Job-hunting, career-development and other activities where you are both the actor and the product are tough because you have to simultaneously be yourself and watch your performance. And when you are in this cycle it is tough to question firmly held beliefs that may be holding you back.
Some examples:
- I'm a victim of age discrimination because nobody will interview me and I'm over the age of 35.
- They'd never hire me because I've never been a (insert title here) before.
- How come so-and-so gets promoted but I don't, I've been here longer!
- I need a new job, and my first step is to post my resume to Monster.
- I was great at my last job (slow-paced, political, large corp), and I'll be great when I go work at (small, fast, non-political, execution-focused startup).
- etc.
In essence, you become a zombie because you aren't thinking, you are just following along on your pre-judged path.
With this in mind, read the following article by Paul Krugman, "All the President's Zombies". Yup, it's political, and that's rather the point. Nothing gets people riled up like pointed political attacks. And, unfortunately or not, it's also a very nice, common ground we all share, so it's easy to use to make analogies we can all see (unlike Baseball, War, or Fashion metaphors).
But, before you go clicking away on that link, I want to re-frame your thinking just a little bit because it might help your career. In this re-frame, consider, Reganomics is to Politics as HR is to Career Development.
Have fun with that!
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