CASE FILE: Career Advice

Subject: Theodore Robert Bundy Known for: Law student, crisis hotline volunteer, Republican Party campaign worker Estimated victims: 30+ Operational period: 1974–1978

Ted Bundy understood something most career coaches never will: competence is secondary to likeability.

Before anyone knew his name for the wrong reasons, Bundy was described by colleagues as charming, articulate, and someone you just wanted to help. He walked into rooms and made people feel seen. He remembered names. He asked follow-up questions. He wore the right expression at the right moment.

He used these skills to talk his way into law school, onto political campaigns, and — repeatedly — into situations where any rational person should have turned him away.

The lesson here is not subtle.

Your qualifications get you the interview. Your presence gets you the job.

Practice your handshake. Make eye contact. Smile like you mean it. Ask about their weekend. People are not evaluating your skills in those first thirty seconds — they are evaluating whether they like you. Everything else comes later.

Bundy’s fatal error was not in his people skills. Those were, by all accounts, exceptional. His error was in the application.

Yours doesn’t have to be.

File closed. Results pending.