Finding the Right Career?

A brief article titled "Finding the Right Career" in Investors Business Daily captured my attention.

Test Drive Other Options

Thomas Maple is a college counselor who made the interesting comment, "A career decision-making process should involve many hours of exploration over the course of weeks and months." Agreed. In Hired! I discuss the danger of a career approach exactly opposite to this advice: thinking of oneself only as your most recent job title. As I talk with people engaged in job search and reemployment, I continually emphasize my common theme that everyone is an owner of skills and knowledge, and not just a job title. All of us can identify job and career paths that intrigue us. To actually carry out this exploration Maple offers three imminently practical paths:

1. Talk with people already in that potential job area and get real information from people with "boots on the ground."
2. Shadow or apprentice yourself to people already in that job area so you can actually experience what the job is like.
3. Volunteer, especially in pursuing nonprofit organizations, so you can be meaningfully involved in contributing in that job area as you learn about it.

Get a Second, or Third, Opinion

Another comment that impressed me was that all of us have blind spots and we can always benefit from an outside perspective from family, friends or colleagues. Maria Moats found herself confronted very early in her career with a dilemma when her father became ill. "Family has to come first," she said, and she had to decide between continuing her work in Dallas, or quitting to move to her family in El Paso. Or so she thought. When she shared her decision to quit with her partner, his unemotional and detached perspective uncovered a third option: Moats could transfer to the company's El Paso office. As she summarized this she said that an inexperienced worker, "My perspective was limited. I was not thinking about my value to the firm."

It's Your Life - Not Your Parents' or Your Uncle's

Maples makes the terse observation that "A desire to please other people with one's career choice is one of the chief causes of career dissatisfaction." I have a family story that matches this very closely. A relative started his career in engineering but after a couple of years in the engineering world his brain was about to explode. He was pretty miserable. He had not chosen engineering as much as it had been chosen for him. He did his best to conform but the dissonance was just too much. He then applied to and was accepted to law school. He has been in law practice for almost 4 decades now and still loves it. But he still wishes he had been more introspective before spending all that money on his engineering degree.

So be focused, be cautious, and be flexible. Good advice.

More Resumé Overhaul

Adam reached out to me through the recommendation of a common friend. Adam is 20-something and a few months ago finished a Nuclear Medicine degree at a local college. But he was having dismal success in even getting interviews. When we connected by email I asked Adam to send me his resumé so I could get some idea of his education and work background before we talked.

Adam's resumé was pretty much straight out of the 1970s. I do not fault him at all. He is just entering the job market. What absolutely stunned me was he told me one of his instructors had helped construct his resumé. Here are the mistakes I found:

1. The first section was "Objective"  As I discuss at length in Hired! you should not list an "Objective" section. Let your cover letter address your objective for each job to which you submit a resumé.
2. The second section was "Qualifications" and listed his Nuclear Medicine Certificate and other certifications. My concern here is that the reader now has two ancillary sections to look at and skip over to get to the meat of Adam's education and work experience.
3. The third section listed Adam's work experience: primarily the clinical rotations he went through in his degree program, followed by his other jobs over the past few years. Good stuff here but three structural issues jumped out at me. First, the structure of this section was obviously the product of an academic mindset because the content was arranged in outline format [1, a), (1)..]. Recommendation: use simple or even bulleted sentences, but never outline format. Second, there was little mention of responsibilities and accomplishments in his degree activities. Recommendation: tell the reader what you accomplished in each significant activity. Third, his work experience was in a mixed time order. Recommendation: list all work experience in reverse chronological order (most recent to least recent). 
4. The last section of the resumé was "References." Today, readers do not want to see references on a resumé, and do not write "references available upon request." Everyone expects you to be able to provide references if asked.

Adam and I spent quite a bit of time going over these concerns. I provided him the sample chapter on "The Resumé" in Hired! If you would like to read it, you can download the PDF from my Hired! website.

A few days later Adam sent me his revised resumé. Wow! A total overhaul and much more effective. Looking at this new resumé I could see Adam's responsibilities and what he accomplished in each of his job positions. The layout was dramatically more attractive with just enough white space on the page to let the text "breathe" - the words were not too dense and not too sparse.

I suggested one small change to make the content more efficient for the reader, but what Adam put together was terrific, and just in time for him to attend a job fair in Charlotte. With this new resumé he should be creating some interest in potential employers.

The bottom line is that a resumé is a marketing tool and that means it has to create interest about you. If you have been discouraged that you are not getting the response you want, ruthlessly evaluate the first thing you are putting forward to represent you - your resumé.

"I Cannot Afford to NOT Be Assertive"

I've been emailing this week with a reader of Hired! Yusuf is a computer programmer who recently rolled off a large contract job. With additional time on his hands he decided to explore his whole career path. I was very pleased when he shared that he pursued a personality survey such as those I discuss in Hired! He discovered that he is an INFP: Introspective, iNtuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving - a combination characterized as "The Healer." This knowledge has given him new ideas about what kind of work will make him happy.

I was delighted to hear what Yusuf thought was the Big Takeaway for him: "I did really enjoy your book. Throughout the book you demonstrate following up with people and developing relationships with them. You talk about not taking 'No' for an answer and working around this obstacle. At first I was thinking to myself, 'Oh I could never do that. That is too forward for my style.' But after rolling off my last project and going through my exit interview, I realize I CAN'T AFFORD not to be more forward and assertive. You mention in your book at some point that this is going to affect your take home pay. Boy, are you right."

I am grateful that Hired! has provided tangible value to Yusuf. He is intelligent and articulate, and has already started incorporating new options for his next engagement. He has recognized that he does not have to settle for the same old way of thinking. This is why I wrote Hired! and I have great confidence this reader is going to do just fine.

Keep It On the Record

When you begin making contact with any company, whether face-to-face or remotely, you can sabotage your progress in several, effortless ways. I see multiple examples of these mistakes committed by many job seekers, some of whom become the unemployment statistics you read in articles about people who have not been able to find work for 28 weeks, or for a year or more.

The simplest, avoidable mistake is to not make notes.

When you make any contact with a potential employer or lead, you must keep a record of it. You can make your entries on your smartphone, or your tablet computer, or you can use a website like JobKatch (www.jobkatch.com). You can go low-tech and use a notebook. If you go this low-tech route get a spiral-bound notebook so the pages don't fall out.

What is critical is that you have a recording mechanism that you can carry with you everywhere, and enter information immediately while it is fresh in your mind. No, you will not remember these details tonight when you plan to transcribe them. Immediacy is paramount so you can keep the information accurate.

For every contact you make, record everything that will provide what you need to follow up on this contact. This should include

• The date of the contact
• The business name and address
• The type of contact (face-to-face, on-line application, or a paper application)

If any part of the contact was face-to-face, capture

• The name of the employee or manager you talked with, and their direct phone number (ask for their business card because people usually put their direct phone numbers and e-mail addresses on their business cards), and
• Your impression of the conversation and anything of interest the contact may have said, even if they told you they are not hiring right now.

