Are you just looking for a job, or do you have a campaign going?

No one needs to reiterate that today’s is a difficult job market that is unprecedented in recent times or that regrettably, many people are looking for jobs for extended amounts of time—sometimes for years! As a career coach, I often work with such people, and I notice that they have things in common: None of them have a well-thought-out career management plan. None of them have a thorough and well-integrated career search campaign. Most are just looking for a job. When I try to diagnose where the problem is, I find universally that (1) they continue practicing what worked for them in the past; (2) they follow what other job seekers have suggested to them; (3) most of them are simply lost because of not knowing what to do next and are borderline depressed due to their repeated failures to generate positive activity; and (4) they do not have a plan containing a series of certain specific activities that are necessary for them to accomplish in order to reach the goal.

If interested, you can find such a road map of activities on my Web site, www.landingexpert.com. Look first under Resources and then look for the chart in Landing Expert Tools.

This article cannot cover all of the information I recently presented to a group of job seekers for over an hour, but here is the essence of it. The four elements of a successful job search process are:

• The creation of a marketing plan
• The preparation of job search tools
• The physical marketing of oneself
• A continuous plan for improving the process

While creating the marketing plan, you should first learn about yourself. Second, you should assess your marketable skills. Next, you should learn the ways of finding a job in today’s marketplace. And last, you should map out what you want to do. This is the stage in which to engage a career coach. Hiring a career coach will speed up the process, and you’ll learn from a pro, get unbiased feedback, will be kept on track, and acquire the skills for negotiating an equitable compensation plan.

The next major campaign objective is to have an excellent résumé. Good and very good résumés get failing grades in today’s economy because plenty of excellent résumés are available. I strongly suggest using a recommended professional résumé writer. While such professionals are not cheap, an excellent one is worth every penny. Professional résumé writers provide your key for unlocking the door to an interview. Otherwise, you’ll just be praying to be called in, and that can take a long time. Once your résumé is completed, you need to develop your little vignettes and success stories. At this point, you’ll need to learn how to work with a select group of recruiters, how to use job boards, and how to establish a system for keeping track of all of your activities via a searchable form; Excel works well for this.

The difficult part starts now. You need to market yourself by associating with job search networking groups. Those who live within a distance of, say, a hundred miles from New York, can profit from the comprehensive list of job search networking groups found on the landing page at www.landingexpert.com. Self-marketing includes good collaterals such as strong cover letters, a persuasive elevator speech, a detailed LinkedIn profile, and effective use of LinkedIn. Joining Yahoo! groups and LinkedIn groups could prove helpful as well. And last, you need to identify your target companies and go after them ferociously.

Now comes the last step, which is to continue improving the process. This includes embellishing your list of success stories and frequently practicing mock interviewing.

As you can see, this is a rigorous and demanding career campaign plan. To be good at it, you have to devote at the very least 40 hours a week; and that doesn’t include time spent commuting to meetings. By following this plan, you’ll get not only the satisfaction of accomplishment but also the distinct possibility of favorable results. Good luck to you!

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Thinking of Getting a Job?

The title of this article applies both to those who already have jobs and to others who vie for jobs. So, let’s think first about what it takes to hold on to a job versus getting a new one. At least three conditions must be met for holding on to a job: (1) You must have the skills. (2) You must get along with the boss. (3) You must get positive peer and customer reviews. For getting a new job: (1) Your résumé must intrigue the reader for further exploration. (2) Your résumé must make a strong first impression. (3) Your résumé must exude confidence. (4) You must possess excellent interviewing skills. Which is harder nowadays: holding on to a job or getting a new job? The answer is, both are equally hard.

Why is it so important to interview well? The answer is that interviewing is a competitive art. Indeed, it has an acting component that requires your beating the competition by convincing the interviewer you’re the ideal candidate. It’s a fact that interviewers are biased, subjective, and influenced by preconceived ideas. It’s also known that nice guys finish last. One person is getting the job, and all the rest are losers.

Many job candidates feel nervous during interviews. Nervousness is caused by focusing on self. Once the candidate focuses on the other party, nervousness disappears! Practice mock interviewing till you’re confident about both content and delivery. It would be very helpful to know in advance what’s important to the interviewer. Surveys show that for hiring managers, the most important thing is to ensure that a candidate would fit well into the corporate culture. Next, the interviewer wants to see a candidate’s passion and excitement for the opportunity. It’s important to have superior oral communication skills and other communication skills such as body language, steady eye contact, and assertiveness. A candidate should be well groomed and in proper attire. During the interview, a candidate should be able to convey being a good match for the job description, to express having the required technical skills, and to show thorough knowledge of employer.

To be successful at an interview, try thinking like the interviewer. The interviewer knows you’re there to sell yourself, but he’s not ready to buy everything you want to sell. He’s open to buying only when you relay facts or when someone else provides information about you.

