On Interviews...

Interviews last approximately five seconds. The bad ones, that is. Fail the first impression, that vital moment of contact between a door opening and your ass hitting a chair, and you might as well apologize for wasting the interviewer's time, get up and leave. Fortunately, this is not difficult. What people fail to realize is that the process begins before you enter the building. 

No one expects students to be wearing thousand-dollar suits. In fact, even if you happen to be part of the 1% and have access to such things, I'd recommend leaving them at home. What we're going for here is the opposite of entitlement. Standard interviewing uniform consisits of khakis, blue blazer, blue or white shirt, red tie. You, however, are not standard. Wear grey slacks, the darker the better. Go for a shirt with some color, like yellow or pink. Demonstrate that you're willing and able to make yourself impeccable, but without the loss of personality that usually entails. Long hair and beards are ok, as long as they're visibly groomed. Kids are kids, and reasonable adults will usually make allowances.

When you arrive at the building, treat every single person you encounter as if they have the power to hire you. Be polite to the lobby receptionist, the security guard, and for the love of God be nice to the interviewer's assistant. Some companies, these days, place cameras in their reception areas to watch you squirm. So don't. Sing songs in your head, breathe slow and deep, take a seat if offered. You should be wearing a watch, to demonstrate your commitment to punctuality, but don't look at it under any circumstances. Also, as long as you are in the building, your cellphone does not exist. Do not make a call, send a text, or play angry birds while you wait. Doing so makes you look like a petulant child deserving a place at the kiddie table. 

Sad but true: most of my generation (I'm 23) is incapable of conducting a conversation with humans of the non-pixelated variety. The people you meet will have low expectations. And that means an opportunity. When you meet the interviewer, shake hands firmly, smile big, and say what a pleasure it is to meet them (you dont have to mean it). Once you're face to face, the interview has begun, so be careful of what you say. Remind him of who you are, of your career goals and passions and unique qualifications.  Listen well, and respond to what he says. Be detailed. You will, of course, have researched everything about the company beforehand, so mention a recent piece of activity and ask how it serves as an example of the firm as a whole. While he speaks, nod and respond in appropriate places. Ask followup questions. Fun fact: successful people like talking about their successes. Use that. 

At the end of the conversation, ask the questions you've prepared ahead of time. My personal favorite: "What is the biggest challenge someone in this role would face?" When the conversation is over, let it be over. Don't waste anyone's time. Its appropriate to ask when and how they'd like to be in touch. Use the answer to decide when you'll be sending a followup email. Offer your profuse thanks, ask for a business card if they haven't offered one already, and get out. Wish everyone you see a good day. Game over. 

The Real Social Network...

I have a friend who worries constantly over his lack of charm. When he first told me this I looked at him like he'd said his skin turned purple in sunlight. My friend recently became engaged to a woman who looks like a bikini model's younger, hotter sister. He isn't the most gregarious person I know, but is sufficiently respected by his peers that I once saw the host of a frat party shut off music so people could listen to him speak. This is not a man whose social life is in need of assistance. Of course, he wasn't talking about charming classmates. He was talking about networking.

Meeting people is a science, and like all sciences your skill improves with practice and study. First, understand that coldcalling is brutally difficult and rarely if ever works. Anyone in position to hire at a given company sees and dismisses a dozen resumes each day. In that situation you have somewhere between ten and thirty seconds to make yourself memorable, and you won't even be in the room. So don't do it. Stop resume-spamming, and focus on putting a plan into action.

To do this you need a goal. Figure out the job you want before shaking a single hand. Be as specific as possible. Deciding "I want to be in finance" will get you nowhere. Deciding that "I want to be a market analyst focusing on low-risk mutual funds" still might not get you anywhere, but its a start. Why be specific? Because when talking to powerful people the single greatest sin is wasting their time. Prove that you've done the research, that you have a plan for your life and you're going to make it whether they help or not. Alphas like to help other alphas, especially if their only issue is the need for a little guidance. Betas get nothing.

