You are a stamping press, a gearbox, a software
package, a centrifuge, or an electric motor. You are a box or corn
flakes competing with every other cereal to catch the eye of the
customer, to get plucked off the shelf, to get purchased.
You are a
product.
When companies hire,
they make an investment. Hiring someone - paying compensation - is
no different from buying a lathe, a copy machine, or a forklift.
Hiring someone is precisely like buying any productivity-improving
product. Just as the hiring company wants its investment in a new
retail store design to increase sales, so too it wants its
investment in people to increase sales. Just as the hiring company
expects its investment in new CAD/CAM software to reduce production
costs, it wants its investment in new people to eliminate scrap and
waste.
You are a product and
the employer is the customer, the buyer. You are a product the
customer will buy if the customer feels good about you, and if you
solve a problem. As with a box of cereal, the customer will feel
good about you if he or she likes your packaging. And your
packaging , because you are you, is how you look, listen, learn,
laugh. The customer will feel good about you if you fit the
organization's culture, if you have "chemistry", and if you ask
thoughtful questions. The customer will feel good about you if you
are genuine, if you have done your homework, and if you are
enthusiastic about betting some of your life on the hiring company.
More importantly, however, the customer - the hiring organization -
will only hire you if they think you can solve their problem, if
you fill their need. You are a product the customer will buy if you
are affordable, and if in solving his problem the customer will
earn more from your work than the amount of money you will be paid
for that work.
You are not a robot,
but you will be purchased as if you were a robotic assembly
machine.
