Job seeking from a hunters perspective Blog

Do you feel like Thomas Edison? I know I do! January 31, 2011

Thomas Edison took 1,000 tries to invent the lightbulb.

When asked about his many failures Edison replied that he had not failed at all. But that he had learned 1,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.

There is a lesson in this.  We apply for jobs and then expect results. When none come we do the same thing over again. This is the definition of insanity.  We need to learn from our trials and tribulations during the process. Like Edison it may take you 1,000 tries to land that job.

Do you think Edison kept using the same materials over and over again expecting different results. NO!

He studied what he did and learned from it. If I use this wire it just heats up and breaks. Why did it do that? Oh I see the wire has to have these properties. Next wire.

As job seekers we have to do the same thing. We have to catalog everything we try and to learn from the lesson. We need to analyze it and take the parts that worked and figure out how to use them in a better lightbulb and then discard the ones that didn’t.  We need to know what didn’t work so we don’t repeat it and waste time.

Ah but we have the advantage that Edison did not we have others doing the same thing that we can meet with and find out what they have discovered.  Kind of like what  the Wright Brothers had experienced during the process of making their plane. There were others working on the same idea at the same time and they somewhat shared their ideas, I think more out of ego than collaboration.

So lets all be Like Thomas Edison and have the right attitude that we haven’t failed we just have discovered a number of ways that don’t work.