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An Outstanding Job Interview
For most of us, the job interview is an experience we both crave and dread. On the one hand, we know that the interview brings us one step closer to acquiring an employment position we desire. On the other, we know the interview could also spell...
Drug Testing: A Workforce In Dilemma
When I began my working career, drug testing was not even a word combination. I had never been exposed to drugs beyond the point of alcoholic beverages, and then only on special occasions and holidays. To contemplate daily usage of some foreign...
How You Can Use The Internet In Your Job Search
If you haven't already starting using the internet to assist you
in the job search, then you are missing out on a huge employment
trend. There are numerous reasons to take advantage of this
powerful tool, the most important one being that...
Teen Job Search: Are You Up To Speed?
A teen job search is very special. However, no matter what your
age or experience, a hiring decision about you is made only
after a face-to-face meeting.
That means you have to look employable. If you're in a teen job
search and this is...
Unemployment Blues: Take Back Control
One of the most emotionally crippling aspects of unemployment is the sense of powerlessness it engenders. Job layoff triggers financial pressures, emotional distress, family turmoil, and dashed career hopes. It is forced on us by unrelenting fate,...
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Unemployment Blues: Getting Active
Unemployment is depressing: financial pressures stress you out, looking for work is humiliating, and your fragile self-confidence reels under the blows of indifference and rejection.
It becomes harder to get up in the morning, to take care of yourself, to be supportive and loving to those around you, to swing energetically into job search activities.
Here are 7 tips on beating those I-want-to-get-a-job-but-nobody-wants-me blues.
1. Create a schedule for your week: 5 hours per day (maximum) of looking for work, 2 hours per day (minimum) of relaxing, having fun with others, and appreciating yourself.
2. Act as if you are still working: get up at your usual time, shower, have your regular breakfast – it will maintain your sense of sense and provide the familiarity of routine and structure in a world in which you are feeling increasingly alienated.
3. Get out of the house. Employers don’t make house calls so circulate. Surfing the net for job leads may make you feel as if you are accomplishing something but is often only a means of escape. By all means, post your resume anywhere you can, but then hit the road.
4. Actively nurture your relationships. Avoid letting your misery and self-reproach poison your interactions with those who love you and want to help. Recognize that your loved ones may also be in distress and take the time to go somewhere and do something with family and friends.
5. List
your abilities, skills, and positive personal characteristics on a piece of paper. Write down your past successes and triumphs, however small. Read the list daily to remind yourself of your value. Add to the list as you recall other positive qualities.
6. Remind yourself of the realities of the labor market – that most of us will change jobs dozens of times in our working life and many change actual careers several times. Being out of work does not mean that there is something wrong with you, just that it is now your turn to go through this upheaval. Next time it may be your spouse or friend – it is part of the human condition in 21st corporate America.
7. Be kind to yourself. Your self-confidence, self-esteem and self-regard have all been hit with a steel boot. Actively look at yourself with the eyes of a concerned friend and give yourself the support, sympathy, and goodwill that you would extend to anyone you love who had suffered the same fate.
About the Author
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a respected Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and emotionally supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com
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