Plant More Corn to Get a Job

I have a small New Hampshire garden where I produce more summer squash, zucchini and tomatoes then I will ever eat.  Last year I tried something new and planted four rows of corn.

I spent a lot of time with that corn, weeding, watering and praying!

As harvest time came near, I could almost taste the succulent corn right from my garden into the boiling water and drenched in butter with just the right amount of salt!  There is nothing better to top off a beautiful summer day than a plate full of corn that you grew.

The day finally arrived when I thought I would reap my corn harvest.  To my astonishment, a family of raccoons beat me to it.   They were very dainty and peeled back the corn husks and ate every single kernel.

They didn't even have any butter and salt!

I spent this past winter reading different natural ways to keep the raccoons out of the corn.  I decided not to go with the six foot fence and finally chose to ring my corn rows with cucumber plants.  Evidently, raccoons don't like the smell of cucumbers and don't like to step on cucumber leaves.

I stopped by my local farm store the other day and asked the farmer what they did to stop the raccoons from eating all their corn and she said, "Plant more corn!"

Not exactly what I wanted to hear.  My corn is coming in very nicely this year and I'm a couple of weeks away from harvesting.  No sign of raccoons yet; they are probably waiting for the corn to get totally ripe before they decide to dine.

One day, this "Plant more corn" solution clicked in my mind with the advice I have been giving job hunters.  Too many times a job seeker will focus all their efforts on one job or one company only to be disappointed.  The reason they don't get the job might have nothing to do with anything they did.  The only thing they did wrong was to concentrate in only one place.

Plant more corn!

If you are looking for a job, you need to find more job openings, send out more resumes, and do more interviewing.  In my book, "Conquer the Losing Attitude of Job Hunters", I outline a job seeking method where you go out and meet the decision makers in your field (the number one way to find a job by the way).  If you choose to follow this method, then you need to get out more, go to more companies and meet more decision makers.

Plant more corn!

Professor Tom Laurie

author of Conquer the Losing Attitude of Job Hunters

and The Losing Attitude for Dieters