Our faith is full of parables, virtues and teachings that apply to the job search… the other day we heard the Gospel parable of the sower and the seed… it’s in Matthew 13… Every time I hear this parable I think about how it applies to the job search…

Back in those days, farmers hired professionals to scatter the seeds for the next season’s harvest… as the story goes, the sower sows lots of seeds.. some of it fell on the path, and the birds got it… some fell on the rocky places that had little soil,  sprouted quickly but died because the soil was shallow and the sun burned them… other seed fell in the thorns and were choked… And then some seed fell on good ground where it produced a bountiful crop…

The lessons of this parable, when applied to the job search are pretty significant… first of all the sower realized that he had to sow lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of seed… more seeds that anybody could possibly imagine… secondly, he realized that the vast majority of the seed was either going to get eaten by the birds, choked by the thorns  or burned by the sun… the sower knew he could “make up” for all the seed that wasn’t going to make it by sowing a lot more…

Unfortunately, most people in a job search don’t do what the sower did… they sow a few seeds, i.e. send their resumes, make a few calls and then sit and wait and inevitably the birds come along and take the seeds… they then sow a little more seed and then wait and wait and wait and maybe they get one or two interviews .. the interviews don’t go very far, they were planted in shallow soil and got “burned” by the sun… they then sow a few more seeds and wait and wait and wait and those seats get choked by the thorns…

The major lesson for job seekers is that they need to sow hundreds more seeds than they think they should in order to harvest one good job and they need to keep sowing the seeds over and over and over and over, realizing that the sun, the birds and the thorns are gonna get most of them…

As I try to teach, focus on the process… the process of sowing seeds… and if  you focus on the process of sowing  seeds  some are going to fall on fertile ground and you’ll find a job