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How Job Hunting Is Like Picking Up Women (And How It Isn’t)

Oswaldo Guimaraens
August 23, 2014

At the most basic level, trying to score pussy is similar to trying to get a job: you are selling yourself. You need to stand out among the crowd, demonstrate high value, understand the other side’s needs, and cajole your sparring partner into choosing you based on imperfect information, all while maintaining an outwardly positive attitude. This article refers to professional, white-collar jobs, in cases where the employer has most of the leverage, i.e., a position at which the majority of ROK readers will find themselves at some point in their lives.

There’s no doubt that effective game techniques will help you in your job search. The professional job applicant needs to be an alpha male, sharply focused yet coming off as a bit aloof. He has confidence that there are many employers who would value his talents, yet he knows that he has to prove himself. The job seeker has to conduct himself a bit more conservatively than when approaching girls. The need to balance humility with self-confidence prevails in both markets, but the dynamic is more complex in the employment realm.

How the job search is like game

1. The job seeker should broaden his horizons and adopt an abundance mentality

He will be rejected plenty. One-itis is as devastating in looking for a job as it is in considering a woman. It will be tedious and unpleasant at times, but the man needs to glean some gratification from the process: just as he finds it fun to demonstrate his masculine worth to women, he should enjoy conveying his professional value to prospective colleagues. Though it may not always feel like it in the West these days, the qualified professional has to approach the job search confident that he brings to the table knowledge, skills, and personality that are right for many prospective employers.

2. Technology has changed the dynamic.

Prospective employers will judge a job seeker from his profiles on places like LinkedIn (and maybe even Facebook).  The environment is brutal and the technology has increased the volume of rejections or downright indifference that he will encounter, no matter his pedigree. Recruiters and hiring managers get so many inquiries, both unsolicited and in response to postings, that ignoring them is about the same as swiping left on Tinder.

He will be “cockblocked” by the entry-level HR cunt receiving resumes online whose raison d’être is to look for a reason to screen him out. However, this is merely the flip-side of the abundance principle. Today’s professionals have so much more information at their disposal than those even one generation ago; the advantages of this paradigm outweigh the disadvantages.

3. Choosing an employee is an emotional task.

We would like to think that the rational business person’s decision-making process is wholly different from that of the half-drunk hamster, but the typical interview gauntlet is more served to drawing out interpersonal sensitivities than to assessing objective professional attributes. It may sound obvious, but many job seekers fail to internalize the mandate to convince the interviewer why it is in the latter’s interest to hire him. Analogously, even though the only reason why a man seeks a woman’s company is often for his own carnal recreation, communicating that objective to a pick-up target directly will not work.

The successful player gets the woman to perceive that bending over naked and burying her face in the bedspread while he pounds her from behind is in her interests, because he comprehends what she perceives her interest to be. Getting a foot in the door represents the biggest hurdle, and the successful applicant needs to learn how to push the right buttons to seal the deal from that point. The hiring manager will likely form his ultimate impression within minutes, so the applicant’s alpha banter needs to ably address this crucial juncture.

How the job search is not like game

1. The “IOI” and initial response take different forms

A woman on the street might be caught off-guard by a strong approach, but that is less likely to happen when approaching someone for a job. The cover letter or other initial inquiry is the hook, but there is little resonance in a witty opener or fast-paced retort. The caveman aggressive approach won’t work. Nor will cocky asshole game. This is because a recruiter has to commit to the interaction before the applicant has the opportunity to state his case.

Although there are parallels in the techniques needed to close when one has one’s target isolated, it is harder to get to that point in job searching. These dynamics illustrate the most important elemental difference between looking to score a woman versus looking to get a job:  the decision-maker on the other side of the table is a man—I won’t apply to a job if I know the recruiter or hiring manager to be a woman. Leveraging social proof—such as seeking a job through a contact—will get him in the door but rarely close the sale. Because the hiring manager is also at least a reasonably high-status male, status alone isn’t enough.

2. Most professional men will, at some point, find themselves on the other side of the transaction

This leads to another important difference in the two types of transactions:  the application of ethics and integrity. Most alphas believe that “all’s fair in love and war,” whereas in the employment realm, the “golden rule”—treat others as you would like to be treated—should govern. Women are genetically incapable of living by this maxim, of course, and by definition it doesn’t apply in the pursuit of poon because of the different mentalities of the two sides. A woman and man can never treat one another as they would like to be treated, because women and men have different preferences and motivation.

