18 Best TED Talks to Inspire Your Job Search
There’s no better place to find inspiration and motivation than TED.com, no matter what you’re interested in. And that is no different when you’re looking to spark your job search. With that in mind, I’ve compiled the best of the best TED talks to motivate you to make the most out of your job search and career decisions.
1. Steve Jobs — How to live before you die
This is one of the most inspiring and well known (mentioned in a number of the below videos!) commencement speeches there is. Steve Jobs encourages you to go after your dreams, including the famous quote: “the only way to be truly satisfied, is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle.”
2. Diana Nyad: Extreme swimming with the world’s most dangerous jellyfish
This is one for anyone who thinks what they’re facing is impossible. Never stop pursuing your goals. Never give up and always have belief in yourself. Diana Nyad poses the question: “What is it you’re doing with this one wild and precious life of yours?”
3. Amy Cuddy — Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are (& how to create confidence and influence out of thin air)
This is a great talk and the findings could have a huge impact on your job search and life in general. Here Amy Cuddy explains how you can use body language to trick yourself into being confident. I challenge anyone who has an interview coming up — put yourself into a ‘power pose’ for 2 minutes before you go into the interview. Your testosterone levels increases, your stress levels decrease and you come across (and feel) more confident. Amy argues that it won’t always be a case of ‘fake it til you make it’ — eventually, you’ll be doing it so well, you’ll “fake it til you become it!”
4. Larry Smith: Why you will fail to have a great career
Larry Smith gives an incredibly provocative talk in this video, where he argues unless you pursue your passion, you will fail. He outlines the great number of excuses that we all come up with for not following your passion. Ever found yourself saying “you just have to be lucky to have a great career”, “it’s not my passion but if I work really really hard I’ll have a great career”, “I’m too afraid to fail” or “I’m too afraid of what I’ll look like”? Watch this video and stop making excuses!
5. Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit
We’re huge advocates of ‘hustle’ here at Zealify. We’ve even got a list of the best career hustles we’ve heard of — where people have gone above and beyond to stand out in a job application. Angela Lee Duckworth calls this ‘grit’, and argues that grit is a far better determinant of success than IQ. We couldn’t agree more in relation to job applications — no matter your grades or experience, the more grit (or hustle) you show, the more likely you are to get noticed.
6. Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days
A simple message can be taken from this one from Matt Cutts. If he can write a novel in 30 days, you can find a job — but you have to give it your all!
7. Julian Treasure: How to speak so that people want to listen
A number of lessons from this talk from Julian Treasure can be applied especially to the interview stage of your job search. How you speak matters. Julian explains how you can change what you say (including a personal favourite, getting rid of ‘the blame-thrower’) and how you say it, to be seen more positively. He even gives you exercises you could use before going into an interview!
8. Jonathan Fields — Turning Fear into Fuel for Brilliance (& how to not let uncertainty kill your progress)
Who’s chosen not to do something simply because of fear? If we’re honest, the majority of us have. In this talk, Jonathan Fields shows how to turn that fear and uncertainty into action. He suggests that when deciding whether or not to do something, ask yourself three questions: What if I fail? What if I do nothing? What if I succeed? Most of us will find that if we fail, we’ll be back where we are now, so nothing lost. The most scary thought is doing nothing. Jonathan argues that life always applies friction — “there is no sideways, only up or down” — so if you do nothing, you will find yourself worse off in the end.
9. Tali Sharot: The optimism bias
The simple idea here from Tali Sharot is optimism leads to success. If you think positively about your job application, that positive attitude will come across to the employer or hiring manager. The theory is that optimism acts as a self fulfilling prophecy, makes you try harder and reduces levels of stress and anxiety, all increasing your performance.
10. Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do
This is a great talk from the motivational Tony Robbins. He suggests that for real fulfillment we need two things: to ‘grow’ and to ‘contribute beyond ourselves’. So when you’re looking for a role in a new company, look for career growth in the role and a company vision / mission that you believe in.
11. Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work
I spoke about Shawn Achor’s theory in our blog post on finding happiness at work. He says the idea that if you work harder, you’ll become successful and therefore become happier is backwards, because once you reach your idea of success, you’ll just raise the bar again. However, if you reverse the formula and find happiness / positivity first, your intelligence, creativity and energy will all rise.
12. Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work
In this video, Nigel Marsh highlights the importance of work-life balance and how it needs to be put in your own hands. In his words, “If you don’t design your life, someone else will design it for you, and you may just not like their idea of balance.”
13. Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices
Struggling to choose between jobs or career paths? In this video, Ruth Chang describes hard choices as those between two possibilities ‘on a par’ — one is not better than the other but they are also not the same. Rational reasons given to you by the world are not enough in these cases, but you have the power and the need to create reasons for yourself. Ruth states if you don’t create these reasons, you’ll simply be a ‘drifter’.
Hard choices are a blessing, not a curse. They give you the opportunity to create your own journey rather than fall into one. So don’t be a drifter!
14. Seth Godin: How to get your ideas to spread
Here, Seth Godin talks about the need to be remarkable. This can easily be related to your job applications. ‘Very good’ is not enough to stand out. Employers and HR managers have too many options and too little time, so simply ignore the ordinary. As Seth puts it, “Be worth making a remark about”.
These lessons can be applied to having a remarkable personal brand. The remark you want hiring managers to say when they see your application is “we need to meet this person”.
15. Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend
Do you find job applications and interviews stressful? Do you think your performance suffers because of this? Kelly McGonigal suggests there is a common misconception that stress is bad for your health. The thing that is bad for your health, is believing that stress is bad for your health! We should see the symptoms of stress as your body energising and preparing you (in a positive way) for the challenge to come.
16. Scott Dinsmore: How to find and do work you love
Scott Dinsmore suggests that any goal is only impossible until someone achieves it. He highlights breaking the 4 minute mile. There was a time when the 4 minute mile was seen as an impossible feat, but once it was broken, a number of people managed to achieve it within months.
We’ve discussed how important it is to fall in love with your job. Scott argues that to find work you love, all you need to ask yourself is “What is the work you can’t not do?”
17. Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success
Here, Alain de Botton explores our ideas and perceptions of success and failure. Make sure your ideas of success are truly your own. There is nothing worse than pursuing your idea of success, only to find out when you get there that it isn’t what you actually wanted in the first place.
18. Neil Pasricha: The 3 A’s of awesome
Finally, we have Neil Pasricha, who tells the story of how his blog started and how it got to where it is today (millions of visits per month). He then goes on to outline the 3 A’s of how to lead an awesome life: attitude, awareness, authenticity. These can all be applied to what employers are looking for. Show the right attitude (grit, hustle), self awareness as well as awareness of the job role and company, and be as authentic as possible. Show all of these and you’ll be well on the way to success on your job search!
I hope you found this collation of TED talks valuable and as interesting as I did watching them! What did you think of these talks? Did they inspire your job search or are you looking to change careers thanks to these talks? Have I missed any inspiring TED talks? We want to hear from you! Comment below or tweet me @LiamNolan90.
Photo courtesy of TED.
Note: This post was originally published on 24th April 2015.
