If You Want a Job You Have to Do the Work

In an earlier post, I talked about doing the work in planning your career.  If you are unemployed and looking for a job, you need to be able to answer the question if you are doing the work that it takes.  It is tough out there but not impossible to find a job.  But it takes consistent effort to conduct a focused, strategized job search campaign.  It starts with knowing who you are – your skills sets – and how they will relate to a potential job and organization.  Time and again, and it is more recently, that I hear clients wanting results but not willing to do the work it takes.  It seems they want to circumvent the process and get instant results.  Often, their expectations are behind the times – they do not understand how the new work-world is operating, which means they are not aware of how to go about finding a job to “fit” into this new world.

I am a vanilla type of person, which means I believe in the basics of most activities.  You need to understand and operate on some tried and true practices and then you can add the flavors, so to speak later.  I operate on the four steps to career management: assessment, of both self and organizations/industry; setting goals; developing action steps; and then creating a feedback system on how your job search activites are working.  This is where the work comes in, particularly with the assessement part.  If you don’t know your skill sets and benefits, or they type of job you want, don’t bother searching for a job or you will become frustrated and become unmotivated to continue.  The other half of the equation is researching who hires for your particular skills and experiences and then learning more about those organizations to understand their culture, products/services or economic stability; looking at the state of the industry you want to work in; researching salary ranges; and any other type of information that would help you decide and focus on the direction you want to go.

Until you do this work, you will spin your wheels and delay becoming employed.  Noone can help you do this part – it is all up to you.  Doing the work on the front end will help you to better understand yourself, the direction you want to go, and help you to feel more focused and confident to continue on the daily journey and land the job you want.