I’ve been helped a lot – definitely more than I really deserve. I’ve done my best over the years to pay it forward and help people where possible. This has been in the form of advice, resume reviews, connecting people, helping with job searches and the like. The small things are always easy e.g. making a quick email connection but the bigger things like helping someone improve their resume or improve an application to university or graduate school take a lot of investment.
I have learnt a couple of things over the years –
– More people say they want to learn and grow than they really do. Learning is one of those things that receives a lot of lip service. Very few truly care and make the effort..
– Very few are truly willing to help themselves/work hard for it. They are often reaching out in desperation looking for a silver bullet. And you know what they say about silver bullets..
Since I feel taken advantage of every time I help someone who either doesn’t care about learning or isn’t truly looking to help himself/herself, I work to figure this out early. While there are a few signs, my limited experience has shown me that the best approach is to give them some home work to test their intent. This home work could be absolutely anything – e.g. you want help with your job search? Go read “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” and share your learnings with me or go redo your resume based on this format and we’ll get started with the finer edits.
This acts as a natural filter since the ones who get back are the ones who I truly want to help. That’s not to say everyone else is beyond help – maybe they found someone else whose way of helping suited them more. That’s great too. I wish them the best. I’m just working to make sure I walk out of the experience with a smile.
So, if you’ve ever found yourself in a similar position where you felt like you put in a lot of effort to help someone only to feel it was wasted, don’t question the act of caring and helping out. Just make sure you work with people who would appreciate the sort of effort you would put in and use it to get better. The simplest way to test that is to give them something to do.
A Learning a Day 