Ryner Stoetzer

The end of the school year brings with it the turbulence of looking for a job.

Of course we all know the basics to nail an interview: look professional, do your research about the company and ask questions. But how can you ensure you get that interview?

Ryner Stoetzer, music composer, said it's about governing yourself as if you are your own boss.

This comes from personal experience. Stoetzer used to be a professor at Fanshawe College but knew he wouldn't be fulfilled until he pursued his dream of becoming a full-time composer. Twenty years later, since he made the bold decision to start his own business, he composes music for film, television, live ballet and theatre — full time.

He said first and foremost don't act as if the universe owes you anything.

“You are fully responsible for your own success, your own forward movement, your own achievement, and you have to take full ownership of your mistakes and learn from them,” he said.

“Unless you make a commitment to be a lifelong learner and create a habit pattern where you're spending at least an hour, maybe two hours a day reading and studying in your field and listening to audio books, you're not going to be able to make it because the competition out there is already doing all of that.”

Having gone to school, the assumption is that the skillset is already there. “That's not enough,” he said. “You have to be a good person; you have to be someone that others can easily get along with. When you make a mistake, you have to admit it and move on and look for a solution.”

He credited all of his success to one mentality he had when pursuing his career.

“The best stance you can take is being the CEO of your own company and basically the CEO of yourself, of your own body. Even if you're employed as an employee to someone else, you're still the CEO. In my case, I'm the CEO of Ryner Stoetzer, and regardless of who hires me, I am still the boss of my own brand, my own creativity, my own actions.”

Once you take responsibility and see yourself as part of the organization you are engaged in, Stoetzer said you create a partnership.

“The employer takes the role of finding you a definable job that you will then do in exchange for your time, which they pay you for. And unless you act like your own CEO, I doubt that will happen in a manner that requires excellence and which is absolutely necessary to succeed.

Initiative is what it takes to get started with this mentality.

“Practicing your craft, and acting as if you have a job, brings into play all kinds of laws of the universe, laws of attraction.”

Saying to yourself, “I'm going to be successful,” and following through with actions that work toward your goal says to the universe that this is your path, he explained.

In turn, “that draws to you, opportunities, people, situation that allow you to further practice your craft.”

This will ensure that you to practice your craft on a regular basis. And “through the laws of accumulation, you become excellent at your task. And of course anyone who becomes excellent at a task eventually becomes noticed.”