I never want you to be guilty of the following scenario: you submit applications on-line at three websites in the morning, you talk with a manager in the afternoon, and the next day you submit a paper application at a local business. Two weeks later you cannot remember what websites or businesses to which you submitted applications, you cannot recall the manager's name or the address of the local business, and you cannot remember the date you did any of these things.

Sloppy execution means sloppy results. Write it down.

Dream Jobs May Not Start That Way

Lindsey is 22 years old and she has a story that every young job seeker should hear.

Lindsey's story began about two years ago. This was in the middle of our recession, and Lindsey found a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant. It was a start but she wanted more hours. So she found an additional part-time job at an arts and crafts store. After a while she started looking around for something more. She shared that "My dad told me 'You don't quit a job until you have another.'" Smart dad, smart daughter.

Lindsey landed a job as a doctor's assistant at a national franchise vision center. It did not strike her as the dream job she was thinking of. In fact, she had no interest in working in a medical field but it seemed like a good opportunity.

And she loved it! She had never had an opportunity to learn that she loved helping people. "It was always different," she said. "Everyone had a different vision problem to solve. I loved helping them."

Then a pending family relocation prompted her to begin a new job search. She did not feel she had to go with her family, so she really was "just looking around." She went to a job search site, www.indeed.com, entered the city they would be moving to, and entered "eyes" in the job field. When the list of job postings displayed she picked the first one and opened it. It requested a resumé with the application. She downloaded a simple resumé template, filled in her brief job history and submitted it.

She got the job and starts in two days! She will be in a training program to be certified as an Ophthalmic Assistant.

Lindsey did everything right in these two years. She started where she could. She added a job without losing a job. Then she took a chance on a job in an area she had no interest in, and found that she was totally attuned to the work and contact this job offered. Then she planned and explored a job change while she was still working, with no urgent motivation to change, and she had the option to stay where she was.

When I asked Lindsey what she would say to other people in her age group, she spoke from her heart. "Even if a job does not seem interesting, don't pass it up. Even if it is not your dream job that doesn't mean it won't become your dream job. My job at the vision center drew out of me a desire I did not know I had. I loved working with the children and seeing them at that "Ah ha!" moment when they suddenly have clear vision for the first time. My new company has a special Pediatric section and I can't wait to work there."

Lindsey is young but has wisdom beyond her years. This young lady is going places, and she is loving the new journey she is on.

The Ten Powers

Attitude is everything...well, almost everything. But attitude is certainly a major factor in success or failure. Salespeople know this and live it 24x7. Jeffrey Gitomer (www.gitomer.com) is a leading author of sales books and motivational essays. He recently wrote an essay on "The POWER of Sales Success is 100% in Your Control."  Everything he says is also 100% relevant to job search, so here is my re-application of his "power" ideas.

The Power of a Positive Attitude.

Discouragement hits everyone looking for a job, but no one likes a negative person. Cynicism and pessimism are twin brothers born of a cruel mother. A simple defense to build a positive attitude is to have a tangible vision of where you want to end up. "Where there is no vision, the people perish." You may be out of work but focus on the blessings you have despite your unemployment. Even when everything seems to be going the wrong way, look to affirm something in your life. My attitude was changed, literally, in a hotel restaurant one morning when I reached for a sugar packet and read on it, "Instead of complaining about what you want and don't have, be grateful for what you don't want and don't have."

The Power of Daily Attitude Actions.

Discipline makes for productivity. If you let external forces and interruptions dictate where you put your energies, you will end each day with little to show as progress. As I discuss at length in Hired!, each evening should be a time of planning your next day. Any day you wake up without a list of goals and tasks to achieve, that is a day you will have to spend hours building that list instead of pursuing productive opportunities. Starting each day with specific goals, or appointments, or persons to contact will give you a major attitude improvement.

The Power of Belief.

If you don't think you have what it takes to find a job, then you need to have a serious timeout. If you cannot find a reason to believe in yourself, why would anyone else? To borrow a phrase from a little inspirational book by John L. Mason, "You're born an original. Don't die a copy." You are the only you in the universe. You have a package of knowledge, skills and personality that no one else has duplicated - ever! You must adopt the belief that you can achieve what is needed, even if it requires hard work. If you have faith in God, then turn to God in humility and affirm that you need guidance. You have overcome many barriers in your life. This is just another one. It may look like a mountain in your path today, but someday you will look back and see only a bump in your road.

The Power of Self-Confidence.

Confidence is earned from small wins. Don't set yourself up for defeat by engaging in make-or-break job search if you are not comfortable with the various skills required. If you become frozen in your tracks when you think of yourself calling a vice-president, then you need to start smaller and work your way up to that call. Experiment. Do some test runs, maybe a lot of them. Go into a business - a retail business is an excellent place to start - and look for someone who looks like a manager. "Are you a manager here?" "Yes, How may I help you?" "I would love to become part of a company like this. Can you tell me the best path to be considered for a position with ABC Company?" Then just answer any questions, take notes in your head (then write down the information as soon as possible), and be amazed that they talked to you person to person, and you did not melt into the floor! By the way, did you notice in this little dialog that the job seeker said "become part of a company like this," not "I am looking for a job"? Many people feel intimidated asking for a job. So don't! Just express your respect for the company, and ask for guidance on how you could become a member of their team. The words you use are important, especially the words you tell yourself in your head. Take control of the words you are thinking so they do not become your biggest impediment.

The Power of YES!

I have always been amazed that some people fear succeeding. Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? But think of how many times you have said "No!" to yourself. "I can't make that phone call. They are probably not hiring anyway. I don't have as much to offer as someone else." Stop doing the weeding-out work for your potential employers. Let them decide if they want to say No! But you must stop saying No for them.

The Power of Keeping Conversational Control.

Resumés are primarily a marketing vehicle to gain a job interview. But the self-inflicted damage many job seekers commit in their job interviews is totally unnecessary. One of the most subtle mistakes job seekers make is to not ask questions during their interview! It is essential that you maintain control in the conversation in a way that you make it obvious you have read up on the company, its products or services, its customers, and even its business locations. An interview is not a one-way conversation where only they ask all the questions. Visit their website and read over all the major pages. Show them you have an active interest in becoming part of their team and that you have done the work of learning about them. Ask the interviewer questions about job topics of interest to you. After all, if you are in an interview you have already passed all the tollgates they use to weed-out unacceptable candidates. If you just sit there with little to say, and nothing to ask, the only door they may open for you is the door out of the building.

The Power of Preparation.

Every successful person prepares, so that when luck strikes they are ready. The Roman orator Seneca wrote, "Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity." Preparation is not just about knowing how to start your search. The best preparation also focuses on how, and where, to end your journey. Preparing means you are taking responsibility for your future. The entire first half of Hired! is about preparing for that coveted job offer: both how to start and how to end. You cannot plan to be lucky, but you can be prepared.

The Power of Creativity.

