If you count discouraged workers—those who have given up looking for a job—about one in seven American adults are unemployed, not the one in 13 contained in the official unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, released today.
It’s easy to be discouraged in an economy that is losing upwards of half a million jobs a month. At the same time, hiring never drops to zero. What if you don’t have the luxury of waiting for a more welcoming job market? What if the only way you are going to keep body and soul together is to get to work?
That's what I asked Ed McEneny, a longtime professional employment counselor for a large, nationwide firm that shows the laid off, the underemployed, and the never-employed how to increase their chances of getting where they want to go. Here's his take on what it takes:
• Yes, getting a job is tougher today, but people are getting offers. One thing hasn’t changed, no matter what’s happening in the economy: The harder you work, the luckier you get.
• Don’t let your spouse or your mom or your former colleague tell you there are no jobs out there. "Let the market tell you whether it has a place for you," Ed says. You won’t know the answer until you’ve spent some quality time in the job-search.
• Several Web sites and books will give you the basics of job-hunt behavior—a top-notch resume vs. any old resume; using the Internet to do focused, rather than scattershot, job research; preparing for tough interview questions—as well as provide moral support and tips from others in your situation. To start, you could check out the venerable “What Color is Your Parachute?” as well as The Riley Guide and CareerJournal.
• Tell everyone you know that you’re looking for a job, and be specific about the fields you’re targeting and the skills you’re offering. You’re not asking people for a job, you’re telling them what you’re up to in case they have advice or they know someone who knows someone whose business may need a person with your skills. Such networking is the most effective form of job-hunting--better than on-line listings, career fairs, headhunters, etc. Passive job-hunting (emailing a resume to an online ad) is rarely enough. How many times have you heard: “I sent out a hundred resumes and I didn’t get even one interview!”
• Don’t limit your networking to people in your line of work. Tell everyone—your neighbor, your cousin, your book club—what you’re looking for. Remember, six degrees of separation.
• Don’t limit your networking to conversations, either. Volunteer, which will widen your contacts, keep you active in the world, and perhaps let you show off your skills or further develop a dormant set of skills. Join Toastmasters. Yes, even in the era of email and YouTube, maybe especially in the era of email and YouTube, sharpening your face-to-face communication style and your critical-thinking skills is important. They will help you get the interview, make a good impression in the interview, make you more effective in your next workplace, and widen your network.
You’ve done it all, for as long as you can, and you haven’t gotten the kind of job you're looking for? Go to the sidelines, Ed says, and get a job (or two) that pays the bills while you wait for your field to open up again or while you retool for a field with better prospects.
Whether you’re employed or not, don’t stop networking. In an era when the average adult will change jobs more than 10 times, job-hunting is not just for the unemployed. If you keep yourself out there in the relevant professional organizations, if you make it a point to stay educated and current in your field, if you maintain your connections, it will be that much easier to land on your feet, no matter what happens.
His years of advising the unemployed have sharpened Ed's definition of job security: "Your skills, plus your ability to get your next job."
This market is a wake-up call for all of us, unemployed or not.
2 comments:
Theresa~
Great Blog on a pertinent topic. The dynamic restructuring of America's prefessional arena is changing lives across many lands (and oceans). The compounded fall-out of real estate markets, banks and Fortune 500 companies will cause a ripple effect for the months and probably years to come.
What will we Americans learn from this? Some may learn nothing as Americans are great at living with blinders on. However, there is a select population who will live through these happenings and bring forth a level of intellect that will cause future generations to be more enlightened beings with a stronger sense of cause and effect.
As a small business owner, I would like to believe that these current happenings are a temporary hiccup in our financial progression; but something tells me the learning lesson imbedded in all this goes much deeper and closer to the core.
On a recent trip to Los Cabos, Mexico, I read their local newspapers and learned that they had just 'raised' the minimum wage to the equivelant of $1450 US Dollars PER YEAR, Yes annual salary. What does this mean? Well, it is apparent that Mexico is dealing with corruptions and infrastructure issues that are supressing its people. However, with a comparable postition in America paying 50 times that amount or more, I have to scratch my head and think what a Global issue this is - lets not leave out India, China and other countries we choose to build our stuff, cause their cheaper.
While I don't have the solution for our paranoid job market, I do know this: There are always people (and companies) that thrive under pressure and recession/depression. I think its safe to say we're here - so to seek out companies that are showing growth, leasing space, and posting profits is a smart idea. When these jobs are all filled, we'd better brush up on survival skills. You'll find me fishing from a panga in the ocean, trading Pargo and Grouper for other bare necessities.
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