Important
Career Change Advice
for Finding
Your Dream Job in 1892
(Is It Any
Help for Finding
Your Dream Job
in the 21st
Century?)
The following career advice is excerpted
from the book, The Business Guide for Safe Methods
of Business by J. E. Hansford, LL.B, first
published in 1892 by J. L. Nichols & Co. (also published in
1972 as a facsimile edition by Coles Publishing Company.)
No doubt this advice was invaluable at the
end of the nineteenth century.
Only you can decide, however, whether any of
this advice will help you find your dream job in the
twenty-first century.
How to Apply for
a Situation [Job]
1. Fit yourself by securing a fair knowledge of Arithmetic,
Geography,
Grammar, United States History, Book-keeping, and master
Penmanship
sufficiently so as to write neatly and rapidly. Obtain a
good commercial
education in some reliable institution if you possibly
can.
2. Secure a few letters of recommendation from your
friends and prominent
business men if possible.
3. Make up your mind what business you desire to follow
and get a
list of the best houses in this line, and then make
preparation to
apply.
4. Then put on your best clothes, see that they are
neatly brushed,
than your linen is faultless, your boots blacked, your
hands and face clean, and your finger-nails properly
trimmed.
5. Go to the best houses first. Walk directly
to the office and ask
for the proprietor. If he is not in or, is busy and cannot
see you,
say that you may call again and politely leave. Make a note
of your
call and then go to the next place on your list.
6. If you succeed in seeing the proprietor
and are permitted to state
your case, come to the point at once. Say that you are from
Illinois
(or whatever State you are from) and that you have been in
the city
for so many days, or weeks, as the case may be, trying to
learn some
things that may enable you to be helpful in a business
house, and
that you desire to try, wages no object; you are willing to
demonstrate
your fitness at whatever work they may have, no matter what
it is.
7. If you are fortunate enough to gain the proprietor's
confidence,
so that he is willing to try you, be glad and ask him to
give you
any work he may have. If he has no work he will say so, and
you bid
him good-day and politely retire.
8. Before you go to the next place stop for a moment and
consider
first, that you made no failure in not securing a position,
for the
reason that it did not exist, and study carefully and see
if you have
not made any mistakes in your method of application.
9. Enter the next house with as much courage and
confidence as you
would if you were sure of a favorable reply. Adopt the same
course
as before, and if unsuccessful, remember that you and God
hold the
secret, and keep on in the same way. If in a large city,
visit forty
or fifty houses each day. Pluck and perseverance will win
you a position,
for many of our most prominent business men of to-day began
by working
long and hard in securing their first situation in the same
way.
10. Remember that most of the prominent business men of
to-day worked
their own way up from the bottom, and they will have
considerable
sympathy for a young man who is starting out in life with
nothing
but an honest heart and willing hands.
COPYRIGHT ©
2010 by Ernie J.
Zelinski
Author of the
World's Best Retirement
Book
A Great Business Promotional
Giveaway
All Rights
Reserved
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