Creativity is the way to get out of a rut. It is so easy to keep doing the same things over and over, even after you have proven these are not working. I write in this blog about Mary who spent two years sending out resumés with no results. Sending resumés is what everyone is supposed to do when they are looking for a job, right? It did not occur to her that sending out a thousand resumés was passive, did not make her stand out, and was distracting her from potentially more productive search channels. Be willing to create new ways of looking. Think of what everyone else might be doing, and try something different. In Hired! I describe a young woman who was pursuing independent film making. She had experienced quite a few obstacles and rejections for one so young, and she said, "But life isn't about finding yourself; it's about inventing yourself." That is a profound and powerful sentiment. Invent yourself.

The Power of Being Memorable.

Your resumé will be memorable if it is filled with spelling mistakes, bad grammar, or obvious "truth-stretchers." Your interview will be memorable if you show up late, or in the wrong clothing, or if you take a phone call or start texting during the interview. This is not the kind of memorable to which you should aspire. In Hired! I provide numerous examples of how to rise above the masses applying for the same job position, and how to avoid Human Resources. Be memorable by making your value proposition clear and simple. If you submit a resumé make absolutely sure it fits the criteria I describe in Hired!: no text in a font smaller than 10 points, zero spelling errors, clear sentences that describe what you have accomplished for other employers. Accompany your resumé with a simple cover letter containing three or four bullet statements linking your job experience and skills to the position they have advertised. In an interview dress "up on level," take notes, ask questions that relate to the company's goals and growth plans for your job area. Ask questions about the business challenges that are causing them pain, and give them your explanation of why you can help them solve these problems. Follow-up with a simple Thank You note.

The Power of Value.

Value to you might mean the wage or salary you want to be paid. But what you want is not important to an employer. When I wrote Hired! I made this a major theme: All that matters to the employer is the value you can offer them. Period. Be prepared to explain in 15 seconds or less the value you can bring to the table. This is called an "elevator pitch." Craft it as your answer to the question: "What value do you bring that will benefit me and my company?" Practice it over and over so it flows naturally and is already in your mind when you make contact with a line manager who may need your skills. Commit it to memory so you do not sound like you are reading it from a page, and you must be able to convey it in no more than 10 to 15 seconds. It is your obligation to be able to articulate why you are the best choice for the position they have open. Don't expect them to dig this information out of your resumé, or that they will play 20 questions to understand your benefits.

Resumé Rennovations - A Perfect 10!

A resumé is the single aspect of job search that job seekers primarily focus on. I would say that finding the person doing the hiring is more important, but the resumé is a key, a key to open the door of an interview. I recently worked with a man to make sure his resume was an effective key.

Richard is a senior software guy looking for new opportunities. He has 30 years of experience developing and managing technical solutions in diverse industries. We have known each other for 12 years so I asked him to send me his resumé so I would know what positions he is targeting. When it arrived by e-mail I realized we could make some immediate improvements.

His resumé was written perfectly for the late 1990s, but the expectations of today's employers are quite different. The first improvement was to shorten and punch-up the content. The resumé was five pages long. "Cut it to two pages maximum" was my first response, because no one reads more than two pages of any resumé, and many readers do not go past the first page. Second, I asked him to remove the Qualifications section at the beginning. "Your qualifications will be apparent from your content, and this section is stealing real estate better used for your job achievements."

Next, the scope was too broad. Richard has the curse of being a multi-skilled, senior person. That means it was too easy to put everything he has done into one resumé. I suggested that he convert this one resumé into three resumés with each focused on a major skills area: software architecture, IT management, and software development. Employers need to fill specific job openings so one should always have a resumé that matches that job area, and the resumé should describe supporting skills that "come along free" as part of your skills package.

Then I suggested he make this the first of his three resumés and focus his content totally on his software architecture skills. This meant deleting all but the most in-demand software languages and tools. "For every job you have held, make your content sell your architecture skills. Craft it so it presents a unified picture of your value as an architect, not a set of independent snapshots." It also meant rewriting many job entries to tailor them to an architecture focus.

I sent Richard the "Resumé" section from my book so he could get the Big Picture on what resumés should look like today. It resonated with him. He was gracious and bought a couple of copies of Hired! on Amazon. When I received the last version of his resumé, I was really impressed.

Richard did it all - a virtual rewrite. His resumé now is exactly two pages. Every job entry describes not only his job responsibilities but also his achievements that will create interest in the reader. It is focused entirely on his software architecture skills with a dash of "sizzle" about his programming and management skills. It is well-balanced and emphasizes his most recent job experiences with lighter descriptions about his job positions more than ten years ago.

Then he blew me away. He sent another e-mail saying, "I LOVE IT! I got hits on it in under an hour after putting it up on Dice.com. I have an interview on Friday, with possibility of another while I'm there. For contract and permanent positions. Just got another email about a different contract gig with a State agency. Got an email from a start-up in Virginia needing an architect. Awesome."

Awesome, indeed. His resumé became that effective key to open the door to these interviews. Results don't always happen this quickly, but if your resumé has not been severely pruned and tuned recently, you might might find that no doors are opening for you. I have more ideas on resumés and job interviews in Hired!

If you want to bring some new life to your resumé, the sample Resumé chapter Richard read is available for download at http://www.garykevans.com/sample.html.

Thinking Totally Outside the (Recession) Box

This story from CBSNews.com is tremendous. In a nutshell, job loss and program cutbacks pushed this couple toward imminent danger of a downward financial spiral. So, they stepped totally out of their "normal" activities and started writing. Writing novels. Now, one year later they have sold over one million e-books, and one book has become a New York Times Bestseller!

CBS News Video

This is a great story of nerve, and willingness to move out of one's comfort zone.

Three Killer Questions in Interviews

Job interviews can be cordial, challenging, or chilling. In this latter category I offer three "killer" questions that can scuttle your prospects in a flash.  Be prepared.

If you do have a current job, your killer question will be the innocuous, "Why are you looking to change jobs?"

Yes, why indeed are you looking to leave your current job? Years ago I had one interviewee answer this with, "To be perfectly honest, my boss is a jerk." Not a confidence-building response. Don't do this. Never, ever be negative about your current job situation. You can say you want a change, or a bigger challenge. You can say you want more opportunity for advancement. You can say you want to pursue a career path you always wanted to follow.  But do not say you are unhappy about your job, your employer, or your colleagues. Why not? Because the person interviewing you will be thinking, "OK, this candidate is a whiner and has personal issues we do not want to bring on-board."  Always say you are pursuing a change to move to new possibilities, never that you are running from a bad situation.

If you are currently not working the chances are good you will be asked, "Why have you been out of work so long?"

Being out of work in this stagnant economy is not a stigma. But you will certainly stimulate some speculation if you have been out of work for more than the seasonally-adjusted, average unemployment duration which was 36.9 weeks as of May 2013, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the median unemployment duration is much less: only 17.3 weeks. The median measure indicates that one-half of all job seekers were out of work for up to 17 weeks before finding a job, and one-half were out of work for more than 17 weeks before finding a job.