Understand that everyone has connections. The adults in your life have dayjobs (shocker I know). Find out what those are. Your college has a career placement office and (much more importantly) an alumni network.  Identify 2-4 people in your chosen industry, and politely ask for a few minutes of their time. Prepare a template introductory email, and customize it for each attempted connection. Say who you are, what you want to do, and why you've chosen to contact them specifically. The entire thing should be five sentences, tops. Again, be confident. Networking, when you're starting out, is about making yourself into someone that others want to speak with. If you don't believe it, they never will.

Right, I think that covers step 1 adequately. Next up, we discuss the art of the interview…

Announcing a New Series...

I'll admit, I don't want to blog tonight. I'm severely sleep-deprived, and coming off one of the more stressful days I can remember. Turns out being a working stiff ain't all its cracked up to be. But hey, thats the real world. I have a certain lifestyle in mind for myself, now and in the future, and the next few years are about making that vision into reality.

That's been the theme of this entire year, now that I think about it. 21st century job-searching is time consuming. I went to college in connecticut, but drove to Boston eleven times during the spring semester for interviews and introductions. Most of those leads, however promising they looked at the time, went nowehere. I didn't mind, though. Interviewing is a skill like anything else, and real-world practice is the only way to learn. To any college students who happen to read this; take advantage of whatever mock interview program your school offers, but be prepared for the difference. The questions may be the same, but nothing can really duplicate the sickening knowledge that the pencil pusher across the desk holds your career in his hands.

You know, I'm glad I sat down and made myself write this. I've learned so much in the past year, and maybe someone else can benefit from hearing about my experiences. Way too much to cover tonight though. Right, consider this the official announcement of my first series: 21st Century Jobhunt. Unless, of course, I get a full night's sleep and it seems like a bad idea. But that won't happen. Probably. Look for part 1 tomorrow pm. For now, peace out, interwebs.

Jantzen's Journal, 6/26/12

I fear so much. Blades in the night, raging flame, the smell of hot blood splashed on concrete, pain for those I love. Humans say that courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to overcome it. They are close. Courage is the ability to accept fear, weave it into something strong as knotted steel and run the cable through every muscle. This process takes many forms. I have learned to hate that which I fear,  to render it powerless at the edge of a sword. But ours is not the only way.

This morning I went to the target's house and watched as she made breakfast. I sat in the trees, surrounded by singing birds, and stared through binoculars as she suffered patiently. The target came down the stairs as her aunt left and said something in farewell. I couldn't see the words. Wrong angle. But I saw the girl's spine loosen, her fingers tremble, even as the door clicked shut. After that she moved robotically, stiff and hesitant even in her routine. Talking the entire time. Something repeated, a mantra designed to reduce the world into manageable simplicity.

The girl is not my enemy. She isn't capable of harming herself, much less another. She is afraid and in pain. I should go to her, openly, as myself, and tell everything. That her pain comes from outside, from those twists of humanity I will spend my life annihilating. But if I do and the man escapes others will suffer. Bait, my siblings call her. I am a fisher of souls, using and discarding one to hook the sharks. Simple mathematics. Let one die, keep a thousand others alive. Probably she won't even die. But if he owns her for much longer it won't matter.

Her eyes are the color of sunset stormclouds, just after lightning.

Crying Out to the Darkness….

Well, sort of. I have a favor to ask. To anyone who sees my blog, and maybe enjoys something they read here: Could you please share it? +1, post the link, leave a comment, join the site… Whatever you're comfortable doing. I'd love to get into some discussions/exchanges/intellectual fistfights, and any help is immensely appreciated. I'm going to try and blog daily, and generate as much entertainment for all of you as I can. Some of that may be people laughing at me, but that's cool too. We're all friends here. So, please enjoy and share, and thanks in advance.

P.S. I'll have a proper post later this evening, and I think its a good one.

On Ambition….

