An Optimist Goes Job Seeking

By Lisa Sansom

Helping your clients find work can be as simple (or as complicated) as protecting them from themselves

Looking for a job can be one of the most difficult things that happens in a person’s life. Taking rejection in any shape or form can be hard, but when you feel that it’s your entire self and work history that’s being rejected, it can be devastating. The psychological impacts of unemployment can range from social isolation to depression, as well as health and family problems. However, we know that employers are looking for candidates who are upbeat, likeable and positive with a “can do” attitude, not to mention the skills that are required. Coming across as sad and dejected in a job interview doesn’t allow the clients to present their best. What can you do? It’s time to learn some optimistic explanatory skills.

Dr Martin Seligman, current professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was studying a phenomenon in the 1960s and 1970s which he would come to name “learned helplessness.” Essentially, when some people are put into a terrible inescapable situation (like being exposed to loud noises in a locked room), and then are put into a situation which is escapable (like loud noises in an unlocked room), they do not try to change their situation. The first situation taught them how to be helpless in the second situation.

Now, you may think, “I’d just get up to try the door again in the second room!” and you would be right. However, we all likely have areas of our lives where we have essentially learned to be helpless. Think about the people you know who say things like “I’m just horrible with technology” or “I just don’t understand cars.” Assertions like these stem from previous bad encounters – sometimes just once – with a difficult situation where the individual feels that he/she failed, and now there is no point in trying again.

When your clients go to job interview after job interview, and receive rejection after rejection, they may beat themselves up over those “failed” interviews. How they think about the interview, and about themselves, may hold the key to their explanatory style.

For example, let’s say that your client just received a phone call that he was not successful in his job interview. The next day, you ask him, what happened to that job? “I didn’t get it,” he says. “I’m not good in interviews. I tripped over my tongue so many times. I’m just no good at these things.”

When Seligman was studying his human subjects, he discovered that some of them didn’t actually succumb to learned helplessness – when they were put into a new situation, they kept trying new tactics. They seemed to persevere longer and succeed more often. Seligman was intrigued by these positive deviants and set out to learn about them – if he could figure out what made them successful, maybe he could teach it to others? As it turns out, he was right.

Those who kept trying in new situations were using a cognitive style that Seligman would come to term “optimistic explanatory style.” It’s how you explain things that have happened to you. Seligman eventually distilled this down to three different factors:

• Permanence
• Pervasiveness
• Personalization

Here’s what each one means.

Permanence

People who give up easily believe that the causes of their perceived failure are permanent. For example, your client who felt that he was bad at interviews, let’s call him Joe Pessimist, has created a rather permanent explanation of why that one interview did not go well. A more temporary, or non-permanent, explanation might be that he was having a bad day, or that he didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Optimists, given a bad situation, adopt a more temporary explanation. Next time, the optimist believes, it will be different and better.

Pervasiveness

Joe Pessimist might believe that not only is he bad at interviews, but he’s bad at networking and bad at meeting new people and bad at making small talk. He may feel that he will never ever get a good job. One bad incident somehow spills over to another. This is what is meant by “pervasiveness.” Pessimists think that one poor performance means that other areas of their life will be affected as well. You may know this as “catastrophizing” – the small problem gets bigger and worse with every thought. Optimists realize that one bad incident is just one bad incident – nothing more, nothing less. It was just one bad interview. Next time, the optimist believes, it will be different and better.

Personalization

In the interview case, Joe Pessimist believes that he didn’t get the job because he did poorly in the interview and it was all about him. He may even believe that there is something flawed about him that means he doesn’t do well in interviews. However, there are many other factors that might have contributed to Joe not getting that particular job, and those factors are actually external to him. There could have been a better candidate. It could be that the interviewers didn’t listen very well to his answers. Optimists realize that it isn’t always all about them. Next time, the situation will be different and better.

So what if your client is like Joe Pessimist and views negative situations as permanent, pervasive and personal? The good news, as Seligman discovered, is that you can change your explanatory style. By adopting the ABCDE approach, Joe Pessimist can actually change his thinking patterns and lift his spirits so that his next interview will also be different and better.

The A stands for the Activating event. This is the thing that happened – the mere facts of the situation. If we keep working with Joe’s case, he got a phone call informing him that he did not get the job. We aren’t analyzing the situation – it’s just what happened.

The B stands for the Beliefs. What does Joe believe to be true in that situation? He believes it to be true that he’s no good at interviews. He believes that he said all the wrong things. He believes that the reason he didn’t get the job is all his fault.

The C is the Consequences of those Beliefs – what does Joe say and do, and how does he feel, because of those Beliefs? The chances are that Joe feels very down on himself. He feels sad, demoralized and upset with low self-esteem. He does not feel very confident about his future chances.

At this point, most people want to just paste on a sunny smile and get on with life. However, that can feel very inauthentic, and for a good reason – those negative Beliefs are still lingering. This is also why your pep talk and cheerleading will be largely ineffective at this time. We need to move on to the D.

The D is your cue to Dispute your Beliefs. You can do so with these four questions:

• What evidence do you have?
• What are some alternatives?
• What are the implications, even if your Belief is correct?
• What is the usefulness of holding onto that Belief?

Here is where you can add a lot of value – walking your client through the ABC process, and then asking these four D questions above can help your client come to some new realizations.

Joe may realize that he has no evidence for this Belief – although he can get some. He can certainly go back to the interview panel and ask them for feedback. In the meantime, Joe may come up with other explanations as to why he did not get the job – reasons that are external to him. Furthermore, let’s imagine that the interview panel does get back to Joe with feedback and his worst fears are realized – he did mess up the interview; so what then? With your help, Joe can choose to act in a positive, forward-looking way by practicing his interview skills, taking a course and preparing better for future interviews. Finally, Joe may realize that there is no point holding onto his Belief that he is simply bad at interviews. He can use this as a valuable learning experience and move on with the final letter, E – more positive Energization. There is now a positive forward-looking action plan to move ahead constructively.

That positive and uplifting energy is what your clients need to navigate their job search. Using the optimistic explanatory style and the ABCDE approach, they will present themselves better in interviews, and they are more likely to experience success through their hard work and positive growth.

Lisa Sansom is an organizational development consultant and leadership coach in Kingston, ON. She graduated from the Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 and applies this approach to her speaking, training, consulting and coaching work.