Highly Effective Job Search

People who easily found jobs last time around may be more likely to have trouble this time. Or so it seems, based on a study of people in career transition.

A doctoral candidate studying career transition methods conducted in-depth interviews with people in a career transition program. He used the research as the centerpiece of his doctoral dissertation.

One of the things he found was a correlation between a highly successful job search – an “easy” one – the last time around and a current job search not going well at all. People who had an easy last search seemed prone this time around to negative attitudes, a less effective approach to search, and complaining – about their last employer as well as the lack of job security in America. And, by their own account, they didn’t use many of the free career transition services available to them.

Now I’m not a social scientist and I may not be quoting the study with any kind of scientific accuracy, But I was struck by the dramatic difference in attitude between the two groups – those that reported an easy last search, and those that didn’t. Why would the first group perform so poorly this time around? And why would they have such a negative attitude?

After thinking it over, I’m guessing that it was mostly about expectations. You get started on a job hunting project that you think is going to be easy, so you don’t plan it and maybe don’t work too hard. You figure you’ll be back at work in no time.

But then time goes by and nothing happens. And then more nothing. Maybe you start to get discouraged, even sour.

Try it the other way. Suppose you’re expecting job search to be an arduous project, long and difficult. You believe you’ll have to talk to dozens of hiring managers. You’re thinking it’ll take months to get your first interview and that you’ll need 10 interviews to get an offer.

So you plan carefully, gird your loins and go into battle. You work hard.

But then you get an interview in the first month! You’re talking to two new hiring managers a week! You get another interview in the second month. You’re getting excellent feedback. You have some setbacks, but all-in-all, you’re on a roll. This is easier than you figured. Encouraged, you work harder than ever. You have a positive attitude, and you beat the averages to find a great new job.

All of this is probably more my musings than it is social science. But maybe it’s worth thinking about: what your expectations are and how that affects your work on the project and your attitude.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, the dissertation was accepted and that guy did get his doctorate.

Sometimes it’s like a tsunami. Layoffs sweep through an industry and a lot of people in a lot of companies are swept out of jobs.

You may remember when it happened in the steel industry in the 1980’s. I do. I was one of the many people providing career transition services in that one. In the end, much of our steel production was swept offshore, and tens of thousands of jobs were swept away.

The layoffs and ensuing changes were massive. Bethlehem Steel, one of the top employers of the 20th century, ceased to exist. Another storied industrial giant, U.S. Steel, released thousands of employees and also disappeared, replaced by a repositioned company, USX.

But this kind of tsunami doesn’t kill people. And you don’t need to let it kill your career either. If you’re willing to make the effort, you can and will get re-employed in a good new position, even if the industry where you’re accustomed to working is not doing so well. You might decide to start a new career, and it might even be better than your last one. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Two things are essential. You need to understand the career transition game, top to bottom. Completely. No kidding. And you will need to put in a lot of hours at a difficult and sometimes unpleasant job called job hunting.

If you’re willing to do that, I know that you will get re-employed in a job you like. How do I know?  I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. Lee Hecht Harrison, the company where I work, has been doing it even longer. Over the years, LHH has assisted over a million people as they went through it. We know how the career transition game works. It’s not that complicated.

After a massive layoff in a single industry, the job market in that industry is flooded with candidates and short on jobs. That does not mean there are no opportunities, since massive change always creates opportunities. But it does mean that you will need to be better than the average job hunter in the areas of career change and industry change, because you may need to do one of those.

Here are two places you can get started.

Reading. I’ve written two books on job hunting. But I’m not the only career author. There are – no kidding – thousands of books on the topic. Please do examine the author’s credentials before using a book. Read several books, just as you would when undertaking any important project in an area where your experience is limited. And don’t rely solely on information on the Internet. It’s fragmented and you don’t always know who wrote it. Or why.

Talking. Talk to other job hunters – but not about how bad the job market is or how difficult unemployment is. Those conversations don’t make things any better. Why not start a conversation about how to be really effective in job hunting in a tough market?  See if you can find a job search networking group that you like. Or you could start a Job Search Work Team.

You will also need to make sure your finances are under control, since you may have limited income for a while. And you may need to work on getting your emotions under control because you have important work to do.

You’re going to get a great new job with a great new employer. Millions have done it before you, some in ordinary times, some in tsunamis. They got jobs. You will too, if you work on it.

Steel industry employees found new jobs and careers. And, in case you didn’t notice, U.S. Steel staged a comeback.

So can you. And a lot faster.