Most cliches have some basis in fact. Yes, there really are a lot of jews in finance, New Yorkers are crappy drivers, and most people at Chinese takeout places don't speak English (welcome to the randomness of my mind, boys and girls). Basically, someone once observed something, used it in a mockingly funny story, and things spiraled from there. What I want to talk about today is among the oldest and noblest of these azioms, muttered countless times by virtuous young men as they watched the object of their affections depart the bar/frat/highschool dance with some arrogant jerkoff who is no way good enough for her so what the hell, dude? In short, why is it that nice guys finish last?

Actually, thats a dumb question. My revision: why do we think being nice is such a good thing? Don't misunderstand, I make an effort, every day, to be a kind, generous, empathetic member of society. I randomly text my girlfriend to tell her how gorgeous she is, try to make my parents laugh at least once a day, and treat the majority of people I encounter with respect. And I still don't consider myself a nice person.

See, I want to do something big in the world. I want all of it, money and luxury and toys and maybe even fame (although I'm not sold on that yet). The people who find those those things share two vital characterisitcs: arrogance and ambition.

Why arrogance? Simple, really. I carry a vision of myself around in my head. In that version of the world, I'm pretty f-ing awesome. Intellectually, socially, physically awesome. I'm fully aware that reality doesn't match the picture. So I make it my mission, every day, to move a little closer to becoming that man. To be as incredible as I know I deserve to be. Arrogance can make you a preening fool, or it can evolve, become the ironclad knowledge that you have the capacity for greatness.

Ambition… Probably doesn't mean what you think. Yes, I want all those things mentioned above. But more importantly, I want to live a life of consequence. I want to leave the world, whether tomorrow or (preferably) in seventy years, secure in the knowledge that I've done something worth all the sweat and tears. True ambition isn't the ability to dream big, but the perseverance to accept the work of making those dreams solid.

So why do nice guys finish last? Because being nice usually means you are content, that you're satisfied with your life and your place in the world. That you're satisifed with being normal, part of the mediocre invisible middle. So stop. Figure out a plan for your life, then spend the next few decades making it happen. Its a hard road, and long, but the leisure at the end is earned rather than accepted. Look, this is a long post, and most of you are too impatent or bored to read the entire thing. So let's summarize...

Fuck mediocrity

the greatest joke

The tagline under the title of this blog is a bit of a joke. I sleep less than is advisable or probably healthy. Usually this is for stupid reasons, procrastinated work or coiled energy or simply because I'm afraid to miss anything fun. I have nothing against sleep, you see, but I don't regard it as an especially productive use of my time. The joke though, the joke on all of us, is that the nights do end. Even if we summon the energy to keep our eyes raised until sunlight hits our faces, all the daytime restraints of responsibility and maturity come rushing back and the nightime freedom drifts away like smoke through a sieve. The trick, then, is to find something that makes the days worthwhile. That was my mistake for so long, to treat light as something to be endured before the wild trackless infinity returned. Now… I'm not sure. Its too early to be certain, but I think I might've found it. The adrenaline still sings in my blood. But will it always, I wonder. Routine dulls all things. Is there a way to find it forever? Or is that even nessecary? People keep telling me I've matured, grown up. I don't know if I want to, to be content with anything less than that feeling of the first day after finding love. Then again, when its finally real, maybe every day is the first….

Conditioning Research: Zen of the Barbell

Good repost up at Conditioning Research earlier today. Now, normally I think anyone who talks about their philosophy of weightlifting is either a jackass or an idiot, and so not worth the effort of favoring them with your attention. This, though, shows clarity of thought and expression. Yes, the barbell is a tool and nothing more. When applied correctly, that tool can be used to do great things. When used poorly, it is counterproductive and dangerous.

Some people like to anthropomorphize the bar, make training a competition of self against the iron. This is wrong. Success in training is not a measure of excellence, it is a measure of being prepared for excellence. The numbers don't matter. We measure greatness on complex internal scales. I knew a girl once who smiled for a day after completing her first pullup.

The iron does not change. To say it does not care if we finish a lift is still to ascribe it too much motivation. When we say these things we are making excuses, searching for an enemy so that our failures can be put down to the action of powerful external forces. Nothing is ever our fault when we are surrounded by a hostile universe.

