There comes a point in unemployment where there is time to spare. Here is a list of Inspiring Productivity Ideas for you to consider if you find yourself unemployed and feeling a little bored or lost.
Job Search Archives
Nothing puts your self-esteem on the line faster than a job search. You face rejection and self-doubt daily. It takes a good deal of internal motivation to keep moving at all, much less to keep the correct frame of mind needed to win interviews.
A single day of beggar mentality (“Please, somebody give me a job.”) is a whole day wasted. One interview done with self-doubt could mean losing the opportunity of a lifetime. Hiring-decision-makers hire positive, cheerful, high-self-esteem people who are confident (but not arrogant) about their value.
Your motivation must be jealously guarded, protected, renewed, and nourished when you are job hunting. Take some steps to eliminate self-doubt:
- Take special care to ensure your proper motivation.
- Periodically ground yourself with your value by reading your resume and remembering your successes.
- Schedule a weekly contact with culture—a play, an inspirational movie, a work of art—as a reminder that whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
- Avoid negative newspaper stories, TV news, sitcoms, and negative people. People tend to come away with a general depiction of life as boring, tragic, and inane. This is something you cannot afford while job hunting. Do keep up-to-date on important news, particularly developments in business that may alert you to opportunities and help you present yourself as an informed candidate while networking.
- Use motivational tapes and books as well as nurturing times with spouse and friends.
- Attend networking groups, but only the ones that create a positive mental attitude. If you feel burdened, flat, etc. after a network meeting then you’ve just attended a “Pity Party.”
Person-to-person job searching is the hands-down preferred method. It’s just that most people think networking works all by itself. They’ll go to association meetings and ask about vacancies or openings. They’ll collect business cards and wish they had some realistic good reason to talk to those people. They’ll haphazardly pass out resumes. They hope they’ll be remembered when a vacancy or opening turns up.
To avoid this random, billiard-ball-style networking, you need a written and re-searched plan of whom you want to talk to, how you can make or save them a bundle, what’s going on in their industry that you can key into, and a thought-out rationale and method to get in to see them face to face. You need a clear agenda for each meeting including knowing how to ask for further contacts to continue your networking plan.
Consider this too, poor networking is worse than no networking. Meeting people is one thing; making the correct impression is another. That you can meet a lot of people and have them talk with you doesn’t mean you’re getting closer to a new job. If people aren’t impressed, if they think you’re too arrogant, too pushy, too meek, too timid, too uninformed, not committed enough, too confused, too anything, all that a hundred networking contacts will do is generate a hundred poor impressions.
So, be thoughtful in creating your network and tapping into it for job search help. Most importantly, study success and know what you want.
- Ever notice that often you’re trained to do tasks that aren’t on the job description?
- It seems that often one only gets “meets expectations” for doing what is outlined in the job description on annual reviews.
- One thing that is kind of neat is that often the highest praise and potential for advancement comes when taking charge of something that is not on the job description.
Morale of the story: Don’t take a job description too literally —and use that to your advantage to customize a job to best match your strengths.
Annual performance reviews provide excellent material for employer/manager quotes. Save them each year, and more than that set goals from them and use them as a reference before your next review.
You probably feel pretty aware of how easy it is for an employer to find someone else who will take the job. But you are selling yourself short if you assume that is their attitude and you don’t even ask.
They key to remember to is they probably don’t want to hire just anyone. They are looking for they best they can get. So, do your research and ask. If you don’t ask, you already have your answer…its no!
There is also the matter of acting with respect throughout the negotiation process as you did through the hiring process. Don’t take it personal that they will try to hire at the most advantageous pay rate for them. Of course, you will work to help understand that they get what they pay for…this is your leverage.
Remember this too: the wage you accept will impact your attitude on the job. It will either be in a positive way or a negative way. The salary you accept now determines the raises you will get later because raises are based on percentages usually.
All that being said to help you see the importance of negotiating, here are some techniques you may want to consider.
- It is important to buy time when a number is thrown out there. Pausing for just a few seconds when a number is mentioned can give the impression that they will have to come up on something so you can meet in the middle. It could be money, time, or perks that they come up with but something more. They say a number and you pause as you are considering your response. Sometimes those few seconds can make you thousands of dollars! If not now then certainly as you work for them years and each future raised is based on what you accept at the start.
- You also buy time when negotiations are closing for the day. You sum up what they are offering and say, “I will sleep on it and speak with you tomorrow if that sounds okay with you.” Or you may sum it all up and say (as long as it is true), “I expect another offer to come in soon, when is the latest I can get back to you? Can I reply by Friday, does that sound acceptable?”
- Sometimes you do have to say “no” to an offer if you feel they are just too low and it will affect your attitude and work ethic to accept. There is power in walking away if they refuse meet your needs and you feel you can get your needs met elsewhere.
- One technique to use is to say something like this, “after careful consideration, I must decline your job offer. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me and please do call if the budget changes.” That way you give them room to come up to your expectations if they are really pained to see you walk away.
Here are suggestions to improve your resume. I review resumes often and these mistakes are very common but easily fixed.
- Use bullet points for easy scanning.
- Keep paragraphs to no more than two to three sentences long.
