Bait and Switch (3 page)

self-esteem. Most of my fellow job seekers would probably have come to their status involuntarily, through layoffs or individual firings. For them, to lose a job is to enter a world of pain. Their income collapses to the size of an unemployment insurance check; their self-confidence plummets. Much has been written about the psychological damage incurred by the unemployed—their sudden susceptibility to depression, divorce, substance abuse, and even suicide.
11
No such calamities could occur in my life as an undercover job seeker and, later, jobholder. There would be no sudden descent into poverty, nor any real sting of rejection.

11 See, for example, Katherine S. Newman’s
Falling From Grace: Downward
Mobility in the Age of Affluence
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) or, for a highly readable first-person account, G.J.Meyer’s
Executive Blues
(New York: Franklin Square Press, 1995).

one

Finding a Coach

in the Land of Oz

Where to begin? My first foray into the world of job searching, undertaken at my computer on a gloomy December afternoon, is distinctly intimidating. These days, I have gathered from a quick tour of relevant web sites, you don't just pore over the help-wanted ads, send off some resumes, and wait for the calls. Job searching has become, if not a science, a technology so complex that no mere job seeker can expect to master it alone. The Internet offers a bewildering variety of sites where you can post a resume in the hope that a potential employer will notice it. Alternatively, you can use the net to apply directly to thousands of companies. But is the resume eye-catching enough? Or would it be better to have formal training through programs like the Career Coach attempt face-to-face encounters at the proliferating number of Academy's fifteen-week course; others are entirely self-anointed.

"networking events" that hold out the promise of meaningful You can declare yourself a coach without any credentials, nor are contacts?

there any regulatory agencies looking over your shoulder—which Fortunately, there are about 10,000 people eager to assist me—means that, for the job seeker, it's the luck of the draw.
13

"career coaches"—who, according to the coaching web sites, can I find Morton on the web, listed as a local career coach, help you discover your true occupational "passion," retool your although—as I will soon learn—most coaching is done by resume, and hold your hand at every step along the way. The phone so there is no need for geographic proximity. Morton coaches, whose numbers have been doubling every three years, has been there, is my thought. The background material that he are the core of the "transition industry" that has grown up just sends me shows a history of what appear to be high-level, defense-since the midnineties, in a perhaps inevitable response to white-related jobs, including, somewhat datedly, "Senior In¬telligence collar unemployment.
12
Unlike blue-collar people, the Analyst and Branch Chief Responsible for Analyzing Soviet white-collar unemployed are likely to have some assets to invest Military Research." He has given seminars at Carnegie Mellon in their job search; they are, in addition, often lonely and University and spoken frequently at Kiwanis and Ro¬tary clubs.

depressed—a perfect market, in other words, for any service Surely he can guide my transformation into the mar¬ketable middle-promising prosperity and renewed self-esteem. Some coaches level professional I aspire to be. Besides, he assures me, I will not have to pay for our first, trial session.

12 See Daniel C. Feldman, "Career Coaching: What HR Professionals Need to Know,"
Human Resources Planning
24:2 (2001), p. 26. Even an improving economy poses no threat to the coaching industry, representatives of the Career Coach Academy and the Career Coach Institute assured me, since companies often hire the same coaches to rev up their executives and employed individuals often seek them out when they see "the handwriting on the wall"— a subject 13 See Stratford Sherman and Alyssa Freas, "The Wild West of Executive Coaching,"

common enough to be the topic of Internet and conference call seminars. Some
Harvard Business Review,
November 2004. Although this article is about executive, coaches work as individuals; others are in firms offering, for a fee, office space and as opposed to career, coaching, many individuals do both, and the same lack of equipment for the job seeker.

credentialing and regulations applies to career coaching generally.

