{"id":41,"date":"2012-03-01T17:17:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T22:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jeanbaur.com\/?p=41"},"modified":"2012-03-01T17:17:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T22:17:45","slug":"how-low-expectations-can-lead-to-great-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/?p=41","title":{"rendered":"How Low Expectations Can Lead to Great Results"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went on an interview recently and gave myself a good talking to–both as I prepared for it and on my way to their office–reminding myself that this was probably more of a networking meeting and not to expect much in the way of results.\u00a0Because I almost always tell my clients to visualize success–to know what they want before an interview–I was in a strange way doing the opposite because my interactions with the company had led me to believe that it wasn’t a match. I had learned about the compensation (way below my most recent level) and that they had an immediate need that would have put me back into the kind of work that I had intentionally left many years ago, that would have also involved a killer commute.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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As I told my friends after:\u00a0 “Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks!” meaning that I was surprised and that the outcome was way more than I had expected. As I thought about it I realized that my “low expectations”\u00a0had helped me be relaxed and probably improved my listening skills as I wasn’t trying to sell anything to the two interviewers. Of course I wanted them to know who I am and what I can do, but that happened in a very natural, easy going way. And I found it wasn’t difficult to let them know which kinds of work would be the best match, and when asked about compensation, I didn’t get specific but simply stated that I was confident we could come to an agreement.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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I did follow my own advice after the interview and wrote down my analysis:\u00a0 “This was a yes-yes. A this is who I am and this is who you are and wouldn’t it be fun to do business together. It felt like mutual admiration.” Of course I wrote my thank-you notes and we established a time frame for next steps. The wonderful thing about this interview experience is that even if it doesn’t lead to an offer, I felt affirmed and valued. A great result!<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went on an interview recently and gave myself a good talking to–both as I prepared for it and on my way to their office–reminding myself...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5,1],"tags":[18,17,35,33,16,34,10],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jean","category-job-search","category-uncategorized","tag-career","tag-employment","tag-expectations","tag-interview","tag-job","tag-networking","tag-unemployed"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2j73q-F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanbaur.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}