Goal: To give you needed practice in summarizing your experiences as they are directly related to your aims and strongest assets, and within one cohesive framework.

And: To look at your 'ancient history' (your past) with one last fond glance, in order

to extract from it the values, insights and current abilities which you wish to represent now and in the future.

And: To prepare you for interviews which may ask you for a 'thumbnail sketch' of your background.

Goal: To aid you in drawing up a 'Personal Proposal' of what you can do for the organization to which you are going, rather than a Resume of what you did for the organizations from which you are coming.

Goal: To aid you in drafting some- thing which faintly resembles a 'resume' in

case you want the discipline of preparing such, and/or feel the need for such a document at any time.

Goal: To show you how all the tools you have accumulated now, can be of aid to you in the actual conducting of your active job search.

Goal: To learn how to deal with snags, delays, and other unforeseen problems in the job search.

Goal: To tap into the invisible communications system that each of us Possesses by virtue of Being human and having friends, or acquaintances.

Now, to Supplement your Specific Immediate Objective, we ask you to write a functional (not chronological) summary of your back- ground, on one page only. By "your back- ground" we mean any and all activities and pursuits, whether or not they were part of your job. Consider yourself as a whole person.

By "functional" we mean your whole life restated on the basis of your major skill areas and your strongest life interests-rather than on chronology.

By "summary" we mean a very brief paper, stressing those personal accomplishments which most strongly support your new goals and objectives; a clear, coherent, cohesive synopsis of those past experiences which you now view as significant because of their relationship to your planned future.

26. Where You are GoingIn drawing up your basic working tools for this whole process, you may want to prepare a one page document (two at the most) that superficially resembles what most people call "a resume".

The defect of most "resumes" is twofold. What they are; and how they are used. Most are drab recitals of irrelevant personal trivia and dull ancient history-which the reader is left to sort out for him/herself. Most resumes "short-circuit" the whole internalized self-esteem process, which we have so carefully worked through, in this course thus far.

Moreover, when done, it is used in a mass distribution job-seeking fashion, by people intent on avoiding the more difficult but infinitely more effective targeting process, described in this course.

In your case, of course, by committing yourself to the whole clustering process, and targeting, you are automatically going to keep this piece of paper from those twin defects. We call this "A Statement of Where You Are Going" instead of a Resume, because a resume looks backward, while this Statement looks forward. As a piece of paper it is a useful exercise for your own intellectual discipline. But it cannot be your job-hunting strategy. Your strategy is You. This piece of p4per is only useful in those rare instances where you cannot walk into a room at some particular time Yourself, and it fits your purposes to have some representation of Yourself present.

The mechanics of assembling this "Statement of Where You Are Going" are to be found in Appendix P, at the back of this manual.

Now that you have your Personal Operations Plan laid out, and all of the basic working tools you might possibly need (Contacts lists, Targeting files, your Functional Summary, and a Statement of Where You Are Going) your active job search (campaign) consists in logically following that Plan out carefully to its end.

Some of you will discover that it moves like clockwork. You will follow the Targeting procedures, according to the Time Table in your Personal Operations Plan, and will succeed in identifying the Ultimate Organizational Targets that interest you and the

People within them who are Your Ultimate Individual Targets, just like clockwork.

Others of you will discover that it does not, for You, move so swiftly. You must be prepared for this eventuality. The process sometimes takes longer than a student at first expects. Be prepared for this; let your morale and self-confidence be unflagging.

Let us list the snags that can develop, and temporarily upset your Timetable:

1. Not being able to find enough Ultimate Organizational Targets that interest you.

2. Not being able to identify the Ultimate Individual Targets within the U.O.Ts that you have discovered.

3. Being able to identify your U.I.Ts but not able to uncover enough information about them, or the problems their organization is dealing with, to know whether or not your skills can help with those problems. 4. Being able to get enough information about your U.I.Ts and their problems, but unable to figure out how to get in to see them.

5. Being able to get in to see them, but they seem to be taking forever to decide whether they can use you or not (or whether to

employ you as a consultant, or whether to become your clients, or whatever)-

However thoroughly you follow this whole process, there is always an element of 'luck', 'chance', 'serendipity' or whatever you would like to call it, to Life and to the Job-Hunt as we have repeatedly emphasized throughout this course. You may just have to lie in wait, for that 'serendipity' to swing your way-and though no-one can guarantee it will, it almost always does.

In the meantime, there is a tool in your work- kit that may be able to help you with each and every one of the problems listed above the 'snags' as we called them. The tool is your list of Contacts, that you have developed all during this course. Now is the time to use that list.

Each of the people on that list has a circle (sometimes vast) of friends, associates and acquaintances whom you do not know-but who, together, comprise a kind of network. There is no telling what they in turn know,

and who they know, that may be of interest

to you. Therefore, potentially, your Contacts' Networks can overcome every one of the snags listed above; viz.,

Error:

Feeling this is repetitious because you have already covered this material in your Talking Papers.

Error: Feeling you have got to have a resume in order to

get in to see people.

Error:

Worrying too much about how this Statement sounds to (modest) You, instead of putting yourself in the shoes of a prospective employer (client, or whatever).

Error:

Taking 'Personally' any delay in this process that happens to you, thinking everyone else is faster.

Error: Feeling that if you just organize things well enough, you can manipulate the whole scene sufficiently so that it has to work for you, just where you say, and just when you say.

Error: Feeling that the only contacts who can help you in a particular geographical area are those who actually live there (forgetting that most of your circle of contacts have their own circles of contacts too, blanketing as much of the country as yours do.)

Goal:

To give you a positive plan of something to do, when you run into delays.

Goal:

To teach you how to get

in to see the people you want to, no matter how senior their position may be in a particular organization.

2. If you have narrowed down your UOTS, but just can't find the name of the person in charge of your particular function, one of your Contacts may know somebody in those U.O.T.s who can give you that information.

3. If you have identified your Ultimate Individual Targets, but can't discover enough about them, again, your Contacts may turn out to actually know him/her-or know someone who does. It's a very small world, and each person is part of a mind-boggling Network of acquaintances these days.

4. Your contacts may be able to secure a personal introduction for you to one of your Ultimate Individual Targets.

5. Your contacts may be able to find out, after an interview you have with some place that fascinates you, how to accelerate the decision-making process that you are waiting on.

Consequently, since you may run into any of these snags at any time, it behooves you to get in touch with 0 your Contacts early in this particular phase of your Active job Search (or Client Search if you are going the 'self-employed' route)-and then cultivate them throughout the process.

Suggestions of what to say to them (or write to them) may be found in Appendix Q, at the back of this manual.

But as your Job/Client Search goes on, the more you run into any of the above snags, the more time you should spend getting in touch with your Contacts, for help with those snags.

Assuming your Personal Operations Plan is followed methodically by you, with the aid of your Contacts, the snags will be gotten over eventually. You will have identified your Ultimate Individual Targets, have learned what common interests you both share, and what problems each one faces that your skills could help solve; this will then bring you face to face with the problems that remain: how do you get in to see him/her? and: what do you say, when you do get in?

As to the first, there are four ways of getting in.

Error:

Failing into despair when you run into delays or dead ends, instead of turning to your Contacts for help.