VIEWPOINTS : Getting Hired: It’s a Family Affair : The Boss Is Often Seeking a Daughter or Son Who Fits In
Looking for a new job these days? When you get it, you’ll get something else: a new parent.
In fact, you probably won’t be hired unless you fit your boss’s image of a son or daughter.
I know, I know. Just like all of us at one time, you thought you were going to make it on your education, experience, talent, hard work and, well, maybe even your connections. All those things help, of course. You’re not likely to be invited for a job interview unless your resume indicates that you have the right stuff--credentials, education, connections, etc.
But people with only the right stuff don’t get the jobs, because it isn’t enough. Let’s say five candidates are competing for one job. They all have the same level education and experience, with fine track records in their previous companies. How will the boss decide which to hire?
Personality will make the difference. Bosses hire people they feel comfortable with. Bosses hire people who “fit in”--and that means fit into the office family. (Why do you think they like to brag: “We’re just one big happy family around here”?)
And the office is a family. The boss acts as the father or mother of the subordinates. They, in turn, are the brothers and sisters of the office family, playing various roles--favorite sons and favorite daughters, outcasts, good children, bad children, spoiled brats, even crybabies, when sibling rivalries get out of hand.
“Like hires like.” That’s an old saw among headhunters, out-placement counselors and others who study corporate culture. It makes sense. We are all more comfortable around people who look like us, act like us, share our histories, enjoy the same pleasures. Boating nuts hire other boating nuts. Irish hire Irish. Ivy League hires Ivy League.
Look around your own office. Chances are, most of the top men look alike: nearly the same height, same body build, wearing shirts with similar colors, stripes, collars, cuffs. The classic example of this “cloning,” as some management professionals call it, is still IBM, where the men look the same from California to New York.
It’s a piece of cake to interview for a job with a tall, Irish, big-university male boss if that description fits you, too. But what if you’re not? Suppose you’re short, community college and, besides all that, a woman or a member of a minority group?
Try to find something in common. It may take time, but eventually, you usually can. Sometimes it’s a geographic connection (I was born in the South and I’m always amazed at the conversational bonds I can forge with that), or a hobby (archeology has led me into good dialogues about vacations) or sports (tennis and baseball are especially useful). Your father’s occupation, your house, the state of your lawn, even your allergies can help establish small talk and at the same time, significant communication with a would-be boss.
The more you are perceived as being “one of us,” the more likely it is that you will be asked to become one of them. That’s how it works in the real world.
The job interview goes better if you are younger than your boss. The male boss often is looking for a son to replicate him, and if you become his favorite son in the office, you get a rocket boost up the corporate ladder. (You might find a man who wants a favorite daughter, but in my experience, this is rare.)
Woman bosses, especially if they have no children of their own, and sometimes even if they do, are generous in developing mother-daughter and mother-son bonds. Of course, there are fewer women bosses than men, but top dogs of both sexes want to guide and groom a bright, ambitious young puppy on the way up. Becoming the boss’s favorite son or daughter is a heady trip and an enviable position to be in, especially on the first job.
Discover all you can about your boss during the interview. Notice any photos on the desk; inquire about the children, their sex and ages. Listen intently to the boss for clues about what kind of son or daughter is desired in that office. Is the boss pleased and proud about the family at home? Or disappointed and disgruntled, looking for an office son or daughter to fulfill a fantasy and become the “child I never had, child I always wanted”?
If you are the same age or older than the boss who interviews you, the situation becomes much more complex. It’s easy to understand why. Can a young office “father” of 32 feel threatened by a “kid” of 25 fresh out of graduate school? You bet. Even so, he’d rather have the “kid” than an “old man” of 40--that’s like hiring his own dad. The best thing to do is to see if it’s comfortable to play a brother or sister role. Never, ever, come on as an overbearing “I’ve-seen-it-all-and-you-can’t-tell-me-anything” father or mother if you want to get the job.
After landing a job, you’ll find that bosses project their emotional needs onto the people who work for them. Some bosses turn out to be nurturing parents; some become smotherers; some train and develop their subordinates; some destroy them.
It may come to pass, and sooner than you think in this era of mergers and acquisitions, that the boss who hired you jumps ship or is pushed overboard. You and the remaining office family now become “stepchildren” to a new boss--who brings in a new family crew and usually fires a few of those “stepchildren.”
William J. Morin, head of Drake Beam Morin, the nation’s largest out-placement firm, believes that most people are fired because of the “chemical” factor (they can’t get along with their boss) or the “political” factor (they don’t fit the company image or they don’t show enough team spirit). Anyway you slice it, that means they don’t fit into the family, or their office parent’s idea of what the “family” ought to be.
This is especially true when a new boss comes in with a new image of the office family.
And when the firing starts, the most important psychological adjustment people have to make is the realization that they are no longer part of the family unit, but all by themselves looking for a job out there, Morin adds.
Not all “stepchildren” are fired. Frequently, a “stepchild” becomes a valuable member of the new family team, usually in the traditional way; making oneself indispensable to the new boss by providing vital information about the inner workings of the corporation.
It’s not easy being a member of the family at work, but we have no choice. And family life is as complicated at work as it is at home. But understanding the parental role of the boss in hiring and firing may get you to the top much faster as the head of your own office family someday.