- Use the title of the job you are applying for as a resume objective.
- Use a strong summary of qualifications. This section needs to be a big picture view about the dynamic and professional person you are.
- Don’t use I’s on resumes. Instead, start sentences with action verbs.
- Use common section headers such as Professional Experience or Related Experience or Education instead of something unique.
- Use year dates for the jobs held throughout your resume…2008-Present; 2006-2007; 2004-2006.
- Use keywords relevant to the type of job you are applying for on your resume.
- Get rid of the responsibility/job duties bullets. Instead use accomplishment statements. One way to do that is to finish the thought by telling, “which resulted in…” at the end of each bullet point.
I was delighted to receive a review copy of Susan Ireland’s new edition of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Resume” because frankly, I needed a refresher. Plus, I have followed Susan on Twitter and her blog and I knew she shares high quality info online so I was excited to see what she would say in her book.
I was not disappointed. Susan does some great teaching in this book. She starts where it all should start, figuring out what job you want next and the keywords that go with it. People often want to jump right to the look of the resume and finding a template. That is not an awful thing except that it often results in a person getting in a mode of doing what everyone else is doing and blandly listing responsibilities. Most importantly by starting with keywords first and encouraging you to customize a resume for each vacancy announcement you respond to, Susan is teaching a critical strategy that is extremely relevant for your resume to compete well and rise to the top for interview consideration.
From there, Susan moves on to resume format and details each section of the resume one-by-one sharing her expertise thoroughly yet succinctly, and giving lots of example resumes to boot. In parts 3 and 4 of the book, you get other important pieces of the resume puzzle like cover letters, thank you notes, and how to get a resume and portfolio online to take advantage of web technology in your job search.
I encourage you to spend more time tracking your accomplishments than your goals. Accomplishments are actions you have already taken. Goals are actions you intend to take. Make it a habit to log your weekly accomplishments and turn them into bullet points for your resume and power stories for reviews, networking, and interviewing.
You may also want to add a space on your accomplishment log to mention how you felt while working toward each accomplishment. Say a 1 to 5 star rating, 5 being the best. This will help you recognize what activites juice you up so that you can make arrangements to do more of those.
TIP #1 – DEFINE WHAT YOU WANT SO THAT YOU CAN HELP OTHERS HELP YOU
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best way to find a job is be able to tell people exactly what kind of job you want when networking. Sometimes people think it is best to keep all options open for any type of job that may come along. But with that strategy there is a higher likelihood that they will not like the position they accept and will be looking for a job again real soon because they quit or got fired. A person who handles the job search that way risks quickly becoming a job hopper. And guess what, it all started because they didn’t define what they were looking for in the first place.
The process does not have to be difficult or long and drawn out. It can be quite enriching if a person takes the time, but it can be done quickly with a few educated guesses when food just needs to get to the table too.
Minimally, you need to know:
- What kind of work fits your lifestyle right now such as part time, full time or contract?
- What industry are you interested in?
- What are example job titles?
- What skills you have to offer and what kind of problems you can solve with those skills?
With this kind of information in mind you can start the job search by asking people you know and people you meet a very powerful question, “Who do you know in the retail clothing industry that may be looking for part-time employees?” As simple as that you can begin accessing the hidden job market and the power of networking. Moral of the story: knowing what you want sure helps other people help you.
TIP #2 – FIND A MENTOR
First, outline or journal what your career will look like when you arrive at the “next level.” What will you be doing in your work? What experience & education will you have achieved? How are you impacting your industry? Continue to make better distinctions about yourself and where you want to go then follow your nose to the virtual and real world gathering places for people whose interests match yours. Look for them in writing and speaking that is going on in your industry and in professional associations associated with your industry, or attend a conference or training, and search for them on LinkedIn. Locate and engage the experts in those places. Share your enthusiasm and demonstrate that you are there to learn and that you are very interested in contributing to the conversation. Ask the question, “what advice do you have for someone who is interested in doing what you are doing?” Ask also how they stay up-to-date in the field. Be sure to thank them for their time by writing them a thank you note or email or a quick follow up phone call or message later. Consider them a part of your professional network and send info their way when you see or hear about something they might like to know. If you notice a potential mentor but suspect they are too busy to be a mentor? Or maybe you just don’t know how to break the ice with them. Try informational interviewing. Its not just for students or those choosing a career for the first time! Informational interviewing can help you transition to a new career field, further your network, or find a mentor.
TIP #3 – ACCOMPLISHMENTS NOT GOALS
Spend more time tracking and talking about your accomplishments rather than your goals. Think about it: accomplishments are actions you have already taken, goals are actions you intend to take…which is more powerful? Begin by making it a habit to log your accomplishments weekly while they are fresh in your mind. Collect them and turn them into bullet points for your resumes and power stories for your networking and interviews.
TIP #4 – START A BLOG
Career blogging is a networking and electronic portfolio all in one! Your blog can be an outstanding networking tool. This is just the kind of thing the blogosphere was meant for…sharing information, having a discussion, building relationships. Plus, a blog can become a showcase for your unique personality, knowledge, and skills. With small regular posts you can quickly build an impressive portfolio demonstrating more about your personality and quality of work while building your reputation at the same time.
Go and see!
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