advice

Keeping It Together in the Job Search

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I know a lot of people on job searches.  I know a lot of people unhappy with their jobs.  I hear from them a lot.  There's a lot of advice I can give but there is one important piece often missed.

In a job search, or when having a lousy job, take care of yourself.

  • Keep yourself sane by taking breaks, going to counseling, talking to friends, etc.
  • Keep yourself healthy because the last thing you need is health issues.
  • Keep yourself on task by improving skills and job search abilities.
  • Keep yourself involved by talking with people, hanging out, working with your church, etc. 

Doign these things is important for several reasons.

First, if you keep it together you can find a job or find a better job.  If you fall apart, you'll only make things worst.

Secondly, if you keep grounded and growing, you'll open up new opportunities to get it right.
Third, it keeps you from draining your resources – financial, social, etc. so you have the resources you need to go on, and succeed.

So, take care of yourself.  The foundation to succeed is your own sanity and health.

– Steven Savage

Turn Yourself Around

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Here's a little career exercise to try for yourself.

Get a good image of what you do for your job.  Now get a good image of what you do on your hobbies.

Now ask what your life would be like if you reversed them.  How could what you do on your job make an interesting hobby, and what would you be doing if you could do your hobbies as a job?

Think this over for a moment, then ask yourselves these questions:
1) How similar would your life be in such an inversion?  Why?
2) If your job is something you dislike, but you visualize it as a fun hobby, how can you take that to improve your job?
3) If your hobby was a job, do you see any flaws or unforeseen things you wouldn't like?

I enjoy this exercise as its very revealing, and sometimes surprising.  I rather like my job and its often similar to what I do in my hobbies – I can see how, under such an inversion, I'd rather miss aspects of my job and how they may make interesting pastimes.

Keep this in mind, see what you find.

– Steven Savage

It’s not a job search . . .

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A strange thing keeps coming up in my readings on employment – the fact a lot of people put surprisingly little time into finding some.  As in perhaps ten hours.

This is an alien idea to me, since my past job searches involved, on average, 30-50 hours of work a week, and at worst about 25 (and that was in a really slow economy).  Or in short, it was a full or part-time job for me.

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