Moreover, women are not capable of grasping such an abstract concept, nor of envisioning the future or contemplating the consequences of their actions. While the alpha may not mind misrepresenting himself to score a notch, the job seeker should not lie on his resume or in an interview, both because it can harm him later if he gets the job and because of the ethics that the true man should embody in professional life. Whereas the lines between “truth,” “spin,” and “lie” can be blurry in the pickup game, in a business environment they really are not. Most people in the Western (especially Anglo-Saxon) business world abide by honesty and fair dealing. A manager interviewing a job candidate should count on these shared values. But applying this type of morality to picking up women will only lead to righteous failure.

3. The consummation of the interaction—hiring—carries greater risk for both the buyer and the seller than does the bang in the janitor closet.

A hiring manager is less likely to be punished for employing a low-risk candidate who doesn’t work out than for choosing one with an out-of-the-box profile if the new hire ultimately fails. Similarly, a short or otherwise unsuccessful tenure at a company can set one’s career, not to mention one’s self-confidence, back significantly. For this reason, even with an abundance mentality, the job seeker has to approach each transaction with a bit more circumspection than when trying to score women, and he can expect the hiring manager to do the same.  A successful job interview is one in which the conversation becomes more future-oriented as it progresses—how can I contribute to the success of your business unit and the organization as a whole in the future? The analogous long-term beta fantasizing in a pick-up scenario is pointless, counter-productive, or utterly disastrous.

So, how to succeed?

1.  Control the frame.

The alpha man should be half a step ahead of his environment. A home-run job interview is one in which the candidate sets the agenda and steers the conversation, one in which the lines of inquiry are aligned to the applicant’s strengths in the context of what the employer needs. The dialogue manifests a collegiality between the parties more than simply a walk-through of the candidate’s knowledge. To maximize the likelihood of such a trajectory, it is crucial that the job seeker research the company and the individual hiring manager to perfect his tailored elevator pitch.

The applicant can also steer the dialogue in this direction by picking up subtle cues and turning questions around on the interviewer.  He needs to act with conviction: although he can’t presume to have solutions to all of the company’s problems, he indicates that he is the right person to take on the challenge. It can be tricky to convey such conviction without coming across as arrogant, but achieving this balance is perhaps the single most crucial element of a successful interview.

The candidate’s questions have to demonstrate knowledge of the organization and synthesis of the interviewer’s previous statements:  he candidate should frame the interview as if he were a consultant, having his first meeting with the company gathering information after it has already engaged him, not as a cheap salesman who had no prior knowledge of the organization. The same behavioral techniques work in both interviewing and picking up women: dressing the part, speaking concisely, not rambling, maintaining strong posture and eye contact, leading the conversation but not crowding the other party out, and always moving toward the close.

2.  Improve oneself

Just as the alpha man, even if he is good-looking and well-paid, cannot assume that he can walk into a club and have multiple women lifting their skirts for him, the working man needs to constantly improve himself. He needs to read and post on professional forums, gather knowledge in his industry, expand his generalist intellectual horizons (e.g., via reading books and pursuing mind-stimulating hobbies), and hone his social skills. For almost all men, just going through the motions—putting on a suit and sitting at the bar—won’t be enough in trying to meet women, nor will he succeed by hiring a professional resume writer, uploading to a hundred postings, and sitting back waiting for a job offer.

3. Tailor the approach and reflect on failures

The successful job seeker understands that different resumes and cover letters, methods of approaching prospects, and anecdotes shared in interviews are necessary to increase the likelihood of success depending on the circumstances. He should not only tailor his approach to the job he is pursuing and the individual on the other end, but also try different techniques as sort of a controlled experiment. Some failures will seem inexplicable, but all that the job seeker can do is try to pick out the positive and negative aspects of the interaction and apply it to his next approach.

Conclusion

Most of us will have to convince someone to hire us at some point.  The definition of game—projecting well-founded charisma, self-awareness, and confidence—is equally applicable to the job search and to the hunt for sex. The man’s objective in learning and testing game techniques should be not just to pull a fast one on either a girl or an interviewer, but to internalize his appeal to be naturally deployed, whether at the bar or in the office.

Read More:  5 Honest Hiring Tips From Someone Who Hires


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Post Information
Title How Job Hunting Is Like Picking Up Women (And How It Isn’t)
Author Oswaldo Guimaraens
Date August 23, 2014 4:00 PM UTC (9 years ago)
Blog Return of Kings
Archive Link https://theredarchive.com/blog/Return-of-Kings/how-job-hunting-is-like-picking-up-women-and-how.21367
https://theredarchive.com/blog/21367
Original Link https://www.returnofkings.com/42076/how-job-hunting-is-and-is-not-like-picking-up-women
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