Why is the average so much longer than the median? One answer is that many people stop looking while they live off unemployment benefits. Some people have drawn unemployment for up to 99 weeks. That's two years. The longer you are out of work the harder it will be to find a job, and the more a prospective employer might view you as a freeloader. It might not be fair, but it is what it is. If you are just at the beginning of your unemployment journey, focus your energies steadily and continually on job search. Use the process I describe in my book, Hired!, to deflect and overcome the discouragement that will inevitably come. Just keep looking - but be smart about how you look.

And whether you are or are not currently working, vacant time periods on your resume will bring the question, "What were you doing in these gaps between jobs on your resume?"

Today the job market is so convoluted that gaps in a resume are not an automatic disqualification. I spend quite a few pages in Hired! discussing how I have handled this issue with people I have assisted. (This blog entry goes more deeply into this topic.) Whatever the reasons for the gaps in your work history, be honest with the interviewer and turn the gap from a potential liability into an asset. If you have been filling-in your time with short-term or lower-paying jobs to make some money, explain that you took these jobs while continuing your job search. That will convey continuing initiative. If a job you took to tide you over is outside the area for which you are interviewing, explain that you did not list this job because it was not related to your job or career objective. Did you gain a skill, knowledge, or useful insight in the fill-in job? Then tell the interviewer how this "gap" has enabled you to benefit them better as an employee.

These three questions are simple, but potentially dangerous if you stutter or stammer, trying to think of how you will answer. Prepare ahead of your interview. In fact, prepare now because you might have a chance encounter tomorrow where someone might ask, "Really? What kind of work are you doing now?"

Dress for Success

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That is certainly true in a job interview. You can find dozens of books on the subject of dressing for corporate success. But we live in a very "casual" age, so it is not surprising that so many HR people have shared with me that too many job seekers today just don't "get it" when it comes to looking hireable.

I recently read an article by Brian Maynor (http://www.brianmaynor.com). Brian is a style coach and I want to share a few of his ideas for being properly clothed when you go on a job interview. I cover many of these and other in my book, Hired!, but Brian's suggestions are all spot-on. After all, this is his day job!

• Keep your main colors neutral and understated. Navy blue and middle-hue blues look good on most people. Be wary of distracting patterns and textures.
• Use contrasting colors sparingly. A vivid scarf or tie can bring your neutral colors to life. But don't be so aggressive with one, or multiple, "pop" colors that three weeks later the interviewer is talking about your color wheel and cannot remember your name or face.
• Be neat. Whatever you wear must be clean, pressed, properly fitting, and well-coordinated. Make sure your hair is clean, properly cut, and well-groomed. Shoes must be polished! Scuffed or worn shoes have power to totally downgrade your entire look.
• Jewelry should not shout! Smaller is better. Pendant earrings are not a good idea for either women or men. One ring on each hand is quite enough. Look at yourself as a stranger would see you. Check your hands, wrists, neck, ears, ankles, and toes for any jewelry that will be distracting or controversial. When you find a guilty culprit: leave it at home!

I will add to Brian's list a few of the clothing suggestions I have in Hired! :

• Do not wear cologne or perfume. Nada. Not even a smidgen. Many people have allergies to scents. What you think smells great might make your interviewer nauseous. Not a good scenario.
• Cover up or use makeup to conceal your tattoos (unless you are applying for a job in a bar). Remove all visible piercing jewelry. The interviewer is really not interested in your epidermal artwork.
• If you don't have an eye for color or style, ask a knowledgeable friend or family member to help. Let them review what is in your closet. If they can't find elements that work together, ask if they will go to the store and help you pick out the piece that will tie the others together. Be prepared to spend some money to assemble a professional look. It's an investment in your future.
• Ladies, the quickest path to not even finishing the interview, much less getting a job offer, is to wear clothing that is too tight, too short, too revealing, or just too provocative. In other words, "too anything." If you have any question about whether an item is "too anything," then it probably is.
• Being dressed "appropriately" is easy to grasp if you think of it this way: if you dress for your interview in the clothing you will wear on the job, then you are under-dressed for the interview. If you dress one level up from what you would wear if you work for them, you are dressed appropriately. For example, for a man, if the normal workday clothing is jeans and work boots (as in construction or trades), or just casual clothing (as in a shopping mall retail store) then one level up is a dress shirt and complementary tie, and chinos or Dockers slacks. If the workday rule is business casual (as in most office work) then one level up is a suit.

In summary, don't make your clothing the focus of your interview. Dress so the people you talk with are not distracted by what you are wearing. You are the one looking for a job, not your attire. The best choices are the ones that help people remember you, not what you wore.

It's About Them, Not You

I recently met a young man who had gone to the same school as my children. I learned he has been interviewing for a new job. He has gone to interviews with three companies but nothing seems to be happening. I asked about his approach. He said everything has been great in getting the interviews. They seem to go well, but then he gets the "We're just not sure there is a match reply.

I asked about what the interview discussions covered and a pattern immediately surfaced. When each interviewer asked him if he had any questions about the position he was applying for, this young man asked about benefits, vacation, profit sharing, 401k, and so forth. His fatal mistake was asking what the company can do to meet his self-interest.

But the company wants to know what HE can do for THEIR bottom line. Period.

Make yourself stand out in an interview by asking your interviewer questions like these: ask informed questions about the company, ask about what they value in their employees, and ask what you can do to help the company become more profitable.

Ask About the Company

Learn everything you can about the company: their services, their products, their market visibility, and their clients. Visit their website and read the pages other than the "Careers" page. Learn who runs the company, the company officers if they are a large corporation, and their company locations. Understand exactly what products and services are provided by the location where you are interviewing. When you show you are willing to do preparation like this, they will see you are willing to be thorough and informed, and that you are actually interested in them.

Ask About What They Value in Employees
You will always get some boilerplate answers: honesty, integrity, creativity and so forth. But you might get some other useful information as well: willingness to work long hours and weekends, willingness to travel 50% of the time, and so forth. This will tell you a lot about the management and company culture. When they state an attribute that aligns with your personality or skills, you can reply with a statement such as "I am glad to hear that. One of the areas I have focused on in all of my work is being sure I am always working on what will give the company the highest value." Reinforce what you can do to meet THEIR values.

Ask What You Can Do to Make Them More Profitable

You might have specific, valuable skills such as project management. But don't start by telling them what a good project manager you are. Ask them where the company needs additional or improved capabilities beyond what they have now. What are the company's plans to improve their bottom line over the next year? When you hear what THEIR plans are, you can then describe what you can to do help them achieve THEIR goals.

It's really simple, but too many job seekers fail to look at the job process from the company's perspective. And this is the only perspective that matters if a job offer is desired. The young man above fell into the trap of thinking his job search was first about him and his goals. These are important, of course, but getting to the offer requires convincing the company that you are the one who will help them meet THEIR goals. After we talked a bit he started to realize that his next task was to see job search from the other side.

Dinosaurs Don't Buy iPads

A bright note in May's jobs reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is that one sector of our economy is growing: construction. This is a big turnaround, driven by low mortgage interest rates and pent-up demand. But in January 2007 this sector tanked and pink slips were hemorraging throughout the U.S.

