Abilities
What a simple question. What a great question, especially if you’re a job seeker. I was recently asked the question and I was caught off guard. I didn’t have an answer! How can that be?
Do You have a fast answer?
Last updated: 4/25/2016
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
A few guiding principlesIf these things are already obvious to you, great. If they are obvious to you, but you’re not living these principles, well, time for a gut check! Don’t let yourself get stuck being non-productive or doing unwise things.
Last updated: 1/13/2015
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
Your attitude toward your job search can be your greatest asset. Beware of things that can come across as problems. Just a few quick mentions here:
Negativity is the great killer of many things, including most hopes of getting a new job. If you don’t like your employer, or your manager, or where the company is located, or the commute, or how expense reports are handled, then maybe those are good reasons to make a change. But telling everyone over and over about those things you don’t like will kill your search prospects! Telling about those things the first time is bad too. Keep it for yourself. Or maybe your close friends, but why would you even want to load them down?
Beware the negative news. Sure, you want to be knowledgeable of current events, but watch out for over-doing it. Worth considering: turn off the TV entirely during your search. Use the time for more productive efforts, and catch your news in a few minutes of drive-time radio or a quick, repeat quick, daily scan of Internet news.
If you have family and friends who are generally negative, limit your time with them. You need positive influences through this process. (but not flattery. That’s a subject for another time. Focus on truth!)
And sometimes, you just need to stop it!
Last updated: 12/22/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
Most definitely stepping up onto a soapbox here – this is one of my pet peeves. Yes, I am directing this at a few friends as well as the world at large. I’ll put on my flak jacket if needed.
I don’t understand businesses who advertise their phone number, their email address, their twitter account, their Facebook page, and then when someone contacts them through any of those mechanisms, they don’t respond. Shame on them!
Likewise, I don’t understand when churches and other non-profits do the same thing. The irony of churches with sub-titles like “the friendly place,” or “we want to hear from you,” but it’s a one-way communication path into an apparent black hole.
Certainly, there are spammers and such, who don’t deserve a response. If somebody just wants to pick a fight, or argue, or are chronic complainers, OK, I can understand not responding to them. However, when dealing with a real person, treat them as a person. If you were talking face-to-face and somebody asked a question, would you just wander off and ignore them?
I’m very aware that my choosing to respond to almost all requests doesn’t obligate you to do what I do. You make your choices, I’ll make mine. Feel free to test me on this — responding is one of my higher values.
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.Then there is Tom Ziglar, head of the Zig Ziglar company. Zig has since passed on, and is very much missed. I had an opportunity to reach out to Tom back in 2010. Of course, his response was excellent.
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How does this apply to a job search? Or for an employer? What is one of the terrible things potential employers do? Jeff Haden thinks it’s the Worst Hiring Mistake! ? If it’s a fact that most jobs are found through networking, then every contact may represent the creation, maintenance, or sudden loss, of a networking contact. How many can you afford to lose?
Last updated: 12/20/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
For most of us, a job search is hard work. Hours of dedicated activity. Research. Stepping outside our comfort zone. Reaching out. Connecting. Following-up. Staying on task. Yet, many, probably most, people in a search drift off path! They get busy. Yard work. House work. Spending extra time with family. A few trips that were never possible before. And suddenly you discover you haven’t done anything of significance in days, or weeks. I’ve watched people “forget” to work on their search for months!
Get help! Seek an accountability partner. Maybe even a whole TEAM! – your ?AAA Team:? Attitude, Action and Accountability
ASK people if they’re willing to do this for you. Give them an easy out. Learn who your real friends are. Real friends will tell you what you need to hear, even when you don’t want to hear it. (Proverbs: “wounds of a friend”) If you don?t have a group who will help you with this, find a nearby career ministry and ask for help. It?s even OK to be choosy!
Per Peter Bourke, your spouse can be ?your secret weapon.? If the world is down on you, but your spouse is supportive, you have an advantage. But, there?s a big warning that goes with this. Your spouse can also sabotage your search. If your spouse is NOT your biggest supporter, set some limits and make sure you have others to help you with the process.