Failure is an opportunity. The bar does not change, but we must. Use the iron as a mirror and look back at yourself.

Kensei, 1

Jantzen's diary, 6/23/12

      The Professors say that to protect you must love, and to love you must understand. I can't protect. I can save, defend, slaughter those who try to harm the humans. But I cannot protect, can never be prepared for what they might ask of me as of so many. The life expectancy for our people outside the Univeristy is less than eight years. Lily will probably die before the humans would let her taste alcohol. She's my weakness, of course. The Professors always said so. They said to treat her as an asset, as a soldier. I'm not strong enough to do that. Or perhaps I am too strong. Someday there will be a choice...

Conditioning Research: Inspiration

Conditioning Research: Inspiration

Anyone who sees this, please watch. Ross Enemait is a boxing/s&c coach in Connecticut, and one of the smartest, most honest people in that enitre industry. He's also a physical freak, as you'll see in the first 30 seconds of the vid. Share and enjoy, and lets see if we can bring this guy the kind of attention he deserves.

They say ambition is needless, breeding discontent with the inescapable way of things. They say arrogance is ugly, shown only by those fated for death from overreaching. They say destiny guides us from birth, leading to jobs and homes and illness and the settled-for "one." They are comforting, reasonable, softspoken and polite. They drift along the corners of acceptably intoxicated parties, trailing the grey that is their home.

We are rude, loud, burning brighter and faster each day. We look ever upwards, tunneling behind our eyes.  And we are the future.

Greatness is never rational.

Live big.

I tried to watch basketball tonight. It didn't work. Uniforms leapt and shot and flowed into grey. Clocks stopped at the sound of spasmodic buzzers. My team is gone, dismissed like fidgeting pupils on the first hot day of summer. So I didn't care. But I've never met any of them. Their successes and failures, their outsized talent in search of a small gold-plated orb, none of it effects me. So I didn't care tonight. But why did I ever?

Why we hate sex...

Alright, maybe we don't. Personally I'm a big fan. The question is worth exploring though. What is it about sex that makes it taboo through so much of our society?

Recently I finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy. For the two of you who don't know, this is a series of dystopian-future novels about a girl named Katniss, and the role she takes in shaping her hellhole of a world. The books are superb, gripping and gorgeously written in a kind of jagged-edge firstperson conciousness. The plot… I've read and studied many, many novels, and can usually predict every twist after a dozen pages. Not here. Not even close. Mini-review aside, what I found interesting on the intellectual level is that the books are, inexplicably, marketed as young adult (YA).

Certainly they are readable. Effortless prose, basic vocabulary, manageable chapter sizes. There is little cursing, and the sexuality is limited to plenty of kissing (more on this in a moment). They also hapen to be the most violent books I've ever read.

People die, brutally and graphically. Not just the usual blank henchmen types, but characters we've come to know and love. This, I think, is the crux of Collins' technique. Nameless deaths, to paraphrase an old saying, are statistics. When our friends die, screaming in agony at the claws and teeth of mutated lizards (for example), that is pain. There is one death, late in the final book, that left me in tears (silver parachutes). And yes, I'm a 23 year old man. It wasn't just the death, but what it represented. Failure, the extinguishing of love and hope and the chance for happiness. We trust, our at least the publishing industry trusts, our teenagers enough to think they can handle that level of emotional devastation. So why isn't there a sex scene?

The entire series, in its own twisted way, is a romance. Katniss sticks her tongue down plenty of throats, and Collins treats the difficulty of relationships with a respect and clarity that I find admirable. She writes like someone who has been there before. Now, I can't pretend to know Suzanne Collins's mind. She is a better writer than I can or ever will be. I chose these books as a window not because I think graphic sex would improve them, but because the hyper-violence on display makes frank sexuality noticeable by its absence. Is this really the way forward, to put brutality on display while we keep the mechanics of creating life locked in a vault? Suzanne Collins respects her audience enough to show them pain. I can't help wondering what she might write about love.

end of the beginning...

