How to Negotiate an Offer with Vicki Bevenour

Habit #1 is Be Proactive. Covey defines proactivity as “more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.” He goes on to say - and I love this - “proactive people carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them.”

Applying habit #1 to your job search:

First, there is the taking initiative part. Of course in your job search you must be proactive reaching out to people to ask for their help in your job search. Be proactive enough to ask twice for the requests that are important to you.

As a job seeker, you also have to be able to tolerate rejection. But if you managed to “carry your own weather with you” throughout your job search, it would hurt less.

Covey also talks about how proactive people handle mistakes. They “acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it”, thus turning a failure into a success. As a job seeker, have you ever made a mistake? Maybe you were in an interview and answered a question in a way that made you wish you could have your words back. After the interview, be proactive enough to do a debrief with yourself to evaluate how you performed in that interview. If you made mistakes, spend some time thinking about exactly how you’ll do it better next time.

Habit #2: Begin with the end in mind.

Covey says “to begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”

Covey further explains this concept by saying that “ all things are created twice”, meaning that there’s a mental or first creation and a physical or second creation to all things.

One way to begin with the end in mind is to create a personal mission statement. So that’s your homework: craft your personal mission statement.

Let’s apply habit #2 of “Begin with the end in mind” to your job search.

First, outline clear enough goals for your career that you know what kind of job you are looking for. You might think that applying for every job is a good strategy because it’s a numbers game and if you can get enough job applications out there, you’ll win the game and get a job. But you won’t. It’s not a numbers game. It’s a matching game. And those are 2 very different games.

Second, apply the habit of beginning with the end in mind to your job search by visualising yourself successfully getting that job. Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to get up in the morning and go to that job. You can also visualize success in an interview.

Habit #3: Put first things first

Put another way, it tells us to organize around our priorities. And Covey weaves these first 3 habits together masterfully by mentioning that “you can’t become principle-centered without first being aware of and developing your own proactive nature (habit #1). You can’t become principle-centered without a vision of and a focus on the unique contribution that is yours to make.”

Covey says “if we don’t practice habit 2 (begin with the end in mind), if we don’t have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we deserve in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent.” Amen to that.

Planning can be hard to make time to do, because it’s not urgent. It’s one of those important but not urgent activities that you will have to be deliberate about carving out the time to make happen. Here’s the payoff: Covey says “I believe if you were to ask what lies in Quadrant 2 (those are the important but not urgent activities in the time management matrix) and cultivate your proactivity to go after it...your effectiveness would increase dramatically.

Let’s relate habit 3 to your job search.

If you’re applying the 7 habits to your job search, you will have a clear goal in mind of the job you want to get and you will prioritize your job search activities so you’ll remain focused on doing the important stuff.

Planning your days and weeks can help you with the discipline to stick with the important activities and put first things first. Covey recommends setting weekly goals that are in line with the longer-term goals you laid out in your personal mission statement.

Take time today to organize your next week. Write down your goals for the week and then build an action plan around them. Let that guide you to spend your job search time on high-value activities like connecting with people and having conversations that will help you uncover opportunities that you can get referrals for. Try it for a week and see if this makes a difference. I bet it will.

Habit #4 is think wi...