You’ve just learned our six techniques for overcoming all barriers. As we stated from the beginning, they’re not magic wands, but with your creativity and effort they can produce miracles. We’ve discovered that the only barriers that can’t be solved are those that you don’t take the time to address, or are unwilling to address. In our book No One Is Unemployable,¹ we offer further support to this claim by sharing sample solutions for eighty-eight common barriers. Scrutinizing your PADMAN from the employer’s perspective will help you find your barriers so you can fix them before employers notice them. So let’s get started on the final steps in your PADMAN Plan.

MAKING PADMAN WORK FOR YOU

You have discovered how to complete the first three steps—Step 1: Choose your job target, Step 2: List the employer’s needs for each area of PADMAN, and Step 3: Prove you can do the job—now it’s time to identify and remove the barriers that are getting you screened out.

Step 4: Identify Your Barriers

At the end of Step 3, you transferred any employer needs you could not prove you met to the My Barriers column on your PADMAN Plan. These are employers’ spoken concerns. Now it’s time to add the unspoken concerns you think they may have. Review yourself in each area of PADMAN for anything that could distract employers from hiring you, even if they haven’t asked for it, such as bad teeth for face-to-face customer service jobs, a depressed or desperate attitude, your age if you’re older or younger than those they usually hire, being a single parent of young children if your job requires dependable attendance, changing fields, and so on. Here are four ways to catch additional barriers before the employer does, so you can remove or minimize his concerns:

• Ask for honest feedback from friends and relatives. Often, others know us better than we know ourselves. It may be difficult to hear, but it’s valuable.

• Ask an employment specialist who spends her days looking at candidates through the employer’s eyes so she can make a good job match.

• Review the list of common screen outs at www.worknet-international.com. and honestly consider if each could be perceived as true about you.

• Evaluate your job search results. If you’re not getting interviews, not getting offers, have had people decline to act as your reference, evaluate why.

Once you’ve listed your barriers, notice which area of PADMAN has the most and which has the least. This will show your areas of strength and weakness. Also notice how your areas of strength and weakness stack up against the employer’s top priorities for PADMAN.

Step 5: Create Your Solutions

Now that you know what’s getting you screened out, create your solutions! There’s always more than one way to minimize a barrier, and we’ve given you six proven tools—access a resource, learn a new skill, change your job target, adjust your outlook, adjust the employer’s perception of you, and craft a good answer. Which you choose depends on what will satisfy the employer, and on your preferences. Imagine you discover your current image is getting you screened out. If you think it’s reasonable , you might adjust your outlook and gather the resources so you reflect the company’s image while at work. If you think it’s ridiculous, you could target companies that value your current image, or craft an answer to convince employers you’re the “exception to the rule” and can still make them a profit. If you resent it to the point of rebellion, you could start your own company, or you could decide not to change anything and take your chances.

To choose the best solution tool for each of your barriers, ask yourself:

Which tools can eliminate the barrier so the employer will never know it existed?

Of those tools, which do I want to use?

If I change my target, which employers wouldn’t consider this issue a barrier?

SAMPLE JOB SEARCH JOURNAL ENTRY

If employers could become aware of the barrier even after you have applied the tools, craft a good answer. On your PADMAN Plan, under Solution Tools, review each barrier and indicate the tool(s) you will use to overcome it. Note the who, what, or how.

In your job search journal use what we’ve taught you to detail how you will overcome each barrier, and write out your good answers. At www.worknet-international.com, you’ll find a free Mini Solutions Bank with tips for avoiding over fifty common screen outs. Prioritize your barriers. Start by resolving the issues that stop you from job searching effectively—job target, child care, or company image. Then, tackle the issues that reduce your job search success—demonstrating a new attitude from the one that got you fired, crafting good answers, or looking for side doors. You can address barriers that stop you from getting promoted once you’re hired.

You know your employer’s needs and have created proof that you can meet them. You’ve identified and removed the barriers that could get you screened out. Now you’re ready to create an effective job search strategy.