Which brings me to the issue of: what if your sector is dying, or hanging on only with life support? What do you do if "your job" is just not viable anymore? A prudent person recognizes that a dead-end is...a dead-end. So the prudent person changes direction, changes his or her thinking, changes his or her goal. In other words, a prudent person adapts.

Dinosaurs don't adapt. They didn't adapt...that's why they are called dinosaurs.

I write about this a lot in my book, Hired!. Let me explore the plight of the construction worker after 2007. Up until that date residential and commercial building was exploding in the U.S. housing bubble. Then the bottom dropped out of the U.S. and other national economies. Millions of U.S. construction workers were laid off. Some chose, or fell into, a period of living off government unemployment benefits. Some found sporadic construction work. Others found entirely new areas of work.

It is this latter group who will be the survivors in the coming years. Because they adapted. They did not limit themselves to thinking only "I do concrete" or "I do drywall." They were willing to accept that while their last job in construction required specific skills needed in the construction industry, they were not limited to that. Survivors see themselves as possessors of skills that can be applied in many, many areas, and do not limit themselves to thinking "I do this and only this."

But what of the others? What of the construction workers who did not find other positions, or fell into government welfare?

Perhaps no jobs were available. In some rural areas this is a real possibility. Or, perhaps jobs were available but they paid less than what the previous job paid. This is very probable. The dark underbelly of our pathetically slow, anemic jobs recovery is that the new jobs are primarily in service industries (a fancy way of saying "low-paying, fast-food and retail jobs"). Or, perhaps the worker discovered that government unemployment benefits pay even more than working. This has been a rational economic decision for many people. Everyone will choose the biggest income option of those available. But, there is a dark side to the upside of unemployment welfare: the longer you are out of work, the more difficult it will be to find a new job. It is a depressing dilemma.

After a prolonged period of unemployment one does become a dinosaur. The stigma, the loss of existing skills, the inability to obtain new skills eventually can be fatal as one fails to adapt, and merely adopts a passive posture. Dinosaurs don't buy iPads. They don't change. They don't learn. They don't adapt to new realities. That is why they are not here today.

A new reality in the construction industry is that it is opening a whole set of employment opportunities that have not been around for five years. Perhaps this is a time you can return to this industry. Perhaps you have never worked in construction, but it could be a worthy area to explore. You don't have to know how to frame a roof. Construction companies needs administrative office help, inventory, procurement, accounting and contract sourcing help.

Adapt. It's all about whether you are willing to think outside your old title or job name, and adapt.

Resumé Remedies

Let's assume you have read my book, Hired!, and you have followed the Four-Step process I describe there. That means

1. You have identified the skills or knowledge you have to offer a potential employer
2. You have identified the companies you want to contact, who will benefit from hiring you
3. You have made a first contact with one or more of these candidate companies

And now it is time to move to Step Four: Get to Know Each Other.

Getting to know each other means having a meaningful, planned interaction with a view of a possible job relationship. This interaction is normally a formal interview, but the interview is usually preceded by a presentation of your job qualifications in a written resumé. And the resumé is one of the major tollgates that can scuttle your job search in a digital heartbeat.  Here are some of the resumé factors I discuss in Hired! about making your resumé presentable and readable.

Fonts

One font is sufficient, and don't use more than two fonts in your resumé. Make sure these fonts are complementary. Serif fonts like Georgia or Palatino Linotype are easier to read and look better on a computer screen than a non-serif font like Arial or Verdana. I admonish you not to use Times New Roman. It may be the default font in Microsoft Word, but Times New Roman is not the best font for on-screen display. Keep your font size at 10 or 12 point. You may have great eyesight, but going smaller than 10 point will make your printed resumé difficult to read for a visually challenged reader. Going larger than 12 point will simply convey the impression that you are trying to be cute or fill empty space.

File Format

You may use Microsoft Word, but not everyone does. If you submit a resumé via an e-mail attachment the safest format is one that is available on all the major computer operating environments of Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. The best cross-platform file format is Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format). You can buy a program to convert your resumé to PDF format. Your computer or word processor may already provide a way to output the PDF format. If not, you can search the Internet for free conversion programs compatible with your operating environment.

Plain Text Version

You may need to submit your resumé directly in an email rather than in an attached PDF file. Or you may need to paste your resumé into an input field on a company's Careers web page. The latter situation will probably strip out all your resumé formatting, and the former scenario may result in a plain-text delivery to the recipient e-mail address which also means your formatting will be removed. So, to assure that your resumé layout still looks good, prepare a plain-text version of your resumé. On Windows you can start by pasting your resumé into Notepad! You will lose bold text, and all words will be in the same font. Insert blank lines to offset headings, change the width of your Notepad window and make sure the word-wrap does not result in distortions of the layout. When you get it the way you want it, Save it so you will have it ready when needed.

Naming Your Resumé

HR people have told me that a common resumé submittal mistake is that the candidate submits a file titled "Resume.docx." How is an HR person, or a hiring manager, going to find your resume with a generic name like that?  Put your full name in the name of your resumé file: "Resume of Gary K. Evans.docx."

Your E-mail Address

The last major mistake people make is to submit their resumé by e-mail from a totally non-professional address. Get an innocuous e-mail address from which you will send your electronic resumés. An address of "tootiredtopayattention@hotmail.com" will be an instant turn-off, as will "UFGatorman@yahoo.com." Use an e-mail address with your real name, and don't make it cute. You are looking for a professional position, not rushing a fraternity or sorority.

Defeating Discouragement

I have been inactive for a few weeks. Four weeks ago I broke 4 bones in my face playing soccer (but the striker did not score!). During my recovery I admit I have had some moments of discouragement. I am not healing as quickly as I wish. I am totally inactive and feel like a slug. I know I will be back on the field eventually, but as I reflected on my own discouragement I thought of how many job seekers are now discouraged to the point of just giving up.

Last Friday the March 2013 U.S. employment figures were released and they are dismal. What struck me profoundly in these statistics is the number of people who have just stopped looking for a job. And, in case you are not aware, if you are not looking you are not counted as unemployed. Think of that: if all 23 million unemployed and underemployed just stopped looking the unemployment rate would fall to zero! And the government would claim total vindication of its policies. Well, as it has been said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Discouragement is erosive. It feeds upon itself. It becomes the focus of your mind...until you decide to focus on the POSSIBLE.

Is it possible that your difficulty stems from looking in the same, wrong place over and over? Is it possible that you are appealing to the wrong gate-keeper?

What I am referring to is Human Resources (HR). One of the main themes in my book, Hired!, is how and why to avoid HR at all costs. Let me explain why.

First, the role of HR is not to find a job for you. The central function of HR is to assure corporate alignment and compliance with Federal, State and other regulatory requirements regarding their current employees.

Second, the other role of HR is to eliminate you as a job applicant. When I was a hiring manager my own experience with corporate HR was occassionally adversarial, and too often confrontational. They would not bring me candidates with the skills I needed, and sometimes fought me tooth-and-nail when I wanted an offer made to a candidate.