I have no trouble recognizing him at Starbucks in Char-papers with only somewhat more enthusiasm than if a fly were lottesville's Barracks Road Mall; he's the one wearing the advancing across the table toward his arm. Maybe he can tell

"JMU" baseball cap, as promised, a description that encour-without reading it, by the very format of the pages—the aged me to come in rumpled gray slacks and sneakers. The top is lack, as I now see it, of bullets and bolding—that it isn't worth a better, though—black turtleneck, tweed blazer, and pearl earrings—serious coach's attention.

which I am hoping will pass as "business casual." Flustered by But he is bringing something out of his briefcase—an 8h x 11

being five minutes late because my normal route to the mall was inch transparency—which he places methodically over a sheet of blocked by construction, I stumble over my new name in the white paper so that I can read: "Core Competencies and handshake phase. He appears not to notice. In fact, he doesn't Skills," or "the four competencies," as he refers to them. These are seem to be much into the noticing business or perhaps already Mobilizing Innovation, Managing People and Tasks, Com-regards me as a disappointment.

municating, and Managing Self. This must be what I need—an After exchanging some observations on the pre-Christmas introduction to the crisp, linear concepts that shape the corpo-parking situation at the mall, I lay out my situation for him: I do rate mind. I am taking notes as fast as I can, but he assures me public relations and event planning, I tell him, but I've been doing that he will leave me with copies, so I am free to focus on the it on a freelance basis and am now seeking a stable corporate content.

position with regular benefits, location flexible. How to present The next transparency features a picture of a harness racer and myself? Where to begin? I pull out the resume that I completed horse, and reads:

over the weekend and slide it across the table toward him. In the Clear mind, skillful driver

worst-case scenario, he will grab it and quiz me on it while Sound spirit, strong horse.

holding it in such a way that I will be unable to refresh my Strong body, sound carriage.

memory with an occasional glance. But he regards the stapled Mind, body, spirit work as one . . .

Path to victory is clear.

Wizard of
Oz, and Morton digresses into the back story on the tin The syntax is a bit disturbing, particularly the absence of arti-man, trying to recall how he got such a hard "shell." All I can cles, which gives it a kind of ESL feel, but if modern-day exec-think is that I'm glad he didn't bring the dolls with him, utives can derive management principles from Buddhism or because Starbucks has gotten crowded now and I wouldn't Genghis Khan, as the business sections of bookstores suggest, want it to look like I'm being subjected to some peculiar doll-surely they can imagine themselves as harness racers. The based form of therapy.

horse, driver, and carriage, Morton is telling me, symbolize But while I am still struggling to associate the tin man with Head, Heart, and Gut, but I miss which one is which. This is Emotional and so forth, we move away from Oz to the Ennea-going to be a lot harder than I anticipated. Already, the four gram, which is defined in a transparency as:

competencies are leaking away from memory, or maybe it A description of personality types

should be self-evident that Mobilizing Innovation equals Head Based on ancient learning about motivation

or possibly Gut.

•

With the next transparency, things take a seriously goofy Provides clues about moving toward balance

turn. It's titled "Three Centers of Intelligence" and illustrated The visuals here feature a figure composed of a number of with characters from
The Wizard of Oz:
the scarecrow, repre-connected triangles enclosed in a circle. I feel a dizziness that senting "Mental," the tin man, representing "Emotional," and cannot be explained by the growing distance from breakfast, the lion, representing "Instinctual." When he teaches his and not a single question occurs to me that might shed some course on "Spirituality and Business," Morton is explaining, he light on the ever-deepening complexity before me. Somehow, does this with dolls. That was his wife's idea. She said, "You the Enneagram leads to "The Nine Types," which are also the should have dolls!" and you know what? She went out and

"nine basic desires or passions." Perhaps sensing my confusion, found them for him. I profess to being a little sketchy about my Morton tells me that, in his course, the Enneagram takes a lot of time to get across. "It's more or less a data dump."

replies evenly, "Because it's keeping something to yourself." Then I I furrow my brow and nod. All around us, money is being notice among the distorted passions, "Gluttony—I can never get exchanged for muffins in mutually agreeable amounts, and the enough experience." In among the wanderings of Dorothy in Oz and corporate world continues to function in its usual mindlessly the "ancient learning" of the Enneagram, Morton—or the inventor of busy, rational way. But the continuance of the corporate enter-the Enneagram—has managed to weave the Seven Deadly Sins.

prise is not something, I realize for the first time, that you can What all this leads up to is that I have to take a test, the Wagner necessarily take for granted. Not if its underlying principles Enneagram Personality Style Scales (WEPSS), which will reveal emanate from Oz.

my personality type and hence what kind of job I should be It's a great relief when the higher math of the Enneagram looking for. I already told Morton what kind of job I'm looking gives way, in the sequence of transparencies, to the familiar for, but obviously not in a language that fits into his elaborate
Wizard of Oz
creatures, now seen decorating a series of grids personal metaphysics. I'll take the test at home, send it to him, labeled "Emotional Centered Types," "Mentally Centered and then meet for an evaluation. The whole thing will cost $60.

