Old habits can get in the way when you’re looking for work, especially if you’re used to people calling you instead of you calling them and when you’re expecting job offers to appear without doing the heavy lifting. Open-ended, ambiguous questions have a way of messing with your head if you prefer the kind with “yes” or “no” answers, and trusting yourself more than the wisdom of others can be a let down when they have the answers and you don’t.
If you’re feeling pretty clueless about where to look, what to say and how to say it, you have your work cut out for you. Rather than struggle on your own, get help from career coaches who understand the terrain and can help you trek through it.
Don’t stop there. Attend meetings of job search support groups where you’ll reinforce the fundamentals, tactics, and strategies of how to find a job and land it.
Check out the local public library, Goodwill Industries, Job Link, Employment Security Commission, The Job Search Network, Professionals in Transition and a variety of faith-based community outreach programs that welcome job seekers who stand to benefit from their services. And they’re just some of the organizations that provide workshops, seminars, practice sessions and hands-on training for those who learn best when sitting alongside people whose backgrounds vary and goals are the same: to find work that benefits the employer as well as the employee.
Sure, you can go online and read about how to write resumes, answer questions, sit, stand, and shake hands. But what you can’t Google is real time, honest, face-to-face feedback that tells you if you’re getting it, and if you aren’t, how to do it better the next time around.
One of the greatest challenges for the newly unemployed is overcoming the perceived stigma that accompanies termination or layoff; the fear that you are damaged goods. It’s that fear that keeps many from reaching out and asking for the assistance that is available and accessible. The longer you stay away, the more your confidence takes a hit, the harder it is to engage and change.
There are countless talented, intelligent, competent people, just like you, who share your dilemma, who will welcome you and share with you what they know and what they’ve learned . The people who run these groups have been where you are and have not only survived, they have thrived, and they want to share their road map with you.
If you have always been a procrastinator, doing your best when the deadline’s past, and not a minute before, this is not that time. Get out of your way and learn what you need, now.
If your style is to appear disinterested, bored, lethargic, acting like you could care less, hoping people won’t know how scared you really are, that’s not going to work, not now.
If you want to get a job in a competitive, challenging environment, you’ll need to practice new ways to be proactive, curious, and courageous. Practice until you make it a habit.
