Selling Yourself in a Tight Job Market

Yahoo’s Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task interviewed Harvard lecturer and PhD Paul Stoltz and co-author James Reed to find out that employers are most interested in candidates who have a certain mindset — regardless of skill set.

The authors of this study “define and quantify” what mindset means to employers. They call their findings the “3G Mindset”. It consists of the top three qualities that employers consider most important: global, good and grit.

Here’s what each “G” means:

Global: This is the big picture perspective. It is your ability to lift your eyes out of the weeds, look at the world and understand the ripple effect of your actions.

Good: This is the sensitivity to people and awareness of and the inkling to do good for others around you.

Grit: This is the intestinal fortitude, that uncommon tenacity, intensity, resilience in everything that you do.

Not only do nearly all employers want to hire people with a winning 3G mindset, they would trade 7.2 “normal” employees for just one person with the perfect winning mindset, says Stoltz.

So how do you demonstrate that you have these to employers?

Simply take one of these 3Gs and put into action in a way that creates a compelling result, whether it is in a cover letter, resume or during the interview. Here are two examples Stoltz gives:

Example (good and grit): I fought through several layers of bureaucracy for two years to get a new wellness program implemented in our company.
Example (good and global): I volunteered to mentor new hires before and after work hours and cut first-90-day turnover by 72 percent.

You’re likely wondering by now about how this all translates into salary — especially if employers consider one winning mindset 7 times more valuable than a “normal” employee. Stoltz says people with 3G mindsets not only tend to make more money, but they become simply invaluable to employers, which is critical if the time comes for layoffs.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Image source: SOCIALisBETTER’s flickr

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