Our Sunday paper has an advice column for job seekers.  Various ‘experts’ are invited to respond to letters from readers. I’ve played the role of ‘expert’ in the column about 40 times over the past seven years, so I view it as a good resource for job seekers – especially when I’m being quoted. (Sorry, checking my ego at the door as we speak…)

Recently the reader’s question read something like this:

“I’ve received an offer for a job.  I think the salary is on the low side.  I’ve left a voicemail for the HR person but haven’t heard back.  How should I handle this?”

That week’s ‘expert’ offered the following advice: “Sign the offer letter and return it to the employer.  When you show up for your first day of work, go to HR and tell them you’d like to negotiate a higher salary.” 

My reaction was, Really? Are you nuts?  You’ve signed the offer letter, accepting the offer.  Show up at HR asking for more money, and you’re saying that you signed the offer letter in bad faith.  Don’t bother unpacking your things.  You probably will be done with your new job before lunch that day.

There is a lot of advice about finding a job out there, isn’t there? How do we tell if the advice we find is sound?  Take resumes, for instance: One page long, two pages long, even longer.  Include just the past ten years; include everything in your career.  Make it formal; make it sizzle. 

So there you are, working on finding a job.  One expert says zig; another says zag.  How do you find a trusted source on these matters?

I’d suggest talking to other job seekers.  Go to meetings and workshops set up for job seekers.  Ask friends whom they’ve relied upon for career transition advice in the past.

You can find lots of advice and guidance that is free or very reasonably priced. 

Let’s talk about unreasonably priced resources in our next post!

As you go through a job search that stretches over weeks, and maybe over months, you have ups and downs, times when your energy is high, times when your energy is low.  The emotional roller coaster can be a rough ride, right? How do you stay focused and productive in your search through these ups and downs?

One of the Weekly Strategy Teams compiled the following list of ideas to do this:

1. Understand the importance of scheduling your time.  An unstructured day is probably a lost day.  Have at least one commitment, appointment or meeting on your calendar every day. If you spend the day in your pajamas, that’s not a good sign.
2. Create a daily routine for yourself: get up, exercise, have breakfast, do telephoning, have meetings, work on projects on your computer.  The content of the routine is secondary.  What’s important is that there is a routine.
3. Set goals for the day and for the week: the number of contacts you’ll talk to, the number of networking meetings you’ll have, the number of events you’ll attend.  Obviously your over-arcing goal is to find a job.  But you need intermediate goals to spur your productivity and momentum.
4. Create a pipeline in your search: contacts, calls, meetings, more contacts, identifying target companies, researching target companies, finding contacts in target companies.  This pipeline of activity stretches out over the next couple of weeks and assures you of not having a ‘dead zone’ in your job search.
5. Define a successful week so that you can acknowledge a job well done at the end of the week.  This might include the number of calls you make, the number of jobs you apply for, the number of events you attend, and the number of networking meetings you have.  You need to have goals to shoot for and achieve.  Then, on a Friday afternoon, you can pat yourself on the back for a job well done.  We need those self-administered ‘atta-boy’s’ and ‘atta-girl’s’.
6. Define clearly in your mind the importance of one-on-one networking meetings.  They are the building blocks of your job search.  Once you accept that, get a bunch of one-on-one’s on your calendar each week.  Don’t be overly selective.  You’ll meet with almost anyone, won’t you?  You never know who has a key contact that will sling-shot your search forward.
7. Understand the value of connecting with friends – even friends you haven’t spoken to for a couple of years.  They’ll be delighted to hear from you.  And they’ll be delighted to introduce you to people they know. Trust me – they will!
8. Work your marketing plan.  You haven’t developed one yet?  Get on it.  Design a marketing plan which defines the directions you’ll pursue in your search and the target employers you want to approach.  If you have a marketing plan already, and it isn’t producing results, re-work it into a plan you’re excited about.

 The key to bringing your job search is building and sustaining momentum.  Do the things listed above and stay focused.  The search will still take longer than you want, but it will be shorter than it otherwise would have been.

George leads group discussions among his clients each week.  The following is a topic that comes up regularly.

 The experience of looking for a job is new to many of you.  Most of you have smoothly transitioned from one role to another in your career to this point.  Now you find yourself having to look for a job for, maybe, the first time in your life.

 I’ve found that almost everyone going through this process is changed by job search experience. 

 1. You’ll probably become more sensitive to people in transition in the future and be more apt to help them.  You’ve walked this path, and you know how great it is to receive heartfelt help from others.

 2. You may be looking critically at your skill set for the first time.  “What are the marketable skills and experiences that I bring to my search?”  Many of us who have been in our careers for decades may come to think of ourselves as ‘generalists’ or skilled in ‘general management’.  You’ve found that you have to be more specific in describing what you bring to the table.

 3. You may have come to realize that the culture of your next employer is a critical factor in selecting your next job.  Every organization has a culture – some great, some frightful.  And you may have come to understand what culture attracts you and brings out your best performance.

 4. Perhaps the biggest change that people may notice in a job search is the re-ordering of their priorities.  Some folks decided to go in a wholly different direction with their careers – a different role, a different industry, less travel, an exploration of consulting, a decision not to pursue the ‘promotion track’ quite as aggressively, and so on.

 Bottom line: Almost everyone learns something profound about themselves during a job search.  I hope you have the same experience!