Third, when you follow the conventional approach of filling out a web application form or paper form, that application is fielded first by HR. In the case of web applications there is now usually a digital tool that scans your application for keywords, and HR people have fallen into looking just for keyword matches rather than actually reading your application, which takes too much time for them to do. And, when you consider that in today's job market a company may receive fifty to a hundred applications or resumes in a single day, you can appreciate why they would cut every corner they can.

Last, when you follow the conventional approach you are joining dozens or hundreds of other persons following the same approach of appealing to a nameless, faceless entity you cannot contact until they contact you - if they ever do. You stand a very good chance of being lost in the crowd.

Is it possible that this is the situation which is causing you discouragement?

Your only options are a) stop looking entirely, which I certainly do not recommend, or b) pursue a different path, a new path of possibilities. I do not have space to go into detail about these other paths in this blog entry, but here are some ideas to consider:

1. Start your own contract business. I discuss how to go about this at the end of Hired!

2. Contact every temporary agency in your area. Pursue temporary opportunities in the area you have been working, and in other related areas so you can broaden your job history and prepare yourself for new job opportunities.

3. Personally seek out hiring managers in companies you would like to work for, and let them bring in their HR after the manager has first talked to you. This can be as simple as walking into a retail business and asking to speak with a department manager, or it can be as involved as asking for referrals from business contacts in your life. I found a client by asking my dentist if he had any patients running financial or medical businesses. He gave me a name and number, I called and said I was referred by Dr. Jones, and that conversation led to another that led to an engagement.

4. Read all of your local business magazines. Look for the names of "People on the Move" and call them. Tell them you saw the announcement of their promotion on the magazine. They will be flattered. After all these magazines are really "vanity" publications. People call the magazine to put these announcement into the publication just for the purpose of marketing their promotion, award, or accomplishment.

5. Follow TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines to get names of anyone who is already employed in a decision-making capacity in any business or industry you want to work in. Call them. Call the company's main number and ask the receptionist to connect you with them. If you get a voicemail announcement do not leave a message, and if you are really lucky the person's voicemail will give you their direct extension so you can bypass the receptionist on the next attempt. In Hired! I give examples of how to introduce yourself in 10 seconds. I did this for years in my business. It really is not difficult to get past the initial anxiety!

There are so many ways to do job search differently than you might be thinking. Is it possible for you to stretch a bit and try something totally new? Of course it is. Think about it, write down a little plan, and get started. If you mess up the first few calls that is part of learning. But you won't get any learning until you start!

Dressing for Your Job Interview

The phrase "dress appropriately" is easy to grasp if you think of it this way: if you dress for your interview in the clothing you will wear on the job, then you are under-dressed for the interview. If you dress one level up from what you would wear if you work for them, you are dressed appropriately.

For example, for a man, if the normal workday clothing is jeans and work boots (as in construction or trades), or just casual clothing (as in a shopping mall retail store) then one level up is a dress shirt and complementary tie, and chinos or Dockers slacks.

If the workday rule is business casual (as in most office work) then one level up is a suit.
The only exception to "one level up" is if the workday attire is a suit (as in more formal office environments). In this case you just need to wear a suit—not a tuxedo!—for your interview.

Guys, make sure your hair and facial hair is trimmed, your shoes are polished, and do not wear any cologne, after-shave, or scented hair-gel. Many people are very sensitive to various scents, and what you think smells wonderful could make your interviewer nauseous. You don't want to be turned out of the interview right after you walk in.

If you are a woman applying for a professional or management position, wear a neutral- or darker-color suit and high heels. If you are applying for a retail or any customer-facing position you have an almost infinite number of options from dresses to pant suits, and from high-heels to low-heels. Make sure your shoes are polished, and please do not wear any perfume! None! Not even a smidgen! Remember your make-up may have a perfumed scent in it.

Ladies, the quickest path to not even finishing the interview, much less getting a job offer, is to wear clothing that is too tight, too short, too revealing, or just too provocative. In other words, "too anything." If you have any question about whether an item is "too anything," then it probably is.

Body Ornamentation

Body adornment is common today in the under-30 age group, but most office or retail environments are focused on their clients and customers, not on your epidermal artwork. Unless you are applying for a job in a tattoo parlor, or as a bouncer in a Rave club, cover all of your tattoos with clothing or concealment-grade makeup. Remove all piercing jewelry. Women can still wear pierced ear rings, but both men and women should remove every other visible piercing.

Dealing with Job Gaps in Your Resumé

All potential employers look for evidence of job stability and progress in a candidate. But not everyone has a continuous job history. In these turbulent times, employment gaps are no longer the stigma they were in earlier, more economically stable times. Since job gaps are impossible to hide in the recommended reverse chronological resumé format, you need to think carefully about how to handle these on your resumé.

I know a woman who made a number of spectacularly bad decisions in her young adult life. As a result she did not have a continual working history. She had some very large gaps between the jobs that she could safely list on her resumé. How did she resolve this so potential employers would not immediately toss her resumé into the trash?

We talked about what was going on in her life during these times, and what her current goals were. She had resolved to get her life back on track even if she had to start in entry-level jobs until she learned new skills. So, we recast her sparse resumé to focus on the jobs she had held successfully and the accomplishments she could honestly talk about in an interview. For the three-year period when she was not working, we simply stated "Out of job market." No explanation of why, no spin to make up some justification—just an honest statement that between date X and date Y she was not working.

Why was this a good decision? Remember that the purposes of the resumé are to create interest in you as a candidate and as a person, and to lead to a face-to-face interview. Stating "Out of the job market" was both accurate and honest. The reader would perceive that she did not try to hide the gap. Now it was guaranteed to be one of the first areas explored during a face-to-face interview, so she just needed to be properly prepared to answer that inevitable question. If you have gaps in your job history, be honest and list them. And be prepared to give an explanation when you get your interview.

Technology - Threat or Asset?

If you were to choose a new career to pursue, would you pick elevator operator, or travel agent, or typewriter repair person? I doubt it, because each of these occupations, and dozens of others, have fallen prey to the relentless advance of technology. And the pace of this replacement is only increasing, which is not a happy story for people who have lost their employment in jobs becoming obsolete, or in declining industries. In a word, technology is replacing the need for people.

This almost seismic shift is slamming the middle-class in a double whammy. First is the loss of jobs because computers and machinery are taking over the repetitive and computational tasks that were done manually a generation ago. The second insult is highlighted by the continual government reports for the past 3 years that a) the economy is improving and b) millions of new jobs have been created as a result of government intervention. Regardless of your political persuasion the reality of these newly created jobs is this: they are primarily in the service sectors and pay well below the middle-class jobs that were lost through the recession that seems unwilling to loose its hold on the U.S. and the Western world. A recent Associated Press article reports that half of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the "Great Recession" paid middle-class wages between $38,000 and $68,000. Yet only two percent of the 3.4 million jobs gained since then are in the same pay ranges.

