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Nothing dies harder than a bad idea, wrote Julia Cameron in her 1992 book The Artist’s Way. Unfortunately, in the world of careers advice and human resources, bad ideas persist in the face of all evidence and reason to a degree that astrologers can only envy.
Four of the most obvious sources of bad advice are: the well-meaning but misguided and misleading; the stupid “keep it simple stupid” brigade; the one-trick pony consultants who flog that pony to any sucker they can; and people like me who reduce complexity to four categories and thus join the keep-it-simple brigade.
The next time you’re given advice at work, ask why you are being given it, and what advice you are not hearing.Credit: iStock
The well-meaning have insufficiently weighed up the risks of their advice, generally because their advice seems so commonsensical as to be obvious. Alternatively, and worse, they do not consider there to be any downside because “it worked for them”. In either case, they have long departed the rocky and tricky shores of evidence-based advice for the Paradise Isles of the Anecdotes.
We are attuned to mimicking the behaviour of those around us that we deem to be successful. Due to this powerful instinct, we are vulnerable to anecdotes and tales of success.
We disregard, at our peril, the circumstances that led to the success, preferring to distil the essence of success into a simple formula that others, including ourselves, can follow. Unfortunately, like off-the-peg clothing, the solution rarely fits perfectly and often requires additional tailoring to make it work; frequently, it never looks quite as good on us.
Just because somebody embedded background music and an animation into their résumé and got the job does not mean gimmicks will work for you, nor does it mean the gimmick got our friend over the line. They may have been hired despite their cheesy ways.
Let’s keep simple things simple, but do not make the error of trying to shoehorn complexity into simple vessels.
Over the past quarter of a century, an increasing number of systematic studies have investigated the content of applications and behaviour in interviews and workplaces that positively influence recruiters.
But people prefer their own experience over the collective experience these studies represent. This perpetuates bad advice.