I still remember when I first graduated. It was a very difficult time looking for job. You see, I am not from a wealthy family, so I know immediately that I have to work just to finance my job hunting. I started with a job at a department store as a customer service personnel. Seriously one of the best time of my life, a job without that much responsibilityIt is my belief that the most important things during job hunting is not the resume, or your interview skills etc. It is your mindset. You will need to have these mindset in order to survive that period.

1) It’s all you
If you don’t do it, it will never get done. This is particularly important when you have that lazy feeling that you don’t want to do anything for the day.

Yes, it’s really hard work to go through the paper for job advertisement, and to write that cover letter etc. But remember, that thousands of people are looking for the same job, and they are possibly more motivated than you. If you didn’t apply, it will be just the same as you handed them the job on a silver plater.

2) Everyone is a different person
When I was in the job hunting phase, I basically just reprint the cover letter with some slight changes for every advertiser. Doing the same thing 10 to 20 times a day, everyday was very exhausting.

So what I personally did, was to consider that everytime I send the resume, I try to have that feeling of first time applying. Generally, it means that I try to maintain that excitement of sending my first application everytime.

I know it’s hard, but I truly believe that when we have that excitement in writing the cover letter, call the advertiser, they usually can tell that we are excited. Our writing will become more personal, and not just a copy paste from other cover letter (even though we are copy pasting it)

3) It takes time
Let say, We have been job hunting for half a year, sometimes it get frustrating when one of the company we applied for is taking his time to call us for interview.

The truth is, whether we have been job hunting for half a year or a year is not relevant to the company. They will treat each application through the same process. However, there is always this urgent feeling in us that they should speed up their process. And this frustration can have negative effect on your overall job hunting attitude.

Let it go, you do what you can the best you can. That’s actually what we can ONLY do. whether the application is accepted or not, is not for us to decide. So don’t think too much about it. Concentrate on the more important task – how to improve and where else can we apply for?

4) No place for being shy
Some people do have this problem. They are being shy for the wrong reason. Job hunting is a process where you are selling the most important product of all, YOU.

Would you buy a television that is said by the salesman to be nothing special? The same goes to the whole job hunting, you need to market yourself, your skill, and highlight to the company what you can offer to them.

Stop being embarassed or shy. You just can’t go far with that attitude.

– I wonder –
What other mindset do you think should a job seeker have? Or maybe you can share your experience?

—————- Personal Note —————-
I studied Chemical Engineering while I was at the university. Generally, my colleague all aim to work in the petroleum based field, myself included.But not long after I started looking for job that I know I had to accept any offer that came and of course applying for almost any engineering field. I even send out for management trainee post.It took me about 4 months to secure this current job I’m having. And it took a friend of mine more than a year to secure his. As long as you keep working on it patiently and motivatedly, you’re bound to be accepted.

I previously wrote an entry on the tips for first day at work. So many friends joined in and added additional ideas to it.

But what happens next? So for those that had already worked, are there any tips?

There’s one thing that may be worth sharing. It’s on how to free yourself from the zombie trap. These questions can determine whether or not you are already trapped.

1) What is it about the job that makes you happy? the freedom, the money, the colleague or the girl/guy you’re eyeing 🙂
2) When you go back this evening, can you predict what’s your work going to be like tomorrow?
3) How’s the boss? friendly? enemy? Do you even have any friends?
4) Did you improve when compared to yourself when you first started working? knowledge, experience, attitude, qualification wise?
5) If you are on leave for 1 months, can somebody else do your job?
6) We work to make money, do you have an emergency fund (at least 6 month of your salary)?

We go to work, work, go back home and collect money end of the month. This is very much like a zombie. It is a very soul-depleting process. We are supposed to gain more than just money in working such as friends, experience, knowledge etc

To summarize : A person free from the zombie trap will work for 5 years and by the end of the 5 years –

• He can resign from the job anytime, and the company will make an increased offer for him just to make him stay
• Other competitive companies had already proposed to him, and anytime he resigned they will take him
• He had a six month emergency fund.. maybe more.
• He make friends in the company (lots of friend)
• He is now an expert in what he do. Nobody can do what he does
• He now know what exactly he want from his life

– I wonder –
How do you think we can be free of this trap? maybe writing up a resignation letter dated 5 years in the future. It will remind us to be very secured when the time come. (The letter is just for reminder only, not to be submitted)

Any other tips?

