Surviving a Crock Pot Job Search When You Have a Microwave Personality

The Crock-Pot (AKA "slow cooker") remains one of humankind's most interesting inventions. Take a pile of ingredients throw them together at 730am and come home at 6pm to a feast. I'm convinced there is some sort of voodoo that goes on in these things. Why does nothing require mixing? How can you honestly bake chicken at somewhere around human body temperature? How can one machine make the perfect pot roast AND the next day be the repository of delicious spinach artichoke dip.

The crock-pot is on my mind as I job search. When did the pace of hiring slow down soooooo....much? Phone interviews...first round interviews...second round interviews...a final phone call with your potential supervisor's supervisor's second cousin. Then if you're lucky, a background and reference check. Finally comes negotiations. And after all that, you have a delicious stew!! (Not really, hopefully you have a job that matches your passions).

With my chosen end date to my current job approaching (or as I'm now calling it "my transition to emeritus status"), I'm getting fidgety. I'm aching for the process that matches my personality. I want to microwave my job search.

Now my chances of being able to convince any organization to undo their hiring processes for me are slim and none. So I think it's a good time to take stock and think about what my microwave personality can do to stay sane in a crock pot world for the next couple months.

Understand Your Spheres of Influence: There's the things you can control, the things you can influence, and the things you can neither control nor influence. Job searching is very much in the "influence" category. You've sent in a resume, and you've used your network. You have to respect the process that an organization has laid out. Don't spin in circles wasting energy (energy that should be spent sending out resumes to OTHER opportunities).

Figure Out Who Is Managing the Recruiting Process (But Don't Call Every Day): It's not always obvious who is managing a process. Find out who is. That person can help keep you aware of what is going on. Get a clear timeline from them and if things start drifting past that timeline and you have heard nothing. Follow up. I'd also recommend that how you are treated as a candidate reflects how you will be treated as an employee. Use that information to your advantage.

Assume NOTHING: "OMG OMG OMG, I felt really good about the interview but I've heard nothing for 5 days, they must have hired someone else." This is not necessarily true. Take a deep breath. All it takes is one sick day on the hiring squad for everything to get pushed back a few days.

Keep Moving Your Search Forward: I would suggest you never stop applying for jobs until you have a new job. Two things happen if you do this: (1) You put an awful lot of capital on one or two opportunities and (2) You could end up increasing the crock-pot effect, just taking an extra 5 days to apply for something can delay this whole process by a couple of weeks.

Now, this is not an exhaustive list. I think the key to all of it is trusting that no one in HR and Company X is twisting their movie bad guy mustache moving slow on purpose. The reality is that the investment any organization makes in a new hire is substantial. Add up the potential salary and the time spent on-boarding someone in your head. Now think about being charge of deciding where you will invest those resources. It's fair that a company wants to be right with their hires.

Yes, I do wish that more job searches resembled papal elections. Pope Francis was elected in about 18 hours and he has to lead a 1 billion member church. Alas, maybe there is some comfort in knowing that when you put a meal in a slow cooker, the flavors come out better than in a microwave. Not to mention you have enough to eat for days.