For the job seeker this means at least three things:

• Learn technology. If you can learn to use technology you can turn a loss into a gain. If you job is replaced by a computer or machine, then someone is going to have to install, operate, service, and design that device. History is replete with job loss, and with complementary job gain. The printing press eliminated manual scribes, yet hundreds of new jobs and sub-industries were created to support this new machine, which enabled unthought-of volume of production.

• Learn what cannot be mechanized. The job category of office secretary was decimated by the advent of the word processor. But in the hands of one who is ignorant of grammar, vocabulary, and communication skill, a computer is simply a device for producing vast pages of indeciperable or misleading gibberish. Computers let us communicate faster; they do not make us communicators. Skill in writing and speaking are tipping points in the team-oriented work environments of today. If you possess these skills, you possess an attribute that will weigh strongly in your favor in a job competition.

• Examine the encroachment of technology into your job area. Just think about your own experience in your everyday life. How often today do you you call a business and hear a human answer? Less and less often. We all hate Voice Recognition systems that "know" what we are speaking but it is simply a fact that these are cheaper than a receptionist. Read the industry magazines for your current job area. Read the industry magazines for the job areas you think you might want to move into. Pay attention to success stories of new technology introductions. Do not skip over the technology advertisements: these are the forewarnings of the shift away from people. When I was studying for my engineering degree I worked nights and weekends as a mechanic in a local gasoline station. I loved reading "Service Station Owner" and other trade magazines because they taught me new diagnostic skills that helped me pay for my education, and every issue had at least one article about a new device or automobile advancement using technology.

None of this news is encouraging. The future is not hopeless, but the future is changing. A prudent person will continually and carefully scrutinize the economic landscape, weighing the discomfort of moving to a new and hopefully growing career area against the comfortable - but possibly dead-end - choice of remaining in a declining job area until that area just disappears. My recurring theme in my book, Hired!, and in this blog is that I hope you will choose these life-changes on your terms and on your schedule rather than being hostage to external events that always come at the worst possible time.

Living Without Reserve (Funds)

A recent headline from the Associated Press laments that almost half of U.S. households are living paycheck to paycheck with less than 3 months of living expenses in reserve. This is a precarious position. I have been there myself and I will never forget the vulnerability I felt as a young, itinerant road musician, wondering when the next unmanageable expense would descend on me.

In my book I discuss this dilemma at some length including how to manage medical expenses during a period of unemployment. Here I will offer some additional comments on what to do if you are in this situation, and an amazinly simple technique to avoid being in if you have not yet fallen into this trap.

If you are out of work, or were unemployed previously and have not rebuilt a new financial buffer, you must start building that buffer now. This means that you first start with cutting your expenses. You may not have control over your current income, or even some of your mandatory expenses such as housing or a car payment, but you have control over other discretionary expenses. And you may not realize you have some control over your housing and car payments, too.

A young couple I talked with recently has no money set aside and no credit, but they have a passable income when the man's hours are not reduced. However, the tires on their sole automobile will need replacing in about ten thousand miles, and their washer and dryer are showing their age. Their comment was, "We don't have any money, how can we save anything for an emergency?"

They were so close to their choices they did not see the choices they had made, or the options available to them. They were spending about $5 each day on cigarettes, which is $150 each month, or $1,800 per year on this habit. Additionally, they were spending a bit over $100 each month on broadband Internet and cable. Rather than make lunch at home, the man was spending about $7 a day on food at his workplace. With 22 workdays in a month, lunch was costing another $150 per month. So, in just these areas they were spending $400 per month on cigarettes, cable and lunch-out. They have control over these expenses. Even if they cut these costs only by half, this would save them $200 each month. And a couple months of these savings will pay for a decent set of tires in the near future.

At some point it is prohibitively difficult to further reduce expenses, but most people have lots of fat they can trim away. As a personal reference point I can share that I would love a brand-new pickup. I bought one once - twenty years ago. Of the very few other vehicles I have owned in my entire life, that was the only new vehicle I ever purchased. My wife and I agreed to buy used cars and put the saved money into college funds for the children. It's just a matter of priorities.

If you are working but do not have the recommended six months of essential living expenses set aside, do not wait another day. Start somewhere, start anywhere. But start today. My wife and I started with $25 every two-week paycheck. When I got my first raise, we bumped our savings to $50 every two-week paycheck. We adopted that most exquisite of financial success plans: "Pay Yourself First". We still follow that plan over 30 years later.

Take the Job or Keep Searching?

You are desperate to find work. An opportunity appears but it pays less than your previous job, and barely enough to cover your expenses. Do you take the job? Do you pass on it and keep looking? What should you do? This is a decision each of us must struggle with, but here are some observations that may help your decision.

If you take the lower-paying, available job you will have less time each week to look for the better job. Some job counselors say a job hunter should not take a lesser position, but should allocate all of their time looking for that "best" job. In my humble opinion that is a very reasonable strategy in a growing economy. But our economy is barely holding its own in some sectors, and you have to evaluate if having some money coming in is preferable in the short-term to having none coming in. If you can get income for 20-30 hours per week that will

• Give you income for those hours, and
• Allow you time for continuing your search for that "best" job.

How do you find 20 or 30 hours of work if the economy is bad? One answer is that the hiring of full-time workers is suffering but there are relatively more opportunities for part-time workers. So if you are approaching a company about part-time work you are not competing against full-time workers and you might find your goal more accessible.  Additionally, if you have specific skills you can look into contracting for those 20-30 hours. This might raise your anxiety if you have never followed a contracting model, but engaging with temporary employment agencies is an excellent scenario to consider. They do the marketing, find the clients you can provide services for, and handle all of the payroll issues. And these temp jobs often turn into long-term or permanent positions.

Unemployment Benefits?

But what if you are receiving unemployment assistance from your state government? If you take a job won't you lose that income, and possibly be no better off working than if you just stayed on unemployment? If you take a part-time job you will have to start paying for gasoline to travel to work, maybe buy lunch every day, and won't you have other expenses that will make working a losing proposition?

You have to make your own decisions: financial, moral and otherwise. But the reality is that it is easier to find a job if you already have a job, even a part-time job. Put simply the longer you are out of work, the harder it is to be offered a job.

And consider this scenario from a potential employer's perspective. You apply for a position and you are asked, "Where are you working now?" Scenario A: You reply, "I am working at XYX Company." Scenario B: You reply, "I am not working right now."  Big difference in how you might be perceived, don't you think?

In scenario A the employer's next question will be "Why are you looking to leave XYZ?" and you can be honest that you are looking for a more challenging position, more hours, more stability, and so forth.

In scenario B the employer's next question will be "How long have you been out of work?" There is really no way to build a win-win in this conversation. Perception is reality in job search, and if you are looking for work you will be best perceived if you are currently working, even part-time.

Be open to different models of employment. Something is better than nothing, even if your "lesser" choice is just to get by the next couple months. Think critically about what is best for you and your loved ones. Holding out for the "best" situation may not be the best choice right now. Do the math, and remind yourself that everything can change in the next two weeks, or two days.