———— Personal Note ————-
I have this dream of becoming self employed. But in order to do that, I must be very secured with my source of income. And the work must be something I enjoy doing.

Hopefully 2008 will be the year I started my very very small business, a lemonade stall perhaps.. 🙂 Amiin

Summary – Human is naturally lazy.. Authority needed

Yesterday is a “Pay-my-bills” day. So after the Jumaat Prayer, it will just be me and the bank.. Everything is fine, but I need to complain on one thing. The BSN (Bank Simpanan Nasional)

Just imagine, about 40 people queing and only two counters opened.It’s not that they are not enough staff to man the counters. There are guys behind the back door sitting and laughing. I know that it must be their lunch break, but I think the management can do more to settle this problem. For your information, this condition has been a practice since before I was transfered here.

What I did, I first go to the BSN to get the queing number, then I just take my time doing other chores. Believe me, I even had time for shopping my MONTHLY groceries. It’s that bad..

I don’t expect the staff to be self motivated. That is just near impossible when there is no reward in working harder. This is entirely up to the management to do something. Maybe reward the staff by asking them to collect the queue number. Then everyone will do their work faster to serve more people and get more incentive

Applying this to life, I guess.. when things go wrong. The person in charge must be the first to do something about it. Never expect people to be self driven to work harder. Human is just lazy by nature… it’s going to be very hard to change this.

Parent saw their children spending more time with television must do something to change tv into books and study. They should never assume their children will be self-motivated to study for their future.

Again human is naturally lazy. But there are some rare people who are hardworking, and will go the extra mile while completing his/her responsibilities. These are really rare breed. And usually these are the people who will be the successful ones.

Any ideas on how to keep us not only motivated but willing to do extras? 🙂 I have some ideas but let’s hear yours first…

————–Personal Note————-
About 1 year back, I’m not that comfortable using internet to do my banking. But I force myself and now I cut 50% of the time spent. The post office here is far worse compared to BSN. I guess that what push me to start internet banking 🙂

Are you currently using internet banking?

Summary – Trust is a must in working, but need to evaluate once in a while

Yesterday I learnt a valuable lesson from my day’s job. Sharing here, maybe you guys have better advice for me.

THE ITEMS INVOLVED
The mill has two pumps. In every pump there are two parts, let us named them part A and part B,

THE MISTAKE
One of my staff told me that the two pumps are under repair. Apparently Pump 1 had a faulty part A, and pump 2 had a faulty part B. So both cannot run.

I believe the staff. Solution would be simple. Dismantle both pump and use part A and B which is still in good condition in one pump. So technically I will then have one running pump and one faulty pump.

So I sent my foreman to go there and do that. The foreman came back and say that the information is wrong.

There are two pumps, but pump 1 is still in good condition. Pump 2 is not (both the faulty part A and B is from pump 2)

THE RESULT
A bit embarassed that I sent people to repair without knowing exactly what’s the problem. The staff is called and I later learn that he may misunderstand the whole problem.

THE EXCUSE
1) I am actually very busy for the past one week. Don’t have time to check everything myself.

2) It will be not efficient for me to do everything. I’m delegating task, and in order to do that, I will need to trust my staff

THE LESSON LEARNT
1) I have to recheck my staff credibility from time to time. Cannot just trust them entirely

2) My staff need to know that I’m checking on them. That way, they will think twice before giving me wrong information. It is always better to admit not knowing, than to lie

Do you think the lesson learnt is accurate? Or do you have any other advice for me (and for other friends reading this)?

————— Personal Note ————————–
Mistake happen all the time in any job, As long as lesson learnt it should be ok.I am currently back in KL for the charity tomorrow. So I am posting this entry from my phone. Please excuse all typo and allignment error. They will be sorted out.