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- 61
- CPR for a Lifeless Job Search
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- A job campaign must make progress to stay alive. If you feel that your forward
- movement has dissipated or derailed, you must take action to rejuvenate your
- search. The ideas that follow can be used in any order --the key is to TAKE
- ACTION!
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- Revisit your goals. Are they still accurate? If not, rethink them, write
- them down and tape them over your mirror for review every morning.
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- Revisit stale contacts. The wheels of hiring turn slowly, and you can make
- false assumptions about how things are going. Find a reason to be in touch
- with contacts every other week. Clip an article of interest and mail it
- with a note. Invite a contact to attend a professional meeting or to hear
- a speaker with you. Share information that you have uncovered that might
- be of interest to one or more of your contacts. If it has been more than
- three weeks since you touched base with a contact, you need to do it ASAP.
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- Build your network. The average person knows over 200 people. Rank them as
- A, B, and C contacts. Think about who they work with, who they know
- professionally, what organizations they might be in, and what they might
- know. Find out what industries are looking for and examine your
- transferable skills. Set up a brief meeting or breakfast meeting and GO!
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- Use the "buddy system". Team up with another job seeker and prod each
- other to do the tougher tasks of the job search. Making follow up phone
- calls can be accomplished more easily with a "challenge" between two job
- seekers. Reward yourselves after getting several hot prospects.
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- Stay on top of the "formal" job market. As part of your regular weekly
- routine, check the job listings in newspapers, professional journals, job
- hot lines, library databases, and other local means of posting positions.
- Don't forget that many the different online computer services have
- different job openings posted.
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- Review your letters. Take copies of your letters to a local job search
- resource or compare them to letter models found in job search books or
- online through IEN. Letters receive a 10 second glance that determines
- whether they will be read further. You want your letters read!
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- Contact key leaders in your industry. In any industry, there are "gurus"
- who know what is going on locally as well as nationally, who seem to have
- an endless rolodex, who literally function as a "clearinghouse" of
- information for both job seekers and companies who are hiring. These
- people are frequently past presidents of local professional organizations
- but they could be anyone at any level. As you network, keep asking the
- question, "If you were in my shoes, who would you be talking to?"
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- Get organized. Use a binder and a filing system, set up "tickler" files,
- track phone calls so that you can follow up without pestering, etc. Select
- a system and use it.
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- Assemble your "consultants". Don't suffer alone--gather some friends and
- host a brainstorming session. Concisely review what you have done to date
- and ask for input. Get some ideas out on the table. They will enjoy
- helping and you will get a fresh look at your search.
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- !
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