The Jobs Are Out There

In this first month of 2013 the United States economy is still showing some mixed signals about recovery from our recession that began at the end of 2007. One of the recurring themes in my book is that the future of your personal economy can be different from that of our national economy. Jobs are available. The challenge is overcoming the barriers that separate you from them.

Job search takes commitment, time, effort, and creativity. Another theme I emphasize is that it also requires a reasonable and flexible plan. If you randomly go through the unconnected activities that so many people think is how you are supposed to look for a job, you might be lucky and stumble on an opportunity. But more likely you will just burn up time and money and remain unemployed.

I share a four step process in my book that gives you a road map for building an effective job search plan, and organizing the activities that will lead to a new job:

• Identify honestly what skills and traits you can offer a prospective employer.
• Focus on a small number of job areas that interest you and align with your skills and personality traits.
• Make initial contact with companies that are compatible with the intersection of your skills and interests.
• Be prepared to market yourself credibly in a face-to-face interview, and "close the sale."

My book goes into extensive detail about each of these process steps, but if you are looking for a new job now please keep these realities in mind:

• Companies that are laying off in one area may be hiring in another.
• Your skills and experience are a solution to a problem some companies needs solved.
• Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. workforce have given up looking for work. This is tragic but it means you have less competition.
• There are signs of slow recovery in housing and other depressed industries, and 
• The Dow Jones Transportation Index is up sharply in the last two months of 2012 which means companies are shipping more products.

Accept that discouragement is a normal part of the landscape of job search. Be prepared to confront it and focus on the positive. After my own job loss I kept replaying the same thought to myself, "If I give up I will never find a new job. If I give up then someone else who keeps persevering will get the job I could have had. If I just keep looking, I will find something; it's just a matter of time."

Give yourself time to plan and execute your job search, but don't assume you have time to wait. There is someone out there who is hungrier than you for that job, and they won't be quitting.

Hungry to Succeed

I was teaching a technical course at Walt Disney World a couple years ago. I shared a lunchtime with some Disney workers, who are called "cast members" at Disney, not employees. Three of these cast members were from India. Our discussion focused on technology and I said that I was disturbed that so many American students know how to use technology but do not know how it works. I mentioned that American enrollment in engineering and science peaked almost 20 years ago and most of the students now in these curricula were non-American. Then one of the Indian cast members quietly said, "That's because they are not hungry."

I believe she is right. All three of them concurred that they had spent 12-15 hours a day in their school studies. The competition is fierce in India. Social advancement is predicated on education, and these three were not unusual. They were representative of the simple fact that they are indeed hungry and willing to work to reach their goals.

In job search the same hungry drive is required. The best way to feed this hunger is to plan, execute, and evaluate your search.

Plan each day the night before. You will not have time to do this in the morning as you try to get yourself or your family started on their day's activities. Write down your plan for the day in a little notebook or your smart phone. Don't think you can keep it in your head. Sloppy planning makes for sloppier execution.

Execute your plan. Have tangible, measurable milestones: you did or did not make those phone calls; you did or did not revise your resume; you did or did not go into a business to introduce yourself to one of the managers. If you cannot measure your activities, you will not be able to manage those activities. If you cannot complete your day's plan, add those remaining items into your nighttime planning session. Be realistic: make sure you have the time and capacity to actually achieve what is on your plan. Successfully executing 3 items on your plan is much more important than have 30 unachievable items on it.

Evaluate your results. Are you meeting the goals of your plan? Are you trending in the right direction? Are you getting demonstrated interest from the companies you are contacting?  If you cannot answer Yes to all of these, then you need to ruthlessly examine what you doing and change it. Do not continue doing the same things and wishing for different results - it won't happen. Wishing is not a plan and hoping is not a strategy. You should not only be willing to change your plan, you should insist on doing so if you have gone 2 weeks without any positive feedback. Digging a deeper trench where you don't find anything of value is not progress...it's a rut.

Excuse My Excuses

Years ago I received a favorable email about an article on my technical website. The article was an encouragement and warning to stay up to date on new technology so that one's skills do not atrophy. But the reader ended his note saying, "But some of us don't have time to pursue this learning outside our work day. Some of us have families and children." I cannot print the slash and burn words that went through my mind, but I calmly replied to him that I had two children under the age of 8, and after they went to bed the rest of the evening was available for anything I chose to invest with my attention. He was free to choose TV; I chose C++ programming and software architecture. It's about choices, but I will not support anyone's right to make excuses.

This little vignette has everything to do with job security and job search. Every decision has consequences both intended and unintended. There are 8,760 hours in each year this Earth travels around the Sun. How are you choosing to spend the hours of your life?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm) in June 2012 that Americans over the age of 15 spend roughly 3 hours each day watching television. That's 1/8th of each 24 hour day, or a stunning 1/5th of each waking day. And this does not include the time watching Hulu on your iPhone, or your computer time on Facebook.

The top-line (the income line) of this is that you and I and everyone has a fixed amount of time in each day. Some of us have unavoidable obligations that eat into our available time. But are you using the remaining time productively to enhance your current and future job options?

• Listen to audio books while you drive
• Always carry a relevant magazine or book in your vehicle or briefcase for idle moments in the dentist's office, waiting for a friend to show at lunch, etc.
• Don't visit Facebook or tweet all day
• Read a book on current ideas in your job area
• Turn off the TV one hour a day (the TV cannot give you a job)

The ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, said, "The unexamined live is not worth living." Think carefully about your 8,760 hours each year, and start eliminating even an hour a day of waste. It will pay dividends for many years.

Resolutions for a New Year

No one wakes on New Year's Day and says, "My goal this year is to get laid off!" But this could happen to any of us. So a good Resolution might be to prepare yourself - just in case.

Here is a little rubric I use to help people organize their thinking to prepare for the unwanted eventuality of a layoff:

1. Make yourself positive: Above all, don't whine about what you don't like at work. Don't build yourself up by putting others down. Don't talk about yourself, talk about the value of the team.

2. Make yourself valuable: Don't be a clock watcher. Volunteer for new assignments. Observe the successful people in your organization and emulate what they do. If you cannot figure out why they are succeeding, ask them - they may be happy to talk about what they have learned to be more valuable employees.

3. Make yourself the "go to" person: Helping others is real job security. Aim to be one of the best in your job position and share your knowledge liberally with others. They will be the best marketing investment you ever make.

4. Learn more skills for your current job: If you can do five things for your employer but someone else can only do one or two, you are in a much better position to survive a layoff.

5. Learn skills in a new job area: Is there something you would like to learn that would improve your current job? For example, some computer programmers try to learn about project management or requirements specification. Neither is directly part of programming, but these new skills make them better programmers and more valuable employees.

6. Learn something to amaze your employer: Think outside your job box a bit. Add a "deal sweetner" to your skill set. Join Toastmasters and become comfortable speaking in public. Learn Spanish and this could be a tipping factor in almost any job. Study introductory accounting or budgeting and your knowledge of tracking money will open doors everywhere.