Malice Aforethought…
If you’ve never heard that phrase, it’s an old legal one. In some statutes, it’s still one of the criteria used to distinguish manslaughter from outright murder.
Yes, this is your bi-weekly job hunter’s blog, and no, I’m not starting a crime novel here.
But I have been reading some, one of which reminded me of that phrase. I like the way it rolls off the tongue…and I really like what it implies. It occurred to me how useful it might be for job seekers
Whoever acted with “malice aforethought” literally spent time in contemplation of some bad thing they were going to do. They thought about it, planned it, and then acted according to said plan.
Malice – evil, bad to another; a particular and emotionally charged goal.
Aforethought – with intention, premeditation before the act is committed.
They didn’t stumble into wrongfulness in the heat of drunken passion, or because they were messing around at the wrong place in the wrong time. No sir, they did what they did with thought and a desire to get a specific result.
What’s this got to do with getting a job?
I took two clients through mock interviews last week. Won’t name them here, certainly don’t want to embarrass them and I’ve already give them some ‘thick skin’ coaching. The problem is that both of them took the interview like it was practice and so they didn’t prepare. They sucked. No harm in that as they are learning. But…
People play like they practice. For job seekers sucking in practice is a mistake, because I know that without thinking, planning and practice, people will also bomb in live interviews. I interview 1-5 people per day regularly, so trust me when I say many of those are not good.
Despite mountains of advice, job seekers LOSE in interviews because they aren’t prepared specifically enough. Oh sure they read up a lot on what you’re supposed to say for certain questions. They look at the job ad. They obsess over how badly they need to succeed.
Certainly people think they are ready, but there is no real malice aforethought.
Aforethought…
My buddy Reg Gupton (a real estate coach in Boulder) was the first one to ever really ask me, “What’s your intention?” And he meant it. I was in a mastermind group with him for years, and when I’d bring an idea to the group, or talk about some marketing thing I was going to do, he’d ask me, “What is your intention?”
That’s the ‘aforethought’ part…the intention to do something. The time I remember him first asking it was when I talked about doing some free classes to get clients. He said, “What’s your intention?” “To get clients,” says I.
“How many? What kind? For what product or service? Through what mechanism? What are you going to say? What will you hand out?”
Silly me. I figured if I showed up, had something intelligent to say, was presentable and convincing, that people would just naturally want to hire me as their coach. It was a turning point in my business! If he hadn’t asked me that question, I’m not sure how far I would have gotten.
After three miserable classes with almost no attendance, with people scurrying for the door at the end, I finally decided I needed the answers to those questions.
- Being good at marketing and recruiting wasn’t enough for me to get clients…
- Being good at what you do won’t be enough for you to get hired…
I needed to develop my intention well enough for it to become small steps I could act toward that would help me move people from leery first-timers to people who trusted me enough to hand me their money.
In an interview, you need to have intermediate goals that you can work toward so you can turn leery first-timers into people who trust you enough to hand you the keys to their business.
You have to earn trust, discover what the real issues are, uncover objections, and reveal (if it’s applicable) why you’re ideally suited for the job. All in a 30-60 minute timeframe. If you’re winging it or focused on the wrong things, you really have no intentions about what you’re trying to produce.
That’s one reason you don’t succeed.
And now for the malice…
I like the word malice…it’s specific and memorable. Emotionally tangy.
The person who intends malice isn’t entertaining some vague hope that someone he doesn’t like will fall down a well. The person who takes on malice sharpens his anger or hurt into a specific weapon, and turns it on someone.
There are no unfocused, internal generalities in someone committed to true malice, only a specific, externally-focused commitment to hurt somebody.
To put it in a nicer context, when an NFL lineman goes into the line of scrimmage for a specific play, he’s not just thinking, “By I hope I block good on this one.” He’s got a very specific plan, for a very specific reason, related to that specific play.
He’s not thinking, “Head up; hands up; push hard now…” He’s thinking about how he needs to blow past the defensive tackle and knock some linebacker’s head off as that poor soul trawls down the line toward the halfback.
He doesn’t go after things half-heartedly – he’s got a focused, emotional goal in his heart.
What is it that you want when you go in to interview?
You say you want a job?
The problem with that desire is that it’s focused on YOU. I know you’re hurting. I know you need work and income. But that internal need HAS to be channeled onto an external target if you’re going to succeed.
Why? Because if your interview answers are really about you, your true motive undercuts everything you say. When you sit across from a hiring manager, if your answers are about you, you’re done. If your answers are targeted toward helping the other person to some specific outcome, you’ll succeed more often.
And if you’re willing to put in enough energy and thought to really get focused and specific about what you can do for them, you’ll win regularly.
If you’re not a client of mine yet, let me offer YOU a “Thick Skin Coaching Moment:”
If you have a skill set that is in high demand, or you have so many interviews you can afford to just stumble around and hope it all works out, then you are excused from this harangue.
The rest of you, listen up:
You’re going to stay unemployed unless you get specific and emotional about what you intend to do for someone else, how you will do it and get committed to interviewing to convince the other person, without the shadow of a doubt, that you are going to do what you say.
The interview is not about you. It’s about them.
When you turn your vague internal anguish into malice aforethought, you’ll succeed.
