Finding a Job is a Roller Coaster Ride

We’ve all been in the same position, either we’re looking for a job or we have a job and might be looking for one in the future, or we’re maybe hiring people, and the challenge of acing an interview is always a question I am asked a lot, especially among people who are fairly new to their career and are looking for jobs or maybe moving up in their job.

There’s always a question of what do I do, how do I get ready for a job interview, what can I expect in a job interview, how am I going to ace this job interview?

It’s been a happy occasion for me and several others who have been working here with local colleges and trade schools in our area with their classes that are about to graduate. We go and we do a job interview preparation, resume’ preparation, and then we gather a team of like mentors and we have a day of mock interviews where we sit down and we actually go through the job interview process with them to sort of give them an idea what it is that they can expect.

Here’s what this brief course is going to be composed of. Its several videos which we’re going to do once a week for the next several weeks.

This week we’re going to talk about finding a job and how it’s a roller coaster ride.

Then we will learn what to do before you ever sit down for an interview.

Then we’re going to have one session on how to dress for success, another on how to make a powerful first impression, another one on what to do with the interview, and another one on why it’s important how you speak and act and the impression that that makes.

We’re going to talk about preparing answers before you get there, how to protect your right of privacy without jeopardizing a job offer, strategies for closing the interview and then finally why people are hired and not hired.

Today’s episode is called “Finding a job is a roller coaster ride,” because the job search process has high highs and it has low lows. Remember, the worst that can happen is a potential employer is going to say no to you. It may be devastating, you may have really wanted a job, you probably really need a job, but the worst that’s going to happen is they’re going to say no and you’re going to pick up your papers and you’re going to move on and look for another job. The question at that point is did you make any mistakes, and if that’s the case can you learn from them?

Because mistakes are meant for learning not for repeating.

Here’s the plan.

You need to do something every day. If you don’t have a job then it is your job to find a job. If your present job is not a good fit for you or if you suspect that the company is going to downsize and you may be losing your job, then you need to start working on finding another job.

One more thing you can do is network and then request an informational interview with different potential employers. There’s a lot of networking events that go on in this country. And I realized that this video blog reaches a number of countries, and so I’m not exactly certain of what organizations may exist in your country. But here we have Chambers of Commerce and we have business networking groups that meet from time to time. You can get to know a lot of people who are hiring in corporations and in businesses at these networking events, and that’s something that you need to be aware of. Seek them out, look for them; the internet is a good place to start to look for that.

You need to follow up, follow up, and follow up until you get a no.

That is if you’ve interviewed for a job and you didn’t hear, you didn’t hear, then you follow-up, you follow-up, you follow-up until finally they say sorry, we’ve hired somebody else and then you can drop them off your list and move on.

And the same way if you’re networking, you keep looking, and keep looking, and keep looking, and perhaps one of those will turn into a viable thing.

You can join associations, clubs, and you can volunteer. There’s an organization online called volunteermatch.com. That’s a good place to begin because that gets you in the door and oftentimes, based on your performance as a volunteer, you can be offered a job because they like what you do. They’ve tried you out in real life and they like it.

You can research online for additional opportunities. Craigslist ,of course, is nearly universal, and they’ve largely replace newspaper advertising. You’ll notice on this page I don’t have any newspaper advertising because it is almost never used in the United States. Craigslist has taken care of that, as has Monster.com. And, of course, there is Indeed.com, which you’ll see at the bottom of the screen. And then there is LinkedIn which is very good for job search for professional people, and we need to take a look at LinkedIn which we’ll do in a future video, not part of the series, but we’ll talk about looking for jobs on LinkedIn.

So you can research for additional job opportunities in lots of places, and then when you’re on those places you can actually set alerts for job openings that will come up even after you’ve been there and they will send you an email or perhaps a text to tell you that there is a new job that’s available. You want to make sure you don’t have to visit there moment, by moment, by moment, but you can go in and put in what it is you’re looking for and then ask them to send you an alert when a new job is listed.

Every day you need to send your resume or your CV to at least one company. This is a job that you have right now if you don’t have a job, and that is sending this out at least every day. If you’ve been on a job interview, send another thank you note and ask them who else they might recommend that you talk to about your career aspirations because they may know another company that’s hiring or is getting ready to hire and you can get an early alert on who might be hiring.

And you also need to maybe find a coach or a mentor to keep you pumped up and to practice interview questions with because that interview’s really, really, really critical. You’re going to be judged in just a few minutes. They’re going to make a value judgment about you and determine whether to offer you a job or not. Now they may not offer it to you at that moment because they’re interviewing a lot of people and they’ll put your name though, mark my words, the minute you leave that interview office, they’re going to put you in a no, we’re not going to take this candidate stack, maybe we’ll take this candidate stack, or this is an A-list candidate. So, you need to find a coach between job offers to keep you pumped up and to practice those questions with.

And then you need to never give up. You will get hired, you will find a job, there’s no doubt about it. I know it can be discouraging, I know it can be even intimidating, you can feel completely beaten-down, but I’m here to encourage you. You will get hired, it’s just a matter of running the numbers and finding the right place for you.

Then even after you are hired continue that networking and periodically update your resume to make this process less painful the next time. It is very rare that you find a job and stay there for the rest of your working life. It is very, very rare so you want to keep that networking up and you want to keep your resume polished all the time so that you can really, really be ready the next time you have to do that.