I have a fairly simple question for you - what is the experience of working with you?  I feel it is a fairly fundamental one for people who are looking for work.  Another way of phrasing it is, what would a potential company experience if they were to employ you?  As I say, it’s not something that people pay enough attention to.  It also cuts both ways – what would your experience be working at company x?

Quite often the major problem with people looking for work is that they don’t know how to market themselves. They are more than competent enough to do a role, but the way they present themselves to potential employers doesn’t make the most of their abilities.  One of the main reasons is that they talk about things which simply aren’t that relevant to the job they are going for now.  The “So What?” question should always be asked when talking about  something on your CV or when mentioning your capabilities to an employer.  Why should they care?  What has what you have achieved in previous roles got to do with what they are looking for?  That should be the first step in appraising how to contact a company to look for any opportunities.  See if what you have to offer is a good match for what they are looking for, and if it is, make sure you get that across to them.  But one way of making yourself stand out is to get them to see the person behind the achievements.

So it’s not just a case of what you have achieved.  It’s also about how you achieved it.  What is your personal style?  Your potential employers are going to be employing a person, not a robot.  So give them an indication of what your personal way of going about things.  Have you got a calm, understated style that brings out the best in people below you.  Are you more extravert and action orientated and like to be very much in control.  When you think about bosses you’ve worked for, whether you have got on with them or not has not just been down to the results they have got.  It has also been about their style in managing you.

A useful anacronym for describing the experience of working with you is STAR.  This stands for:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

What was the general situation at work, and the particular task in hand that needed sorting?  What action did you specifically take?  Not the action taken by the team as a whole, or other department members.  But what action did you personally take?  And  as mentioned above, this includes your personal way of doing things.   Then the final part is what results were achieved as a result of the actions you took.

So, remember, when  you are contacting firms to look for work....you’re a human being, not a robot!

I’ve sensed over the years that if someone’s stint in a job doesn’t work out, then it’s assumed that that person was a bit of a failure.  They couldn’t cut the mustard, so good riddance.  And this sense of a person being a ‘failure’ seems to have amplified in recent times.  Perhaps it’s the tough job market, where it feels like survival of the fittest, but people can have judgements formed about them very quickly.  But how much is someone’s apparent failure to do with their work environment, rather than any supposed lack of ability?  Were they simply a square peg in a round hole?

I wonder just how many workplaces really consider their employees personalities and whether they are a good fit they are for the work environment.  You can have two very similar jobs, but they can be set in very different workplaces.  I always ask people to consider the culture of workplaces when they are looking for a job. Which ones feel like the kind of place that they would get along in?  It’s not something that clients often really consider that much.  But I do think it can be an extremely important consideration in how well someone performs.

I’ve felt for a while now that workplaces can tend to favour extravert qualities.  Companies like people who are good mixers, who will not only do a good job but will be seen to do a good job.  There is no I in team, and we want team players who will work well with others.  But what if you’re actually very capable at your job, but you just don’t your company’s style of working?  How often do companies consider that the employee who’s not getting great results at the moment might actually be very capable but things aren’t set up very well for them?  If they work best without loads of interruptions and like to work along, then does it make sense to have them bang in the middle of a noisy office where they’re surrounded by loud people?

You get a lot of work reviews looking at people’s performance.    But how many of those reviews assume that if someone isn’t performing then it’s their fault?  Particularly if they seem to be out of sync with their workplace environment or culture?  This issue struck me when I heard about Albert Einstein’s school days.  Believe it or not, but one of our most foremost intellectuals of recent times was not always considered a genius.  When he first went to school apparently he struggled.  But this was not down to a lack of intelligence. It was due his school environment tending to favour extraverts, and being introverted, his talents weren’t readily recognised.  Once he moved countries and went to a different school which his personality was much more suited to, he was able to shine.  Admittedly he was young at the time, but if someone as exceptional as Einstein can be affected by his environment then what are the chances that more ‘ordinary’ talents will similarly suffer.

People have unique personalities and aren’t robots.  Expecting them to adapt to rigid systems of work and behave in uniform ways may not be making the most of their talents.  As my title suggests, it’s worth considering which environments would allow you to flourish.  It could be the difference between success and failure.

Last week Laura Dekker, at the tender age of 16, became the youngest person on record to sail around the world single-handedly.  A quite astonishing achievement.  One thing that caught my eye in an article in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/23/laura-dekker-sailing-heroine-times?newsfeed=true), was the mention of “Reading the blog Dekker kept during her voyage, it is clear that she values solitude and a proximity to nature.”

It struck me that Laura was most probably quite introverted, as loving solitude is the attitude of an introvert rather than an extrovert.  And it got me thinking how much more difficult it would have been for an extrovert to cope with the long periods of isolation, compared to an introvert.

Introverts get their energy from their internal world of thoughts, ideas and feelings.  They need time alone to recharge their batteries and spending too long in too stimulating an environment can lead to them getting over tired.  Whereas an extrovert gets their energy from things external to them.  So they get energised by going out and being around other people and doing things in the outside world.  So for a challenge like Laura Dekker’s, would dealing with the isolation have made it harder mentally for an extrovert than an introvert?  If they didn’t have other people to engage with, how would they cope with such a solitary challenge?

I sometimes find that the workplace environment is something that people don’t ask too many questions about when looking for a new job.  It’s almost as if you have to accept what you’re given and that’s that.  But I do think it’s an important consideration when taking on a new job.  What environment(s) would be ideal for you?  And what would be an absolute no-no?  I think this can particularly be a problem for introverts.  A lot of workplaces tend to be extrovert dominated, or favour more extrovert qualities.  In a busy, noisy open plan office, how would someone like Laura fit in?  Would she struggle to adapt?  Would prolonged periods in such an environment be overly stimulating for her?

It’s an interesting question, because I feel that introvert qualities can appear to be a bit weaker, than their more ‘sturdy’ extrovert qualities.  Most jobs look for the more extroverted, ‘doing’ qualities that emphasise taking action.  The more thoughtful, introspective qualities rarely get a mention.  But if Laura is an introvert, and she was in her ideal ‘work’ environment, then it goes to show just what people can achieve when they are left to do what they do best, in the right surroundings.  She clearly was able to cope with the tough, physical demands of her voyage.  And to do it all on her own is remarkable.  So perhaps an introvert, who doesn’t like the constant stimulation of a noisy work environment, doesn’t necessarily lack the mettle to do a tough job.  Introverts can see a tough assignment through to its completion.

So when you’re looking at a new job or career, I would always recommend you think carefully about what is acceptable environment wise, and what would be a deal breaker.  Sometimes it’s not the case that you weren’t good enough to do the work, but simply you weren’t placed in the right surroundings to do the job properly.  I’ll leave the last words to Laura, who spoke of her trip – “mostly I simply enjoy the endless silky blue ocean and the quiet peace that it brings.”