“Where the Hell Is Duck, North Carolina?”
One of the things that I learned many years ago, when I went through my training to become certified in Career Coaching, was that the job search process is one intensive “research project.” Whether it is researching the history of a particular corporation, the key issues and challenges they face in today’s world of employment, learning the background of the people that work there and with whom you may interview, or looking up the company’s major competitors, an excellent job searcher is preparing themselves to learn all that they can about an organization with which they may ultimately interact.
Over the course of the last several years, I have felt I have strengthened my research skills given the work which I do. Some of that is in keeping up with what is the latest trends in the world of employment. In other instances, I assist families in relocating to new geographic areas if a job has moved them from one place in the world to another, identifying potential resources which may meet the family’s needs. My wife is a very inquisitive person. Sometimes she will ask me questions on items which she believes I may know the answers to. And, while I may know some aspect of the answer, or can recall some part of it, I have learned to use the following sentence frequently. The sentence is “I’ll look that up on Google after dinner, and let you know the answer.” (Doing that sure beat trying to give her some half-cocked answer and giving me a look like she could not trust me).
This all came to me as I was preparing to do my September writings for my website. A business colleague of mine, who is the President of a networking chapter of which we are a part, sent a note to the chapter’s members indicating she would be facilitating the meeting that week virtually, from her vacation condominium in Duck, North Carolina? I did not find it unusual that she would facilitate the meeting while away on vacation, (she is very dedicated to the business colleagues who are a part of her network). But, one thing about the note immediately struck me. I said to myself “Where the Hell is Duck, North Carolina?” While I have a good sense of geography and knew many of the major cities in North Carolina, I had never heard of a town called Duck. I needed to learn more.
One way in which we are very fortunate in the world we live in today, is the ability to get the answers to questions quickly. I am old enough to remember growing up in a world where doing homework for school where I had to learn about things by looking them up in the encyclopedia. Newspapers provided information, (often on a day or two delay) during my childhood and young adult years. As time went on, radio and television got information to us more quickly, although news from more remote locations might still take some time to learn. In 2021, we can get information quickly, from our computers, from our phones, or from the radio or television, often within minutes of its happening. And, while there are things that are not so good about that, (misinformation, opinions not based on fact, many people looking for their own platform), for sheer looking up basic factual information, there is very little to stop you from learning about something that may catch your eye.
For example, I quickly conducted a Google search and learned that Duck is a town in North Carolina off the coast that is in the northeast part of the state, not too far away from the Virginia border. Normally it has a population of about 300 people during the year, but in the summer, the population can swell to about 20,000 people. As I read more, it sounded very similar to me to an area in my home state of New Jersey known as Long Beach Island, which has a few hundred residents during the winter months but has a population of several thousand during the summer beach season.
Whether it is Duck, North Carolina, learning about a company with which you are scheduled to have a job interview, or finding the best restaurants where you are headed on vacation, one’s ability to do research is a key to their constant learning and growing. And, while you may not remember everything you learn, and can at times need a refresher here or there, it is both great to know it is available to you when you need it, and often a necessary part of the strategy to obtain the goals you are seeking to reach.