Consider a mentor or a personal career coach [not necessarily paid for]. Whatever you do, don’t get stuck. If your search is not moving forward, and you don’t know what to do, change your direction to get some help to move forward. Your job may not be your life, but for most, if you don’t have a job, life tends to suffer, usually a lot!
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.”
-Japanese Proverb
Last updated: 12/4/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
Does that sound like a silly question? It’s amazing how many people are desperate for a job, yet have a lot of baggage to handle before starting a search. It’s quite a paradox. Be sure you’ve “unloaded” any of that counter-productive baggage before you start your search. Desperate for a job or not, you can easily shoot yourself in the foot if you jump before you’re ready.
Crazy as it may sound, as desperate as you may be, you might not be ready to begin a search. A few considerations:
Be sure, before you jump into a search, that you don’t have things that will prevent you from fully executing. Whatever those things are, tackle them first. If you don’t think this is serious, look around at people who have been out of work for many months to many years, with the primary reason being there were too distracted to dedicate themselves to a search. Don’t be that person!
Last updated: 11/18/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
Networking is the key to a job search. You’ve heard it. Do you believe it? If you do, then a key is to connect with anyone and everyone you meet. Who are the best connections? Who are the people “not worth” connecting with? Not many people are accurate at predicting which are valuable and which aren’t, so why not try the idea of assuming everyone you meet might be the most valuable person you could ever meet? If you find out otherwise later, you haven’t lost much!
“Connecting” means more than saying ‘hi’ and talking about the weather. Can you in a few words describe your search? Not a 30 second elevator pitch, just a few very short words. Do you have business cards to exchange? Do you regularly follow-up with a custom LinkedIn invitation? Make this all habit. Every – single – time! After you connect, do you send a follow-up thank you note? Every time! It’s not hard. Be intentional.
Last updated: 11/11/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here. Please remember, a job search is normally an ordered set of steps. If you try to skip steps, it usually doesn?t work out well.
A very important early step in a job search is to have a strategy. Even better, have a great strategy. Haphazardly applying for every job you see, calling everyone you know and saying “do you know of a job?”, or whining about the lack of jobs available, are far too often what job seekers do. I guess that’s a strategy, but not much of one.
A high-level overview of a search strategy would cover these basic items:
Certainly, you will need to build systems for how you’ll manage contacts and follow-ups. You’ll need a resume. You’ll need to build a quality LinkedIn profile. You’ll need business cards, a professional email address, and much more. Don’t let these actions become your strategy.
Here’s an interesting article from CAREEREALISM that addresses job search strategy, The 3-Step ?Beat Unemployment? Plan.
Do you have a strategy? Do you have a great strategy?
Last updated: 10/14/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here.
Hopefully this is so obvious that you never need to read about it. Really, I’ll be fine if you skip this post. If you’re in a job search, you must first know what you’re searching for. Funny thing, the more specific you are in what you’re searching for, the easier it is for others to help you and in the end, the easier it is to find. Some people don’t think so. They think you must be flexible and open to anything.? You find a lot of these flexible people at Career Ministry meetings, month after month after month.
If you don’t know specifically what you are searching for, then you are actually in a career search. This is not a bad thing, it’s just different from a job search. A career search is one of the greatest learn-about-yourself experiences ever. There is one small complication: not many people will pay you money to discover what you want to do.
An ideal career is the intersection of skills, passions, and market needs. This is one of those cases where two out of three is terrible. You have to hit all three, solidly!
Tony Morgan wrote a post on Finding Your Dream Role that addresses this same idea a little differently.
If you don’t know what you want to do, spend the time to find out. If you think you don’t have time to find out, don’t be too surprised if months from now, you’re still looking. There are many books and on-line assessments to help you determine a career fit. You can find free resources, or low-cost, or very expensive. Be careful how much you commit to pay if you aren’t sure the value of the results.
One risk: what if you discover you don’t really have the credentials for your ideal career. That is a serious problem. Too bad this country has give up most of the idea of apprenticeships.
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Last updated: 10/14/2014
You can find all my Job-Search related articles here.
Passed a milestone on LinkedIn today, 25 million people. That’s a lot! Not sure how significant it is, just noticing.