Jeremy Johnson has a new guest blog post this week on job hunter’s lament that can easily affect job seekers. Worth reading if you are stuck in a rut.
Jeremy is a recruiter in Kansas City for EHD Technologies, a recruiting, staffing and managed services company serving the IT, Engineering and Automotive industries.
There are two jobs with EHD Technology clients just posted recently on the IT/Developers Job Leads page.
You can also follow him on Twitter at jsquaredkc
The Job Hunter’s Lament: “But I shouldn’t have to!”
“But I shouldn’t have to!!”
That was the response I got from an out of work architect about 4 years ago. The market was in the toilet, no architectural firms were hiring, and this gentleman was a bit beside himself. He’d never had this much trouble finding work – ever. I felt for the guy and though we didn’t have any architecture positions to recruit on (because there were none to be found in 2009), I set up a time to meet with him to try and give him job-hunting advice.
I made suggestions about customizing his resume, networking, calling companies just to try and get informational interviews or just get him on companies’ radar for when hiring did pick back up. I introduced him to LinkedIn and how to use it as a job seeker.
But no matter what advice I gave him, he met everything with the same whiny reply, “But I shouldn’t have to!”
I couldn’t believe it. Here I am going out of my way to help this guy, giving him insights that a lot of job seekers don’t hear, and all I got was resistance. Aside from being ungrateful, it was a ridiculous position to hold on to and a huge mistake.
What he kept telling me was that he never had to do any of those things in the past. All of his other jobs came easily. He posted his resume, got a call, interviewed and got hired. “That’s the way it should be,” he told me. “I shouldn’t have to do those other things!”
So I asked him, “Ok, how’s that working out for you?”
Response? Crickets.
He had nothing to say but still didn’t want to hear it. Really what he didn’t want to do was get out of his comfort zone. He didn’t want to work at it. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to “post and coast,” cast his resume out into the job board waters and take a nap until the fish bite.
Wouldn’t we all love to do that? For some people it works, if they have clearly defined skill sets in high demand. But for most, especially in a tight job market, you can’t afford to take the stance that this person did with me. Sure, the architecture market was good a few years earlier. But, here’s the problem: it’s not a few years earlier!! At the time, it was 2009 and he needed to adjust to the reality of the present time. The old ways weren’t working, but instead of listening to advice, putting in more effort, and trying something different, he just stuck his head in the sand, refused to changed, and cried, “But I shouldn’t have to!”
The lesson still applies. If you’re having a challenging time in your job search, you can’t afford to look at everything you feel you shouldn’t have to do. You can’t focus on the fact that it isn’t fair, or that you shouldn’t have to struggle finding a job when you never had in the past.
If you’ve always had an easy time finding work, but now things are different, you can’t keep doing the same thing. The point is you have to adapt. And the good news in a bad situation is that everyone else has to deal with the same economy as you do. They have to deal with the same frustrations and obstacles. And lot of them won’t make it because, let’s face, this stuff is really hard, and many hit their breaking point. Or, paralyzed by the fear of not knowing what else to do, they don’t change.
If you haven’t tried to network at all, now’s the time to start. If you haven’t practiced your interview answers, get to it. If you aren’t figuring out how to use social media in your job search, start learning. If you’re getting frustrated and have quit looking, somehow find your second wind. Because, really, when it comes to all of these things, what choice do you have?
As I told Mr. architect, “You can’t focus on the world as you wish it were. You have to accept it and deal with it as it is.”
Only then, can you start implementing more productive strategies and activities instead of being mired down by the thoughts of what you shouldn’t have to do.