Changing Your Job Search- Making Yourself A Must Hire! Part I

Lately, I have been talking to people who are out of work and have been for a long time. Being unemployed is one of the scariest things that can happen in our lives, and lately it is happening to so many people. The current unemployment rate is holding at 10%, but I think that if that number took into consideration the people who have completely given up on finding a new job, it would be almost double that.

The one thing that all of the unemployed people I have spoken with have in common (aside from the lack of a job) is that they all feel frustrated and helpless. They have been applying for jobs left and right, and not even getting an interview or a call back. They have applied for jobs that they are qualified for, some that they aren't quite qualified for and even the ones that they are severely over qualified for; still no results. The stress of trying to pay their bills and take care of their family is wearing down their will and it is hard for friends and family members who aren't in this position to even try to understand. There is this stigma attached to being unemployed, friends think that you must not be trying hard enough, that if you really were looking you would find something. Many friends and even family members will try to avoid the unemployed person, thinking that they don't want to get too close because that person will probably ask them for help. Unemployment isn't contagious. I think the reason that people avoid their unemployed friends is that if they were to accept the fact that being out of work doesn't mean that you are a bad employee or a lazy person with no ambition, they would have to accept the corollary fact. Which is, unemployment can happen to anyone, anywhere, without any sort of notice.

You may have been at you job for 20 years. You may not have even taken as much as a sick day, and one day, just like all the others, you show up to work 15 minutes early, work all day and get a notice that the company is laying off a large number of employees, and you're going to be one of them. So what do you do?

Well, first, you scramble around trying to find out if there are any other companies in your field who are hiring. Maybe they are, so you send out a round of resumes. You feel confident that this is just a minor setback and it won't take long to find a new job. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. You needed a change of pace. “It won't be too bad,” you think, “we'll just cut back a little and dip into the savings. It will hurt, but we'll get through it.”

And those wonderful positive thoughts help you get through the next month or two. You've applied for job after job, and still no results. The positive energy starts to fade, and your support group of friends and family start to become more distant. Your marriage or relationship starts to feel the strain, and your finances are getting worse and worse. There comes a point where you are working as hard as you can, but you still aren't getting anywhere. You find yourself feeling desperate and wondering what you can do to make things better.

The truth of the matter is that you really can't make more jobs by wishful thinking, but you can decide to scrap the way you have been going about looking for a job, and start trying something different. So much has changed in the way that employees hire in the past few years that it is a challenge just to keep up. With so many people applying for possible job openings, it is more important than ever to make yourself stand out. Being out of work for a long time isn't your fault. The job market is tough and even armed with the best techniques, it is still difficult. That being said, why not try a completely new tactic to see if it can raise your odds of finding a new job.

In Part II of this article, I will give you some steps for changing your job search tactics.

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