I’m starting work tomorrow. Real, honest to God, locked-in-one-place-all-day work. Not that this is a bad thing. I finished college a month ago, and somehow I’m gainfully employed in the worst economy since the twenties. Its a solid gig. White collar, good industry, lots of room for advancement. The next year or so is going to be long hours and short money, but thats the way of things when corporations have us by the throat like this. 

Funny isn’t it? Four years of prepschool, four more of college, all so I get an okay job paying less than the cost of one year at either institution. Not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, at least I’ll be able to support myself. So many friends are sitting at home now, ignoring parental frustration while they spam resumes to every company under the sun. Others are pretending not to be bored while they wait for September, more years in smaller classrooms for a slip of paper that may not add a dime to their eventual salaries. 

Is our model broken? So many brilliant minds choke on the dust kicked off rungs on the corporate ladder. Part of the reason I’m writing this is to prevent atrophy, to keep the best parts of my own mind from fading into the grey. I don’t know if anyone will read it. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that so many accept stagnation, comforting quiet routines, and I’m about to become one of them. Honestly, I’m happy about that. Yes kids, money really does make the world go round. But there has to be something more, something dynamic and razored and renewed daily, and I guess this is my way of making sure I don’t forget it. 

on the classics...

I love movies. Watching, reading about, studying, making, experiencing. If we have a uniquely American art-form, that it. Not that all movies can be called art, obviously. Go see anything directed by Michael Bay, Paul Anderson, or shat out by the morons at Happy Madison productions. Yes, lots of movies suck. Most, if we’re being realistic. But at its best, cinema moves us in a way paintings and music simply can’t touch (and yes, I know that’s heresy). Studio art is strictly visual, music strictly auditory. Limited sensory stimulus means limited mental engagement. We can appreciate a Renoir or an Ansel Adams or Beethoven, study and intellectualize all we want, but there is nothing visceral about these actions. And let’s be real, humans are adrenaline junkies. Nothing makes us happier than the flight-or-fight response ramping in a setting we intellectually understand to be perfectly safe. Go see Planet Earth in Imax, then tell me if Renoir gives you the same thrill. 

Now, the none of you still reading might be wondering why I’m saying all this. I went to see Prometheus with my girlfriend a few days ago. Fun movie. Shit script, as others have discussed much better elsewhere, but Ridley Scott is in full-on asskicking mode with the visuals. Yesterday, I was talking to a friend and made the mistake of explaining the look of the film as Caravaggio painting the 22nd century. I stand by that comparison, but he basically scoffed at the idea of modern Hollywood producing anything to rival a master painter. My question: why the fuck not? Have we intellectually regressed to the point that nothing we make now can compare to the classics? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to point out and mock the problems with our society. I also thank my lucky stars every day to have been born at a time when I can reasonably be expected to see eighty years old. 

The past is past, people. It was good, foundational, and now its dust. Open your eyes and see some of the beauty surrounding us. Accept that what we have now is worth something, and maybe we figure out a way to keep evolving instead of looking backwards all the time. 

Hello World...

Did everybody see that graduation speech, the one with a highschool teacher standing in front of fresh-faced teenagers to tell them how not special they truly are? Go, watch and weep. I'll wait.

I'd like to congratulate that teacher, and to thank him. Someone had to say it. The truth is, as my dad once told me, that nobody gives a shit if you're successful. Yes, we're all unique, beautiful snowflakes and that is worth celebrating (not sarcasm). But seriously, you think the kumbaya bullshit is going to last when you're competing for college spots, jobs, women, floorseats, or any of the other ten thousand things we convince ourselves we need?

So why am I ranting, here in the first of what I'm hoping will be an endless series of blogposts? First, because I enjoy the sound of my own voice. Second and more importantly, because I think the level of discourse around our culture needs elevating in the worst possible way, and I'm hoping to make some small contribution.

Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wiser than Yoda. Say what you're thinking, and lets see if we can't all learn from it. Like I said, I enjoy my own voice, but there's plenty of room for all of yours. This is going to be an outlet for my thoughts, my passions, opinions and fiction and dreams and whatever else I feel like spilling into cyberspace. Should be a fun ride.