The cover photo of the September 2010 issue of Job Postings Magazine

Summary of Where We Are

Recently, friend and colleague Kimberley Rawes and I delivered the first chapter of a two-part series on Your Career as Dating. It was an amazing experience and positive reviews, speaking offers and various other accolades continue to roll in. So, after reading the first part of this two-part series, you have used a fantastic pickup line to get a date (or maybe more) and have been offered an exclusive relationship. So what should you do next?

Exactly.

The First 90 Days

This is the make-or-break period for romantic and professional relationships alike. It’s a lot easier to fake it on a date than it is to fake it in a committed, monogamous relationship. Bad habits are revealed. Personality defects rear their ugly head(s). Idiot friends come out of the woodwork. And your Facebook status updates get you in trouble. Here are some helpful hints that will make the first 90 days at work – or at work in a relationship – go smoothly:

• Secure early wins. While you shouldn’t be making your boss gourmet dinners or planning romantic picnics in romantically secluded romantic places, the non-romantic above-and-beyond mentality of “capturing positive attention” is a must-have for the first 90 Days on the job or in a relationship.
• Don’t assume anything. You’ll make an ass out of yourself. You need to navigate the department or the office and ask a thousand questions.
• Keep your head down. Make it about work. If your buddies are buddies they’ll still be around in 91 days. Come in early. Stay late. Don’t go near the Interweb unless it’s part of your job or evening together. Clean gutters or do the dishes. Basically, go above and beyond and showcase the best version of you (thus implying that it’ll be the you that’s around forever).
• Cross-departmental collaboration. Let’s face it, you are only one part of your partner’s, um, work.  S/he most likely has other “units” of friends and family out there. So, get interdisciplinary and cross-pollinate (not literally, guys) with his/her other stakeholders – discover your team’s pleasure zones. Forming solid relationships with them means creating powerful and influential alliances that will help you in everything from Sunday Night Settlers of Catan games to planning your three year anniversary holiday.
• Never say no. That’s right, you heard us. For 90 days take this word out of your vocabulary (within reason, folks) and take on as many projects, romantic comedies, monster truck pulls, and family dinners as you can. It will set a precedent, sure, but it will also establish credibility that can be used later for, um, negotiations.

But, even if you do all these things spectacularly, the relationship might not be a good fit, and you break up.

Worst of all are the break ups just after the first commitment. There is all of that “relationship” potential. I mean – you thought that person was “the-one” (maybe at least for now). When you accept an offer and then abruptly leave a company before your start date or a few months in, you don’t leave with the most positive impression. While there may be valid reasons for your early departure, do your best to minimize the damage and avoid these situations in the future.

Getting Promoted…for Life

No other single relationship is more important, you need to figure out how to build a productive romantic relationship with your new special someone as well as manage his or her expectations. This means carefully planning for a series of critical conversations about the situation, expectations, style, resources, and your personal – and mutual – development as a couple. Crucially, it means developing and gaining consensus on where your relationship is going.

But luck and opportunity has a lot to do with your promotion, too. According to Fast Company magazine’s Bill Breen, “A promotion’s context, it turns out, is just as important as the job’s content. Some people are promoted because they’re available — an operation is phased out, a job ends prematurely and the company creates another position. Others (perhaps with more talent) also have the skills but can’t make an immediate move.” Breen’s lesson: opportunity plays a critical role in promotions. Just like with dating. I mean, meeting the right person at the wrong time (like when s/he’s married) is just wrong for everyone!

So, execute spectacularly in the first 90 days of your semi-serious, semi-committed relationship, but also keep in mind that, for everything to happen according to plan, you need to realize that no plan will ever work. Most of the time, relationships of every kind are built by chance. Do you feel lucky?

“But Humans Aren’t Monogamous”

This might very well be true – according to the Recent Findings Institute (and Softpedia), just 3 to 5% of the about 5,000 species of mammals form lifelong, monogamous bonds. As hard as many of us try, we are not penguins or swans or other animals that mate for life. In fact, recent findings from Brainstorm Consulting’s From Learning to Work report show that college and university graduates in Canada expect to have between 7-10 different jobs in their lifetime. Other sources show that the majority of post-secondary graduates will have at least 10 jobs by the time they’re 40! But here’s the funny thing: according to Brainstorm, 53% of post-secondary students want to work at one company for their entire life. Even funnier is this line from Brainstorm’s executive summary of the report: “loyalty is not [the students’] problem, but it might be their employers.” Like pirates, new employees today will leave their ship for a better one without hesitation. In fact, the From Learning to Work report found that 40% of students expect to leave their first job in five years or less. And 70% of ’em – while hungry for lifelong professional monogamy – have no idea where to look for that relationship. Just like with dating…

So, even if we’re not hardwired to commit for life, we still do our best to force professionally monogamous relationships upon ourselves. According to Devra G. Kleiman, author of “Monogamy in Mammals“, “an emotional bond is a requirement for monogamy.” Whether it’s a relationship with work or pleasure, it seems that people need to care about it/him/her if they’re to stay forever.

In Conclusion

So there it is. From pick-up lines to lifelong commitment, we’ve explored how finding a job is just like dating your way to finding a husband/wife/life-partner. Or Kimberley and I just screwed up your moral compass and you keep making dinner for your boss and spreadsheets for your wife. If that’s the case, we apologize and hope that this powerful metaphor is eventually gotten by you and job seekers everywhere.

Stay classy job seekers.

– Kimberley Rawes and John Horn