Attitude
Volume 48
It was just a simple card at a seafood restaurant in Charleston. But it made it into my wallet at age 13 when we visited Charleston on a family beach trip and didn’t leave for a number of years.
Hyman’s Seafood is different from many casual fish restaurants. There is often a line to get in. They hand out free appetizers like candy. They don’t allow panhandling in front or dumpster diving behind because they welcome folks in need to just come in to get a free hot meal with dignity.
And, on every table, there are copies of the restaurant’s motto that guests are welcome to take, just like I did. I don’t recall the specifics 35 years later of why I pocketed that card, but I know it must have resonated in some way.
Maybe I needed confirmation that I wasn’t the only one who thought this way. Or maybe I didn’t think this way at the time and this random little fork in the road helped provide the inspiration to do so. Either way, this simple motto shaped how I’ve lived the rest of my life.
What does this have to do with your job search? Everything.
In the job search, it’s easy to lose the thread and feel like you are the one reacting to the market. You’re looking for postings that you can apply to. You’re deferring to someone else telling you whether you are a fit or not. These situations subtly undermine your agency, making you feel like you are not in control.
But that’s simply not true. You are in fact the only one in control. Not the faceless “hiring committee.” Not the Applicant Tracking System bots. Not the job postings that have hundreds of applicants after just a few minutes.
And that starts with your attitude. If you feel like everyone is against you, they will be. If you believe that you will figure this out, you will. The first step is believing that you have control over your search, not anyone else.
Your attitude also influences how you observe the job market. Just because you don’t see a specific job you like, it’s easy to think there aren’t any jobs. Or that one is perfect and there will never be another like it.
But this scarcity mindset narrows your aperture. You put absurd pressure on yourself to nail that interview. You don’t see other opportunities that could be amazing. You artificially limit yourself and where you can add value.
Contrast that with an abundance mindset. There will always be another job. Your skills can help many different organizations be successful, maybe some that you had never even considered. And the opportunity that didn’t choose you missed out on something special.
Finally, your attitude impacts your confidence. Elite athletes already know this connection between attitude and confidence all too well. Surfer and entrepreneur Laird Hamilton cautions, “make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears,” a particularly important admonishment considering his job included riding waves as tall as a 10-story building.
Jobseekers are no different. Confidence (or lack thereof) oozes out of candidates, whether they know it or not. And hiring managers use that information in their evaluations of candidates, whether they know it or not. The best skilled candidates don’t always win the job. Sometimes it’s the candidates who believe they can.
To be clear, a positive attitude isn’t enough to break through a tough job market. But a lack of one just might be enough to hold you back, no matter how skilled you are or what credentials you hold. You can’t control everything about your search, but make sure you control the one thing you can: your attitude.