It is hard for many people right now. All the gloom and doom coming from the news media 24/7 is taking a bad situation and making it exponentially worse!
Life is about choices. You can choose to obsess about things over which you have no control, like how awful the financial markets are right now; or you can choose to focus on those things which you can control, like managing your career. Unless you are successfully self–employed, everyone is either in a job search or between searches. What you do and how you do it will be the difference between finding yourself regularly in an active search – or – enjoying the luxury of constantly being between searches.
If the soundtrack playing in your head has been negative: “I desperately need a job” or “I don’t have a job” or “I’ll never find a job” or even untrue: “I have a job so I’m safe,” maybe it’s time for a new soundtrack and a fresh perspective.
The old soundtrack would tell you to spend the majority of your time perusing posted positions on the job boards. The new soundtrack will tell you to focus on networking … meeting people who need to know about you and can introduce you to people who can help you.
The old soundtrack will tell you that your resume is not the problem even though you aren’t getting the kinds of results you want and deserve. The new soundtrack will tell you that understanding and articulating your marketable value proposition will make you a more compelling and competitive candidate.
The old soundtrack would tell you to shotgun your resume to everyone for every thing. The new soundtrack will tell you to focus your efforts on a smaller, more targeted market.
The old soundtrack would tell you to rest on your laurels after all, you’ve landed and this new job isn’t going anywhere soon. The new soundtrack will tell you to work diligently on building an online visible presence so you can choose when you leave and where you go.
If you wake up today planning to do the same things you did yesterday while expecting different results, perhaps it really is time to adopt a different perspective and play a new soundtrack in order to actually get better results.