A positive attitude is crucial to your conducting a successful job campaign. You may get lucky and strike pay dirt when you are depressed, but the odds are against it. Today's job market competition is too tough. If you are depressed, anxious, and lack confidence, you telegraph these negative feelings to the interviewers and those you meet. Your attitude should be such that if the interviewer asks you to move the building two inches to the left during lunch hour, your answer is a cheery "No problem." Company managers seek competent, confident, can-do people who perform well on the job. If you're depressed because you've recently been fired or are the victim of a merger or acquisition, remember that you are the same person you were before this happened, with all the skills and experience you've acquired during the course of your career. You don't suddenly lose a lifetime's experience overnight because of a circumstance. Too many job hunters forget this after the traumatic experience of losing their jobs.
As you begin your job search, keep the following facts and statistics in mind:
- Jobs change in both good times and bad.
- Approximately 20 percent of jobs in the United States change hands every year.
- The average job opening is usually known in an organization from two to ten weeks before it is advertised.
- There is no shortage of jobs. Companies are always seeking competent professionals. That means you.
- The hidden job market consists of approximately 80 per cent of the jobs in the United States that are never advertised.
- A job is an opportunity for you to help a company accomplish a task or solve a problem.
Remember that job hunting is a time-consuming, full-time endeavor that requires you to do something every day.
Whether you are unemployed, looking for a new job, reentering the job market, or researching a career change, invest your time in setting up a workplace to plan, organize, and execute your job campaign.
Conduct your job search as you would a professional business-keeping records, including expenses, dates, and the name, address, and telephone number of every person with whom you've interviewed or talked with on the telephone.
Plan Your Finances for the Duration
The next step is to plan your campaign on a week-by-week basis. You'll be writing letters, making telephone calls, and then following up.
It's also necessary at this point to consider finances. Looking for a job when you are unemployed is difficult enough in itself. If money is tight, it can be devastating to one's family and self-esteem, especially when the main breadwinner is out of work.
If you've walked out of your company with a pension and lump-sum payment, it is not the time to take a vacation and lament your state of unemployment. Instead start an action plan that will get you back into the ranks of the employed as quickly as possible.
Register for unemployment insurance immediately. Sit down with your family and plan an austerity budget until you get back into the work force. Include all members of the family in this meeting, explaining what changes will have to be made while you are looking for a job. During this period also plan for periods of relaxation and time spent with the family. Try to keep your life as normal as possible under the circumstances. Maintain your standards on a business and personal basis.
If money is a serious problem, consider signing up with a temporary agency until you can find the job you want. A temporary position can often lead to full-time employment.
Many temporary employment agencies now hire 50-plus professionals to fill their job assignments.
If you are reentering the job market, the same rules apply.
Job hunting requires expenditures for letterheads, stamps, envelopes, telephone calls, carfare, lunches, train or bus fare, your automobile - 27.5 cents per mile when you use it in your job search plus parking fees-and the appropriate clothes and dry-cleaning necessary to present a professional image during interviews. Keep daily records of everything you spend; most of these costs are tax deductible.
