6 Things to Avoid During Your Job Search
by Angela Loëb
Juliana Harris, past expert guest on The Job Search Boot Camp Show, gave a presentation today that I was privileged to attend. Her topic was about coping with job search stress. She openly shared her own personal experiences after being laid off twice in her career, and she added the insights from about a dozen clients she surveyed. She also gave us observations based on her role as supportive spouse for her husband during in his multiple lay offs over the years. Fortuntely, she kindly gave me permission to share tips from her presentation - thanks, Juliana!
She suggested you avoid the following:
1. Perfectionism – Yes, you need to work on your resume, but rather than make it perfect, make it good enough and get moving forward. She had one client who saw an excellent posting, worked 3 weeks on getting his resume perfect and missed the deadline to apply. She said he “woke up” and never made that mistake again!
2. Procrastination – She advised us to “touch it once” and “do it now.” Also beware of using the resume as a way to procrastinate. If you find yourself getting off task by “working on your resume” when you know that it’s not necessary to do so at that time, then ask yourself if you’re resume tweaking as a way to avoid doing what you should be doing. Be disciplined and follow though with whatever you’ve committed to.
3. Powerless Feeling – It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. While we are definitely not powerless, we sometimes feel that way. Juliana shared that she and her husband would consciously shift from looking at what they could not control, such as “Did they get my resume?” and “Are they going to call me back?” Instead, they focused on what they could control. I made all the calls I could make, I followed up with that person I met at the networking event last night, etc. Basically, I’ve done everything I can control, and I have power over that.
4. Negative People – You can’t afford to be around anyone negative. As harsh as it might sound, you need to walk away from relationships that will drag you down. She said that you can’t have someone talking negatively while you are doing your best to stay positive. She did acknowledge the fact that the person being negative may, indeed, be a spouse or someone you can’t “get rid of.” For those people, you’ll need to figure out a strategy of how you’ll communicate with them in order to lessen the impact of their negativity on you.
5. Pessimism – Unlike people who are negative, there are other sources that create pessimistic feelings in you. Her number one cause was television. She said that even though she enjoys watching CNN for the economic news, especially since she’s a career consultant and needs to know job market information, her husband couldn’t afford to let any pessimism creep in during his recent job search. So, during the recession the television was off most of the time, and they pretty much stopped watching the news altogether.
6. Deterministic Behavior – For Juliana and her husband, this was the biggest thing to watch out for. Both of them being very left-brained thinkers (she was formerly in finance, and he is an engineer), they found themselves “looking for everything to add up,” and things just don’t always add up during a job search. There was difficulty in not seeing an end result to their efforts. Doing A and B didn’t always lead to C = results. Juliana said her husband used the perfect word to describe what he had learned to live with, and that was the sense of ambiguity.
Juliana shared a few excellent coping strategies they used such as laughing (which, for them, meant watching funny programs on t.v.), exercising and meditation. She emphasized the need to do anything that will encourage you to stay persistent and keep your attitude uplifted. That way when you get that interview, at last, your attitude is better attuned and won’t sabotage you.
Angela Loëb is an author, speaker and co-owner of Great Occupations. She and her partner, Jay Markunas, help people make successful career transitions through workshops, “pajama learning” webclasses, personalized consulting sessions, as well as through The Job Search Boot Camp Show. Find out more at www.greatoccupations.com.
Attention Career Changers: Check out our upcoming workshop, “Destination: New Career!” coming up on October 23rd at www.greatoccupations.com/destination-new-career/