Every day, I talk to someone who wants something badly. Could be a postdoc looking for his first industry research role, or an applications scientist who feels that her destiny is to become one of the company’s highly paid regional sales managers. This extends up the career ladder, where VP-level candidates for a CEO job I’m recruiting for deliver presentations at what I’d call a fever pitch.

Sometimes, we are not afraid to want something very, very badly. The problem is that, often, it shows.

“If I desire it, I will achieve it” is a common mantra of positive thinkers. After all, the first stage of making something happen in life—and in the microcosm of your career—is to understand exactly what it is that you want. But success is not achieved just by desire; it has to be coupled with a plan, and with another factor that may impact your success: detachment. Detachment is darn tough when your future is riding on whether or not you land the job offer.

In this month’s Managing Your Career, I’ll share with you experiences I’ve had with both desire and detachment. As useful as it can be to want something badly, that same intense emotion can get in the way of achieving it.

Emotional involvement
You’ve identified a goal. You’ve planned out how to get there. Your plan consists of a series of steps you have the ability to complete. You know other people have made the same transition, in much the same way. That’s great, but you still need to have the desire, because achieving it will require hard work and long-term commitment. Some people need to feel a fire inside; others get by on cold self-discipline. But very few people can achieve something difficult without desire.

Desire, though, is like gasoline; it can burn too hot. It’s also a lubricant; it can grease the gears, but if you have too much, things can get too slippery and hard to hold on to. It also doesn’t always show very well.

Those who have been on the other side of the interviewing desk can tell you how being overly committed to your success can negatively affect your chances in the job market. There are some common behaviors that don’t come across well, most of them caused by having too much emotion riding on the results. Here are some examples of mistakes job seekers make when they are fueled by too much desire.

1. Cover letters that include statements with far too much “me” and not enough about the employer and the fit. For example, “I’m looking to move into a top-tier biotechnology organization where I can take on increasing responsibility in my area of interest.” That employer doesn’t give a hoot about your professional goals; they care only about whether and how you help them and whether you’ll fit in with the team and the corporate culture.
2. Networking attempts that are forced and uncomfortable—not, as they should be, friendly discussions on topics of mutual interest. The job seeker may sound desperate. You don’t ever want to sound desperate; it means you’re not in control. Instead, they’ll hire someone who IS in control.
3. In the interview, the person with too much desire is likely to take few chances and be too nervous to answer naturally. They’ll answer questions with prepared responses. Their eye contact may be intense or non-existent, but either way it is uncomfortable. There’s a sixth sense that interviewers—and most other people, for that matter—have for people who are fixated on a positive result. I know they are going to be crushed when they leave my office, and I hate to feel that way. I would much rather have an interesting conversation with an interested party and then go on with my day, knowing that we’ll both be OK. That’s the kind of person I, and my clients, want to work with.

Detach from the outcome
Emotional involvement with my goals has always been a struggle for me, and I’m decades into my career. I know it’s not easy to step back and care less about the results. But this is what I have to do, time and again. It’s what you have to do if you share this characteristic. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care, or that you should pretend not to care. I’m proposing, rather, that you should focus less on whether or not you win in the end. You still have to be sharp; you still should be at your best. That’s why you prepare well. But once you’ve prepared, you need to relax. And you can. You know why?

Because it really doesn’t matter that much. If you’re able to maintain a sense of perspective—something desire can get in the way of—you’ll realize that deep down. Other things like family and friends matter more, and if you work hard and stay true to your values, other opportunities will come along.

Whenever I get excited about something—a new company with a hot technology, or an opportunity to talk to a major employer about a big job we can fill—I start salivating over the opportunity. I want it so badly. I can imagine that’s just how you must feel when a position you’ve been dreaming about opens up, when you know you’re so close to your dream job—or even just a pretty good job.

Still, you need to calm down and back away. Why? There are several reasons but this, I think, is the most important one: Fulfilling your desires is all about you, but what matters more is what you can do for others—for the company, for science, for a cause you care about. When you recognize that, that sixth sense that interviewers have starts to work for you instead of against you. You start to seem real, and useful. You start to seem like a person your interviewer wouldn’t mind spending many hours around, week after week.

Our hiring managers regularly pass over my “perfect” candidate for the less obvious, “person that I like.” In those cases, I find that it is usually someone, while clearly passionate about what they do, who has found a way to channel desire into a different direction.

Let other people’s needs drive you
I’m not suggesting, as you might think, that you give up your professional desires and go work in a soup kitchen; even if you’re determined to make the world a better place, your science is probably a far better way of accomplishing that. Desire is a very useful thing, but, really, it’s not about you.

Many job seekers have found that their desire is better focused on what they can accomplish, working with others, within an organization. Allow that driving force to shift to the person in front of you. You should do it because it’s the right thing to do, but it has practical advantages, too. If you accomplish this, you will differentiate yourself from all those self-interested job seekers, and there are a lot of those—far too many.

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David G. Jensen
Contributing Editor

David G. Jensen is Managing Director of Kincannon & Reed Executive Search (www.krsearch.com), a leading retained search firm in the biosciences. You can reach Dave at (928) 274-2266 or via [email protected].