In sports there’s a phrase: “Second Place is the first loser”. Although harsh, this is the reality – there can be only one winner. Vince Lombardi’s most famous quote is “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing“. Coach Lombardi won 5 professional football championships in 10 years and 75% of the professional games he coached. Think about that for a minute. Vince Lombardi coached teams to win a professional football championship 5 out of 10 times. Winning isn’t everything. Its the only thing.
In this PC world we give kids a “participation trophy”, and grade on a curve with plenty of extra credit opportunities so there’s “no child left behind”. Where has that gotten us? We put up with marginal service in retail stores, deal with barely intelligible customer service reps from Bangladore when we have a problem with our cable bill, and stand by as our politicians mortgage the future of our country because some businesses are “too big to fail”.
Second place sucks. If you don’t have enough competitive fire to feel that way you may be in for a long job search. Let me say this again. SECOND PLACE SUCKS! It doesn’t pay your mortgage. It doesn’t change your situation. GMAC isn’t going to accept “I came in second place for a job last week” when they want to know where your car payment is.
However, if you’ve been coming in second place you should have hope. The closest Indianapolis 500 margin of victory was .043 seconds. Al Unser Jr & Scott Goodyear drove their cars 500 miles, at speeds up to 225 miles per hour, and the margin of victory was less than a blink. Second place DOES mean you’re generally beating out a dozen other candidates and the winner may have been selected by a hair.
Second place finishers – diagnose what’s causing you to finish behind the winner. That means you need feedback. Today I had a situation where the second place candidate lost out because the winner put together a document outlining his strategy should he be offered the job. That document was distributed to the various stakeholders by the hiring manager and it got him the job. My 2nd place finisher now has another weapon in his job search arsenal – the “hire me and this is where I see us going” document.
I know getting feedback from organizations is like pulling teeth from an angry gorilla, but it is possible. The secret to getting more consistent feedback is not to wait to ask until you’ve been told you’re 2nd place at the end of the hiring process. It starts with developing rapport with everyone you meet within the organization. If you’ve been coming in 2nd place you probably already have a good handle on how to do this. A strong relationship with individuals in HR and the hiring group will allow you to set a simple expectation – if you select someone else I would appreciate honest feedback on why that decision was made.
Try something like this at some point in the interviewing process:
“This is a great company and opportunity, and I know that should you select me I will be very excited to be a part of the team and would immediately bring something to the table, but if you do end up selecting someone else I would greatly appreciate an opportunity to speak with you about where we missed. Would that be acceptable?”.
It may be counter-intuitive to suggest they’re not going to hire you during the process. And if you don’t find a way to ask this question, in a manner that you’re comfortable asking, it could hurt you. But if you want to get more than a letter saying “thank you for your time” its an expectation you want to set. If you don’t select me I want to know why. Maybe they hired someone from a competitor. Maybe they found someone that had contacts in their client base. Maybe someone put together a strategy document. Maybe the job was de-funded and there was NO winner. Simple closure goes a long way.
2nd place finishers also need to ask themselves two questions:
Are there other jobs that would be a better match? (You might even want to ask THEM that question).
What if 1st place washes out in 90 days?
Just because they said no doesn’t mean you should terminate the relationship. Stay connected to the company and the people you met. Follow the company on LinkedIn. Set up a Google alert. Schedule regular calls / emails to EVERYONE that you touched during your job search. You don’t need to STALK people – weekly contact is not necessary – but reach out every month or so. Maybe one month you email the HR person, the next month the director. Find an interesting article that you want to share. Congratulate them on an award or piece of business you saw they won. Don’t tell them “I’m still on the market”. Just reach out with a cordial hello and a piece of information that you thought they could use.
If 1st place washes out you just spared them the headache of going through the hiring process cold if you’re still fresh in their minds. I came in 2nd place for my current job the first time I interviewed for it. 180 days later I was the winner and ten years later I’m still here.
There’s another very good Lombardi quote to remember.
It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.
Vince didn’t win all the time, but he kept losing in perspective. Have faith that you won’t always be 2nd place and have the discipline to make up those 4 100ths of a second.