Wanted

Introduction

This book is for people who want to perform well in their jobs,

progress their careers and become the person every organisation

wants. It is also for unemployed people currently looking for a job.

From start to finish in your career you will be the chosen one for

the simple reason that you have chosen to get that job, whether

you are the chief executive of a large organisation or the new

graduate trainee in a prestigious company.

Your appointment, whatever it is, will be your choice – not the

choice of the selection panel delegated the task of filling a

vacancy. You will become so ‘wanted’ by an organisation that

they will have no option but to appoint you as opposed to the

other candidates whose ‘best’ is ‘second best’ compared to the

excellence you demonstrate. Such excellence is within reach of

everyone who reads this book, whether they be 15 or 65 years old.

There are no boundaries in ambition except the physical limita-

tions brought about by age.

Career success is not just about successful interviews and the

answers you provide in 45 minutes of questioning. More impor-

tant are the choices you make during the years preceding each

interview. These are the choices you make day by day in your

current work – or the choices you make in trying to get work or

the choices you make in pursuing promotion or whatever you

want. These day-by-day choices will, over the long term, influ-

ence your approach at those critical moments of the selection

process as well as when performing your current job. This book

is about those choices.

Anyone desirous of moving their work situation (or non-work

situation) forward from the status quo will benefit from the

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Introduction

practical tips expressed in these chapters. You could be a young

college graduate aiming for that dream job, or a middle-aged

manager desperate to extricate yourself from a rut, or a senior

manager aiming for an appointment on the board. You could be

a self-employed business person seeking to win a major con-

tract, or a sales representative pitching for your first big-ticket

sale. Or you could have just been made redundant after 20 years

with a company that went out of business yesterday. You could

be jobless in a tough recessionary marketplace where few jobs

are available.

The principles and practices expounded here will apply to all.

They relate to the ‘extras’ you provide over and above the ‘core’

professional skills and knowledge which, for the purpose of this

book, it will be taken for granted you have.

This is my sixteenth book and it is based on 45 years of varying

experiences and achievements. This has included the publica-

tion of 15 books and a career that saw me leap from the world of

science to that of management. My career progression (phase

one) resulted in my appointment to the board of an airline at the

tender age of 39. I then embarked on a second career pursuing

my love of writing, teaching and travelling. Officially retired, I

now work harder than ever.

core

professional

skills and

knowledge

(assumed)

core

professional

skills and

knowledge

(assumed)

extras

wa n t e d

A note on the writing of this book

The book you have in your hands comprises 50 short chapters

and it is recommended that you dip into these at random. It is

not necessary to read the book in the conventional way, starting

with Chapter 1.

My approach to writing the book was to scribble down each

main idea as it came into my head, thus creating a random list of

chapter headings. I would then pluck any number from the list,

apply my mind to the topic and draft the chapter, next assem-

bling them in a very loose order – in other words the chapters

were not written in the order you see them now.

The natural desire in any quest for success is to learn from a

rational step-by-step approach. I do not offer this because in my

view it is unrealistic. There is and can be no formula for success.

This book offers various facets and perspectives, some linked,

some not. It is not a comprehensive textbook of knowledge but

more a set of stimuli to prompt readers to think about what is

wanted by any organisation and how to appeal to those ‘wants’.

I have tried to steer away from the conventional stuff about how

to prepare an immaculate CV or how to succeed at interviews. I

suspect that has already been written about. I make no apology

for a rather iconoclastic and provocative approach to becoming

WANTED.

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wa nte d