I had a classmate who was finding it really hard to get a job.
We had just graduated at the time and he was looking for a job.
It was about a month since he started his search and one day I decided to call him up asking whether he got the job.
Me : “Hey man, how is your job hunt going? , any leads yet ?”.
Him: “Not yet, I am still struggling to find one”.
Me: “What exactly are you done so far? What companies have you applied for?”
Him: “I have setup profiles on a couple job portals, also applied for a couple jobs , waiting for their response but no response yet.”
Me trying to help : “Make sure you apply for a ton of jobs, most companies on job portal sites are fake and are setup by job agencies so make sure to …..”
He interrupts me mid-sentence.
Him: “Hey I got to go, Im out with my friends for a movie”.
Me: “Okay, bye”.
Upon disconnecting the call, I was like WTF ? This guy is jobless, calls him selves as someone who is struggling and is yet out with friends for a movie ?
He was not a local, he was living in a shared apartment, surviving on his parents money and yet was so relaxed.
A couple days later, I was in his locality for a client meeting after the meeting was over I decided to visit this classmate to see what was going on.
He was alone at the apartment as most of his flatmates went to work. He was laying on a mattress on the living room floor with his laptop watching a movie.
He still didn’t get a job and used to spend the entire day all alone at his room watching movies.
Upon asking about his job situation, he replied: “I was called for a couple interviews but was rejected by all of them.”
I asked: “So what’s your plan ahead?”
Him: ”I decided to enrol in XYZ institute to learn Java, they also have a good placement record, I can do the course for a couple months and also get a job”
Me: “Have you already paid the fee for the institute?”.
Him: “Yes, I did. The batches start next week”.
I knew that most institute courses are trash and the placements are even worse, However I decided not to tell him about it as he had already paid the fee and I didn’t want to discourage or demoralise him.
Him: ”Life is hard and unfair man, there is so much struggle.”
Me: “Yes it is, I know. But we got to work hard, skills is all that matter, maybe you should work on your skills and Im sure you will get the job”.
Him: “heck no, I don’t think skill matters, you see the guy “X” form our class, even he got placed despite of being so dumb. I am much better than him at all costs”
I nodded my head, even if I knew that X had far better skills than this dude.
After a while, I left for home.
A couple months later I come to know that he went back to his native place and was now working at his family farm.
In this entire duration of time, I had still other couple friend who had found a job off-campus and were doing quite well. Even I had started freelancing at was doing well. Whereas this guy “struggled” and yet didn’t get any job and had to go back.
Here are the reasons why:
He had an illusion that he was struggling, in reality however he was just being lazy. The real strugglers were my other friends who literally spent days applying for job, attending multiple interviews in a single day while this guy was spending his parents hard earned money watching movies.
He thought life was unfair only to him, even though his parents gave him enough time to find a job and settle. He could have been grateful for that and could have worked hard but instead he invested all his energy into the victim mentality.
He was entitled, he thought he deserves a job and companies are out here just to give people jobs. Rather than being responsible for his own actions and his future, he laid his future in hands of an institute which promised him a job.
He never saw a fault in himself, but always thought others were wrong. Had he focused on his own shortcomings analysing why he was rejected in an interview, and had worked on it, he would have easily managed to get a job.
So to answer the question:
Why do some people couldn't achieve much success, they should have achieved, despite putting effort and hard work?
Hard work is a relative term.
I know a lot of people who think they “work hard” but in reality they just have an illusion of working hard.
Yes, luck plays an important role. But the doors of luck only open up when you work hard.
Also, hard work is not just about doing manual labour and just completing a task at hand.
Hard work also involves self analysis, taking hard and life changing decisions, and being critical of yourselves.
-Saurav Sharma
