Five Secrets to Job Success

After years of working first in the advertising industry, than Ebusiness strategic planning and consulting I have observed many successful people. Although the people I observed were in different industries and career paths there seemed to be some characteristics they had in common that helped them raise like sour cream to the top.

The recession has made the job market more competitive than it has been since the fall of Rome and I think it would be helpful to share my insight with young people who have recently graduated from college and have actually landed your first job.

First of all congratulations for finding a job in this rough economy, you are already on the road to success. No doubt you did as many other job seekers did which is to lie.

Lie on your resume about

some of your achievements. Most likely the person who hired you noted you lied. However he/she probably like the fact that you took the initiative to look better than you are.

Act Dumb,

your competition will consistently under estimate what little capability you do have. George Bush made it to the White House using this strategy. Imagine how far you can go if your competition consistently thinks you are dumb.

Pad Your Resume.

For example why say you were on the team that invented the Internet, why not claim you invented the Internet? Al Gore made that claim and it didn’t hurt his career. The lesson here is if you are going to exaggerate do so in a grand way. Don’t claim to be on a team you were never on, claim to have invented or organized the team.

Admit to Cheating.

That is another valuable asset. A notable cheat is Timothy Geithner the 75^th Secretary of the Treasury. Prior to his promotion to Secretary of the Treasury Tim was CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. In that capacity, he served as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation's monetary policy. Now imagine if the media had only that kind of information to tear into, embarrassing questions about cronyism on wall street or if Tim was so heavily involved in monetary policy, how could the nation’s finances be so screwed up? Adroitly Tim let it be known he was a tax cheat. The media and the opposition took the bait and focused about his little tax indiscretion, totally ignoring how incapable Tim is.

Never give a colleague a fair chance.

He/she might be better than you. Use unfair means to get ahead. Baseball players do it and end up making millions, and even hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes they get a slap on the wrist, but it is worth it. You can do the same.

So if you remember these five rules:

Lie On your Resume

Act Dumb

Pad Your Resume

Never Give a Competitor a fair chance

Admit to Cheating

You will get ahead.

What do do if you come across a somewhere who is better than you at these tactics.

You will go far in today’s world. But be careful, there always will be bigger liars who act dumber and do a better job of padding their resumes or never giving competitors a fair chance, and who are bigger cheats than you are.

If you come across a bigger liar than you are, be prepared to act like a Senator in a hearing and point your finger at anyone who is bolder than you and scream foul play!