting. Paul integrates traditional strategies with new Web 2.0 strategies to deliver optimum results. He is known for his up to date, creative and friendly approach to delivering career solutions. Paul is a recognised career professional regularly commenting on career related topics in the national media. He has acted as Career Doctor with Irish Independent and he is currently an online career expert with RecruitIreland. http://www.measurability.ie

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Anonymous

Oh La La Paul,

I love the Picture and your analogy relating to Lada Gaga and standing out from the crowd. I suppose this is similar to Madonna, who constantly re-invents/re-brands/re-markets herself or ” puts on a new suit” every now and again to keep herself fresh and her fans wanting more ! I also think during the Tiger years that we all became Madonna’s for a while and all our fans loved us and wanted to employ us. I question whether the traditional means of gaining employement , i.e recruitment agencies is a thing of the past ? For example, I met a guy called Lucian Tarnowski, who is on the list of top 10 ten entrepreneurs to Watch for 2010 at a conference in Wales recently. His latest venture “Brave New Talent” looks to be transforming the boundaries of the traditional recruitment process” . I’d be interested in your views on this?
http://www.channelship.ie/ Fred

What a fantastic analogy Paul. Really enjoyed your post.
What you mention here: “taking risks or injecting creativity when applying for jobs/ pitching for business or bravery to move from our comfort zone to help employers/ customers find us”, especially the last 4 letters are absolutely crucial for, pretty much, everybody: job seekers and business owners.
The rules have changes radically. Opportunity-generation nowadays is more about “being found”, rather than going out and hunting. A good “flamboyant costume”… with a twist and consistency (it doesn’t happen overnight) will definitely work.
Anonymous

Fred

Thanks for the comments. Creativity and rightly put a twist of consistency/delivery. These rules of engagement are for everyone – business and individual. For example I will tell the group at my presentation of Thursday night that I am a jobseeker even though I run my own business. The boundaries between these two words have merged according to Reid Hoffman (Mr LinkedIn) “Every individual is now a small business; how you manage your own personal career is the exact way you manage a small business.”

P
Anonymous

Brian

Yes recruitment and job hunting has been turned upside down over the last 3-5 years. Most people attribute this to the economic conditions which not doubt has impacted the supply/demand dynamics in the job market – less jobs opportunities and more competition for them. If you look past this though you will see that technology is moving at a speed of knots and the whole individual attitudes to jobs/careers has changed dramatically.

In relation to traditional methods like recruitment agencies I wouldn’t bin these strategies just yet. These guys/gals would have closed the doors if they were not filling jobs and I meet people who get jobs through agencies. You are right though in that how jobseekers look for work should change to match the changing market – real world networking, online networking, targeted approaches to orgs, volunteer strategy etc. Anyone spending 100% chasing the low hanging fruit or advertised jobs will have a frustrating time as they are playing in the M50 of the job market.

Thanks again for the comments

P
Brian Prenderville

lol, M 50 of the job market ! love it . Thanks Paul
http://blog.myprojecttracker.com Barney Austen

Hi Paul. Great analogy and great pointers as always. Passion for the role was always a key requirement in my days as a recruiting manager. This was always the thing that was the decider when we had more than one possible hire. Just going the extra little bit in showing how much the role would mean to them and where they felt they could take the role to the benefit of both the company and themselves.
Anonymous

Barney

There is a fine line between success and failure at final hiring decisions. As you rightly point out decisions can often come down to who has the greatest passion for the role, desire to work for the company.

Cheers for comments

P
http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

Hi Emma, great post! “When it is directed in a positive way, it becomes an alchemic force that can turn a group of individuals into a focused team and transform a vague idea into something of brilliance” What a wonderful description of passion in business, never heard it described so well. Thanks for sharing, Niall
Anonymous

Thanks for the post Emma. I’m currently teaching myself the Getting Things Done methodology and one of the things that stands out, reflects what you say in your last paragraph – “consider exactly what “success” means to you”.

This is vital and something we don’t do often enough when we engage in any project whether big or small. We should always start by moving into the future and seeing what it’s like once we’ve achieved a successful outcome.
http://www.garrendennylane.ie Lorna

Yep, thoroughly enjoyed it, great post on it all Elaine and doesn’t all the food look scrummy again, I’m getting hungry just looking at it all again
Anonymous

Elaine,nnI can imagine myself with you with this evocative post! nnMeeting offline really can cement a relationship. You get to talk, learn and laugh together. This bonding to one another leads us to be more open to seeing what opportunities lie ahead. Friendship or business partnerships are built from this! nnThanks for the shout out and I think I’m just as eager to see all of you!
http://positivespinblog.com Linda Hewett

This has inspired me with confidence. I’m going to the London Bloggers Meet up in a couple of weeks and am so looking forward to it, especially after this post!nI’m wondering if I could find some bloggers local to me, to have informal get togethers.nYou never know!
http://www.sianphillips.ie Sian Phillips

Great blog Elaine and just what I was thinking. I’d only met you in person before so was great to meet everyone else too. Looking forward to next one already
Facundo

Indeed a great lunch, it makes such a difference to meet in person!
http://www.encouragingexcellence.ie/ Mairu00e9ad Kelly

Absolutely Elaine, great ideas, great lunch, great company. It really does go to show that good relationships can be formed online and cemented offline too. I’m really looking forward to the #3 Meetup.
Derbhile

It’s great, but it’s very strange. You know people, but you don’t really know them. I found there were so many people I wanted to talk to that I nearly became tongue tied. The noisy restaurant didn’t help. But your tip for cupping your ears is a lifesaver. Will apply it for Meetup 3
Anonymous

It sounds great, Lorna, best of luck for the day!
Anonymous

It sounds great, Lorna, best of luck for the day!
http://mindfulproductivity.net Be

sounds great!u00a0 seeing as I cannot be there I will follow in Twitter.u00a0 Looking forward to learning lots

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