There’s one question you can count on being asked: Do you have any questions for me? When prompted by this critical question, you must ask some good ones. Good questions propel you to the next stage; bad ones fail you. For instance, don’t ask questions that involve your own personal agenda. Being prompted for questions is a sign that the interviewer now has all the information wanted and needed about you. At that point, he is eager to move on. Good questions cover the favorability of your candidacy, the traits that are important for the job, and what the interviewer perceives might be difficult for a new employee in the initial period. Don’t ask questions you were supposed to previously find the answers to on your own. After the interview—based on the information you gained through answers to your own questions—you’ll be very able to present a compelling case via the composition of your thank-you letter.

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If There's No Work, What to Do Next?

Today’s weak economy has changed the psychology of hiring. During past weak economic times, companies might hire temps, and once the economy gained strength permanent hiring ensued. We have not yet seen that pattern, and there are no signs that it’s on its way. The situation has caused various and serious difficulties for most of the unemployed people—in particular, for some who usually have difficulty in making decisions of any sort. Such people have an extra burden this time around because they are sitting ducks waiting for miracles to happen. They are occupationally paralyzed.

So, as the title of this article asks, if there’s no work, what to do next? Well, there are a number of solutions. The first is to engage a professional career coach who could help sort things out by establishing a plan of action and holding the person in transition accountable, by assisting in refinement of the person’s résumé, by teaching networking and social media skills, and even by providing collaterals such as cover letters. However, not in all cases is a career coach the complete answer. Perhaps a coach’s intervention might be appropriate later on, but first, in some situations the person’s condition requires a different approach.

Certain experienced professionals with advanced academic degrees specialize in helping people better understand themselves, as well as help people find options and develop career plans. Their overarching goals are to give their clients a better sense of career options to research and consider and then to offer instruction on how to begin that research process. Then they teach clients to evaluate their options in light of their constraints. Together the two can also work on goal setting and planning when the client is struggling with those aspects of the career development process.

The assessment portion is fundamental to the process, and its value lies in (1) providing additional pieces for the career-decision-making puzzle and (2) guiding a client’s selection of optimal strategies for completing that puzzle. Sometimes the assessment process (which includes the initial interview) suggests there are important pieces to the puzzle that are not specific to an exploration of career options and that must be added to the mix before goal setting and planning can be done effectively. In those cases, the professional can suggest other options or resources before continuing.

The way I see it, the biggest problems are a false sense of hope and not realizing that one is stuck in indecision over the next step. Sometimes it takes weeks or even months before the pain becomes unbearable. By then, the person’s financial reserves may have dwindled, and spousal support may have weakened—even morphing into antagonism. Such waiting and waiting exacerbates the core issue, and solutions become more difficult to reverse and overcome.

Employers that sift through their many viable applicants prefer to go with those who are employed or have been in transition for only a relatively short time. Their thinking is that if a person’s been out of work for an extended period, there must be some problem with that person—a problem they have no time to explore. And they thus move on to the next candidate. Once the head count and budgets have been approved, good companies make decisions fast. And so should you.

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Confronting Aging and Work-Related Issues

Asked to leave or fired: it really doesn’t matter what you call it. Come Monday morning, and there’s no place to go to work. Many people face that predicament, and the first thing that comes to their mind—for some at least—is that the culprit is their age. A new and younger generation is pushing them out the door.

True or false, whichever the case may be, there are indeed a few facts behind the notion: Some longer-tenured folks exhibit less energy, lose the ability to learn, and lack the agility to deal with new technology. They resist change, relying more and more on others rather than being hands-on. Their relationship with the current, younger boss might not be what it was in past with the previous boss. And less and less are they being asked to participate and contribute in teams. In many cases, their physical appearance, clothing, and eyeglasses might be pointing to their age as continuous reminders. You as a reader know precisely whom I’m describing. And if you happen to be inching toward becoming this type of hypothetical individual, I suggest you take action now! So, what to do?

First, never give up. Keep your eyes open for other opportunities. In days gone by, working for the same company for a long time was viewed favorably. Nowadays, employers are looking for people experienced in a number of industries and who have wide varieties of experience. Keep in shape physically and mentally. Replace your wardrobe if that’s what it might take. Include physical fitness in your daily routine. And read a lot on a variety of subjects; you want people to admire you for your knowledge and expertise. Plus, nowadays there are opportunities everywhere to take a variety of free classes for enriching your knowledge of new technologies, software, and the like.

While in transition, you should volunteer not only to get out of the house but also to mingle with people, demonstrate your flexibility, and show you’re still capable of making quick decisions. Never talk about retirement. Don’t give people the idea that retirement is something you’re thinking about. Whenever you can, demonstrate your problem-solving ability; employers are always looking for problem solvers. If you have noncorporate experience in leadership, you should surface that in your communications and interactions with others.

People more advanced in age have at least two advantages over younger people: their very age and their professional experience. Make those into differentiators and turn them into assets.

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