“I am really close on this. Really close.” That’s how Phil Connors describes his prospects of becoming the ideal guy for Rita Hanson. How many of us (as job seekers) have said those words when reading job descriptions? That’s right, I’m going to compare Groundhog Day to job seeking and see if there are some interesting parallels.

No, I’m not saying that every day seems like exactly the same thing when you’re hunting for a job. Rather, I want to talk about how trying to get a job is a lot like finding a mate.

Phil’s Manipulations to Fit Women’s Expectations

Groundhog Day has a lot to say about relationships. Phil is a miserable narcissist who can’t help getting in his own way when he interacts with people.

In the first half of the film, Phil takes advantage of his unique situation to manipulate people into liking him. He doesn’t change for the better, but he makes everyone think he has by playing into their likes and dislikes. He becomes a chameleon, trying to impress people with his money, knowledge, and tastes. And it works for a little bit. Some women fawn over him and swoon at his empty promises.

After a while, though, the novelty wears off and he has to admit that he’s just as miserable as he’s always been. That’s when Phil tries going after the ultimate prize: Rita. She’s his producer, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him beyond their professional relationship.

He asks her what she wants out of life and what she’s looking for in a husband. She gives him a long list of dos and don’ts, and he realizes that he lacks some of those qualities, like playing an instrument, speaking a second language, and being okay with children. Thankfully, he has an eternity to learn those skills.

Phil tries the same tricks on Rita that he used on other women, and they seem to work at first. He gets closer and closer to making Rita fall in love with him. But she’s actually falling for his lies, not his true self. And every time she realizes that she’s been conned, she ends up hating him.

Manipulating Ourselves to Fit Job Expectations

I wonder if job seeking is similar to this. We don’t have an eternity to mold ourselves into something we’re not, but we can pretend that we’re an exact match for every job description we find. Doing so tends to lead to unhappiness, though. Either we get a job we’re unqualified for, like Phil did when he coerced Nancy into a night of passion, or we get exposed as a fraud, like Phil did time after time with Rita.

I’ve heard that I need to try to tailor my resume to every job I apply for to sound like the right candidate they’re looking for. Doesn’t that sound like what Phil did with exploiting Rita’s tastes and desires? And I have to use certain power words to stand out and yet sound like everyone else. That’s kind of like learning French simply to impress Rita without actually understanding the meaning that the French poets put into their words.

The point is, Phil doesn’t win Rita’s heart by molding himself into her perfect guy and yelling, “Look at me! I’m exactly what you want. Love me!” Instead, he uses a completely different tactic. Before we get to that, let’s talk about when Phil begins to improve.

Phil’s Trip Around the Diner

At a major turning point in the film, Phil gives up the façade and tries to convince Rita that he really is reliving the same day over and over again. He does this by describing everyone in a small-town diner. Notice the things that he focuses on about the people he’s come to know.

• He starts with their waitress. Doris has worked at the same job since she was 17, though her deepest desire is to go to Paris. She works there because it’s a safe bet. Her brother-in-law owns the diner, after all.
• Debbie Kleiser is supposed to be getting married to Fred, but she’s having second thoughts.
• Bill had to get work after college, so he took the first job he could find at a diner and stayed there for three years.
• Gus wishes he had stayed at his job in the Navy instead of living an aimless life.
• Tom worked in a coal mine until it closed down.
• Alice is a waitress who was born in Ireland and lived in Erie most of her life.
• Nancy works in a dress shop and is easily excitable.
• He predicts a waiter accidentally dropping a tray of dishes in the course of his work.
• The first thing Phil says about Rita is that she likes producing, but she has greater ambitions than a modest TV station in Pittsburgh. She sheepishly admits everyone knows that about her. So Phil digs deeper, talking about her likes and dislikes, and he shares a story from her past that’s deeply personal.

Did you see the pattern? Nearly everything he says is related to people’s work. Debbie and Fred are notable exceptions, but relationships are similar to jobs in my mind because there are two parties who have to agree to work together to make both types of arrangements function properly.

Rita is different, though. He doesn’t consider her just another worker or someone who’s superficial. He sees her as a noble woman who does all kinds of admirable things outside the spotlight. Phil realizes he’s all wrong for her because he still wants to be in the spotlight. Even in Phil’s attempt to be humble, he calls himself a god and desperately demands that Rita believe in him. He hasn’t learned the lesson yet that becoming the right man for her is all about taking the focus off of himself.

Phil’s Last Groundhog Day

One more interesting work connection comes at the beginning of the film. Phil seems to set off the story’s events when he admits to Larry that he’s probably going to be leaving his current job as a Channel 9 weatherman in pursuit of a better position. So this will be the last time they’ll be covering the Groundhog Day Festival together. God or fate (or some other cosmic power with a sense of irony) steps in and forces Phil to eat his words by making him cover that event likely thousands of times.

It looks like his work on this particular Groundhog Day will never end, so his intention of leaving his current job will never come to fruition. But that’s not true. Phil’s day finally ends when he stops turning inward and starts focusing on everyone around him. What’s interesting is that Phil’s work extends far beyond a simple newscast into something he calls “errands.”

He goes around Punxsutawney, saving a boy from falling out of a tree, replacing a flat tire for some old ladies, performing the Heimlich maneuver on a choking man, strengthening a marriage, fixing a man’s back, and doing countless other good deeds. He barely even speaks to Rita all day, but she is spellbound when she sees his transformation. She now wants to be with him more than anything else in the world.

It’s not that he’s done everything to impress her. He’s become her perfect man by thinking outside of himself.

What Employers Want from Employees

Employers don’t want employees who are mainly motivated by selfish desires. I think that’s why the interview question “Why do you want to work here?” is so important. If a candidate says they’re purely in it for the money, they’re stuck in the selfish Phil mentality of doing everything for their own benefit. But if they have done their research and found an unmet need in the company that they think they could fill, suddenly they appear much more like the selfless Phil who spends all day serving others. That’s the Phil who women don’t blindly fawn over but put their money where their mouth is and bid on him like he’s a prize.

That’s the Phil who wins Rita’s heart and gets to move on with his life, escaping the doldrums of reliving the same day again and again. And perhaps that’s the kind of prospective employee who gets the job.

I don’t understand all the ins and outs of AI using keywords to weed out resumes and cover letters. I know that it’s happening a lot, and it’s preventing many good people from finding employment. Hopefully sanity will return when it comes to disqualifying employees who don’t play that game perfectly. I can’t live in a world where selfish Phils win and selfless Phils lose. I trust that that’s not the case, and good people are still wanted.

Let’s try to be like Phil. Even if we’ve faltered in the past, we can wake up each morning and make a positive change to show that we care about something more than just our own well-being. When we do that, we get closer to becoming the perfect job candidate employers are eager to hire.

This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.

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