'Survivor' host Jeff Probst on how to light a fire under your career
Adopt the cunning strategies of the reality show’s champs, and you could outwit your competition during the job interview and beyond.
We totally get it: Sometimes it feels like a jungle out there. As you navigate your job search and manage your career path, it may occasionally feel like you’re navigating uncharted, possibly dangerous territory.
But if you’re likable and know how to read people, says Jeff Probst, executive producer and host of the long-running reality show Survivor, you can not only survive—but thrive.
“Being nice and being genuine can go a long way,” he notes. “If that’s the only skill that you have, you’re going to do okay.”
We caught up with the Emmy-winning Probst at the CBS premiere of Survivor: Kaôh Rōng (the show’s 32nd season) in New York City, where he offered up some inside tips from the trenches and how they apply to professional life.
1. Learn to read a room
“The biggest thing that Survivor teaches me,” says Probst, “is perception is reality.”
If you don’t have enough awareness to read a room and understand where you fit and where people see you, Probst notes, you’re as good as dead.
“You have to be able to walk in and say: In this environment, people see me as a threat because I’m younger or because I have more money or because I have a master’s degree.,” he says. “You have to know, do they like me, how do they see me—because if they see you as a liar, you are a liar. Period. Every decision they make will be based on the decision that they believe you are a liar.”
During a job interview or any department meeting at your current job, gauge the room for how you’re being perceived and become self-aware. Realize that perception is reality—that is, the other person’s perception of how they see you, not how you see yourself.
2. Maintain a sense of humility
The tide turns on the show, Probst says, when there’s a really likable person who excels at challenges. “They’re really smart and you love them,” he explains.
Then halfway through the season, that contestant starts to realize that they have an advantage over their competitors. “They start to realize their power, and then they get arrogant,” he says. “And then the audience turns on them and says, ‘Oh, I don’t like you anymore. Now you need to get your butt kicked. And they become the villain and then you root for them to fail.”
Probst’s suggestion? Maintain a sense of humility—that’s the difference between self-confidence and arrogance.
This applies to job interviews when you think that you’ve got the job in the bag, as well as on the job, when you need to demonstrate your self-confidence without going overboard. The audience — in this case, the employer — can turn on you just as quickly.
3. Do your homework.
It’s not uncommon to watch Survivor and see a contestant feebly attempting to start a fire, an essential element to the show, and fail miserably at this simple task.
It’s a problem that blows Probst’s mind, considering the show’s now entering it’s 32nd season—shouldn’t people have figured this out by now? “You can buy a flint at any hardware store,” he says. “People get out there and you say, ‘Have you ever made a fire?’ and they say, ‘Uhh, actually, I meant to but I just didn’t get around to it.”
To Probst, this demonstrates that you don’t care enough to have even done the basic homework it takes to succeed in your position on the show.
For corporate recruiters, candidates throw up an astonishing red flag when they come in unprepared for an interview. They know they have to demonstrate basic knowledge of the company, but didn’t bother to do even a little bit of background research.
And just like that, they’re extinguished from the candidate pool.
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Monster’s career expert Vicki Salemi has more than 15 years of experience in corporate recruiting and HR and is author of Big Career in the Big City. Follow her on Twitter at @vickisalemi.
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