5 Ways to Stay Productive While You Search for a Job
It can be easy to be discouraged when searching for a job, even if you have one. It’s very similar to dating: you have to present your best self and then hope they like you enough to give you a call back. This means you might have to endure a lot of discouraging rejection, and once you start feeling discouraged, you might get the urge to quit your search. The only problem is that with a job search you can’t just quit.
There are a lot of ways to stay productive and keep moving when you’re searching for a job, even if it seems like you’re not getting a lot of traction. The most important thing to do is not give up. Here are five tips that will help you stay productive in your search.
1. Set Reasonable Goals
It’s not likely you will get a job with the first resume and cover letter you send out. (Congratulations if you do … maybe you also should buy a lottery ticket!) So, don’t expect a home run on your first try.
Start with small steps. For example, make a goal to send out five cover letters and resumes one week. Try to set up a few informational interviews the next week.
Break your big goals down into achievable chunks, and you’ll see positive results that you can feel good about more quickly.
2. Keep Track of Your Progress
It helps to feel more confident about your search if you’re making progress. A great way to do this is by keeping a list of goals you create and steps you need to take to get there. Then feel good about yourself by putting big check marks on the list when you’ve accomplished each step.
Remember the goals listed above? Maybe you secured three informational interviews with professionals in your industry. Make note of that.
Go back and read your list again whenever you feel like your search has stalled. You may need to repeat some steps.
3. Study and Volunteer
Even though you might not have a job right now, you will soon. Think of skills that would come in handy once you start a job in your industry, and take the time to learn them now. Do you want to be a journalist at a magazine? Study AP and Chicago styles inside and out. Do you want to work in marketing? Start learning about ways to optimize Twitter channels and Facebook pages.
Then, volunteer these services to others on a nonprofit basis. You’re never a burden on anyone if you work for free. Plus, this means you’re building experience for your resume, and that never hurts.
But make sure that you’re not simply being exploited for free labor that profits someone else much more than it benefits your own training, and that the time volunteered does not interfere with your job search.
4. Continue to Reach Out to Your Network
Even though your industry mentors might not have any jobs available for you when you’re looking, if you stay on their radar you have a better chance of becoming the candidate that pops into their minds when there is a job that opens. We’re not saying you should be annoying, but touch base every month or so.
The key to doing this without becoming the most annoying person in the world is by actually making it meaningful to them. See an interesting article that is relevant to their industry? Forward it. Come across a new research study with interesting stats? Email it to them. Then tell them what you’ve been up to, what work you’ve done for free, any projects you’re working on, etc.
This will not only raise your value in their eyes, but it will keep you on their mind in case something comes along. And if it does? You already have a great relationship and chances are the job would be a really good fit for you. Plus they might be a very good reference for you when an employer is giving you serious consideration for an opening.
5. Consider New Avenues You Might Not Have Already Pursued
Do you have a Twitter page? Great! But think about it. What do you use it for? Is it to tell your friends when you’re at a concert or having a frustrating day? How can that help you with your job search?
Consider creating a new Twitter channel that focuses on the industry you want to get into. If you want to work as a wedding planner, begin tweeting tips on how to make the big day go off without a hitch, and begin following other planners.
Continue to try to think of other ways to be innovative. The more creative you are in your job search, the better chance you have of standing out among the clutter. And the added bonus? Whenever you’re working on something, you will feel productive. And when you feel productive, you create opportunities for yourself. You never know who could be reading your Twitter tweets…
Mario-
Great tips. Especially like staying in touch with your network. Many people let the connections fall off the radar if there isn’t a “current” opening.
Good point on lack of current opening, Adam. I’d take it a step further and say this applies not just to networking but also to walk-in or online applications. I read in the paper yesterday about teen summer-job unemployment, which is indeed one of many tragic aspects of current conditions. A kid was featured, saying he’d applied for 10 or 15 fast food and retail jobs, but heard nothing. You know and I know that even in this economy those jobs open up quite often due to quits, firings, etc., and when they do, hiring happens very quickly due to immediate need to fill the schedule. So a kid should be knocking on those same doors with some regularity, not filing an app. once and waiting all summer just because there was no opening that day and he never got a call. Flip side to story (in terms of immediacy of need and hiring): a peer of my daughter, just graduated from college (another tragic aspect is college grad. un- and under-employment) was told by his Dad that after two weeks living at home he had to get some kind of job. He went to apply at a local bar/grill, was hired on the spot, and my daughter ran into him there that night — he hadn’t even gone home but had started working immediately.
So if someone has tried everything from Monster, Career Builder, Bigdaw and all else and still not finding work what do they do? Times are tough, but sometimes people around don’t want to help and it makes life difficult.
George has some great points. His story about the kid who started working that day is great, but ideal. Unfortunately (and most young people will actually agree with this) kids today lack work ethic. Most kids are the ones that don’t go back and check in where they’ve recently applied. We can make excuses for them (i.e., they don’t know they should do that or they’re afraid to do that), but in general they just lack ambition. Certainly, they need to be educated, but parents and even schools haven’t yet come to that reality. It’s time for human resources departments AND small businesses to demand character education in schools.