Types," and "Instinctual Centered Types." On the left side of each grid are five entries, the most intriguing of which is "distorted SO THE SEARCH for a career coach who can actually help passion," described by Morton as a "bad passion," or one that me with the mechanics of job searching continues. I register at the you have to recognize and overcome. For example, the lion CoachLink web site, which nets me three e-mails offering has as one of its distorted passions "Lust for life. I want to coaching services and one phone call. I go with the phone experience and control the entire world," while the scarecrow caller, Kimberly, whose web site describes her as "a career and is potentially burdened with "Avarice—I keep knowledge to outplacement consultant, trainer and writer"—for showing initiative—myself to avoid being seen as incompetent." I interrupt to ask and agree to a weekly half-hour session by phone at $400 a month, why keeping knowledge to oneself is called avarice, and he or S200 an hour. My "homework," due on our first session, is to

"fantasize" about my ideal job. What would my day be like at this this stage for months. I think you're going to be a quick ideal job?

study." Already, the excitement level is beginning to exhaust me. In It's not a bad assignment. Everyone should take some time my irritation, I picture her as a short-haired platinum blonde, for utopian thinking, and what better occasion than when you probably wearing a holiday-themed sweater and looking out have nothing else to do? So I fantasize about a small- to from her ranch home on a lawn full of reindeer or gnomes.

medium-size company with offices in a wooded area, mine As for how she sees herself: "I've gone through some branding looking out on a valley and rolling green hills. An espresso cart rolls processes, and I realize the brand you're getting from me is wildly around every morning and afternoon; there's an on-site gym to optimistic, fiercely compassionate, and totally improvisational." I which we're encouraged to retreat at least once a day, and the am to think of myself in the same way—as a "brand," or at least cafeteria features affordable nouvelle cuisine. None of that goes a product.

into my written fantasy, however, which focuses on finding a

"What do you do in PR?"

balance between the intense camaraderie of my "team" and I let a beat go by, not sure if this is a test of whether I am actually periods of creative solitude in my office, which of course has a what I claim to be. But this turns out to be her MO—the teasing door—no cubicles for me. I put myself in charge of my team, over question, followed by the dazzlingly insightful answer: "You
sell
which I wield a collegial, "empowering" form of leadership. I am things, and now you're going to sell yourself!"

utterly fascinated by my work, whatever it is, and frequently carry Looking down at my sweatpants and unshod feet, all of on till late at night.

which is of course invisible to Kimberly, I mumble about lacking Kimberly, when our first session rolls around, is "excited" by my confidence, the tight job market, and the obvious black mark of resume, "excited" by my fantasy, and generally "excited" to be my age. This last defect elicits a forceful "Be really aware of the working with me. I get high marks for the fantasy job: negative self-talk you give yourself. Step into the take-charge person

"You're very clear about what you want! Many clients don't get to you are!"

Now comes the theoretical part. She asks me to think of I FEEL THAT I'm not finished with Morton. I should at two overlapping circles. One circle is me, the other is "the least take the test so he'll get his $60 and I will perhaps redeem world of work," and the overlapping area is "the ideal position for the hour already spent with him. There are 200 questions on the you." "What you need is confidence," Kimberly is saying. "You WEPSS test, each in the form of a word or phrase which I am to have to see the glass as half-full, not half-empty." I draw the rate from
A
to
E
in terms of its applicability to me; for example: overlapping circles as she speaks, then redraw them so that they are
dry, pleasure seeking, strength, peacemaker,
and
vengeful.
I sit down almost entirely overlapping, thus vastly expanding my employment at the dining room table with the intention of zipping through prospects.