So far today I have spoken to 6 people who when asked what sort of work they were looking for have answered me with the immortal words “oh anything really”. Oh how these words cause havoc with my blood pressure. No matter how talented, adaptable and intelligent you are you CANT do ANYTHING.
Anything…..now if there’s a word that incites particular annoyance it’s that one. It’s one of those words which demonstrates a complete indifference and an almost airy wave of the hand;
1) To your husband/wife – “What do you want for dinner?” Oh anything. WRONG. This is the most unhelpful answer in existence and nothing stirs the desire to punch someone in the throat more.
You’re allergic to peanuts, you have a gluten intolerance, you always have a craving for a curry on a Thursday night, you hate spinach with a vengeance, the sight of a sheep’s liver swimming in gravy makes you want to heave. So not ANYTHING then.
2) Your hairdresser asks you what hair style you would like whilst you lounge in the chair – oh anything. WRONG
Despite having major man love for David Beckham the thought of corn rows or a Mohawk possibly aren’t quite as in favour as your trusty number 2, especially when you have a meeting with the CEO tomorrow.
So why do we insist on saying ANYTHING? It implies compliance but actually says NOTHING. Very rarely do we actually mean ‘anything’.
So what is my point? Well, daily people walk into my agency, we do the niceties of name, how can we help etc etc and then when asked what their work experience is I get rewarded with the “Anything answer”. WRONG WRONG WRONG!
I’m a patient kind of girl but telling me you can do anything is on par with telling me you have a passion for slug breeding. You cannot fly a plane, you are not a chartered accountant, you don’t have a masters in economics, you aren’t a qualified surveyor, have you been a PA for 5 years…. you get my point. Tell me what you CAN do. What you think you can do and what you have experience in are completely different things. Yes ok sometimes we do have vacancies for jobs that require no experience but never do these jobs also come with the salaries we want. The people I’m dealing with that give me the anything answer have no experience in the roles they think they can do but still want a 30k + base salary and then get annoyed with me when I tell them they are not suitable. There is a deep rooted idea that making yourself open to ‘anything’ makes you appear flexible and a good all-rounder – it doesn’t, it makes you seem like you have no fixed experience in anything. If you have 15 years in retail then say that, if you have only ever done telesales and you only want to do telesales then say that too. I can’t help you if you tell me you do ‘anything’. You can adapt certain skills you have in one industry and perhaps transfer them to another industry but there are still things you will not know how to do. We are not programmed to be able to do everything and anything. We can learn, we can practice, we can get better even but we can’t do ANYTHING.
Now this may upset some people, some people may think they can in fact do anything but the harsh reality is most employers will not just take a whimsical chance on someone with no experience in a field just on the belief that someone knows they can do it. I don’t want someone who has never done surgery amputating my leg just because they’ve been a butcher for 2 months and it’s a similar principle. All I’m saying is consider the idea that the more specific you are the easier your job search will be. There are times that people want to break away from industries and branch out completely but be honest with yourself how easy is that? I had dreams of becoming a midwife, I class myself of average intelligence but possessing a lot of common sense but I still wouldn’t say I could just deliver a baby.
There is the other way to look at it I suppose that anything is being used to suggest your willingness to do any manner of job available – this also is rarely the truth. One man came in to the office and said he was desperate for work over Christmas and would do ‘anything’. Oh goodie. He had no experience in any of the roles we had on and when told we had some temporary work litter picking for a month he laughed at me. Clearly not anything then. When someone says ‘anything’ it rarely ever means that. So jobseekers of the world drop the word anything and tell us SOMETHING. Recognise your skills, put value on the experience you do have and I promise your search will be much smoother.
The post Don’t say you can do ‘Anything’ – You cant! appeared first on Orchard Recruitment.