I've had a number of diaries on Daily Kos about my personal job situation, and most were negative and hostile. However, in the last month I've gotten employed at a job that I truly love working at. So on reflection over the past 3 years I've had I thought I'd do a diary on a 2 parts of the job search that I feel I can address; the search process and job interviews (resume and cover letter writing have numerous quality resources that are often available for free to assist you in this).
The Actual Job Search:
If you aren't a member go to Linked In and join. Try to contact every professional and personal contact that you know that works in areas that you would like to look, also any high school and college classmates that you think would get back in touch with you. I've been told that zoom (or Xoom) is another social networking site that useful in this way. While you are on Linked In join in Alumni groups for any of your alma matters (I received a phone interview out of a posting that was only made on the Eastern Michigan University Alumni group, I never saw it posted anywhere else).
Most of your job searches can be done utilizing Indeed.com which is a site that collects job ads from other job search sites (both big ones like Career Builder and MOnster as well as little ones like Detroit Recruiter). However, occasionally picking up the classifieds or doing job searches of local newspapers can be worthwhile too as many smaller companies never post jobs on the big websites (particularly those hold outs that require you to actually mail your resume).
Find out what local networking/job creation agency is present, and what type of events they hold. In Ann Arbor it is the Spark, which would have events where you could meet potential employers as well as networking (these groups often are the ones providing free aid with resume and cover letter development).
Keep your hopes up but be realistic, it doesn't matter how low you get as long as you get out of bed each morning and make that efforts. If it involves (don't make fun) listening to a You Tube of Martina McBride's Anyway while putting out job postings so you have it in you to keep fighting...do it.
As a Hail Mary: Drive around the business parks near where you live (if you live in an area large enough to have them) and make note of what companies are around. Then check out the company websites to see if they have job postings (jobs can be posted on a company's business website for up to 3 weeks before making it to a larger profile site and I haven't seen these listing published on Indeed searches).
This isn't about the search, as such, but it is also important in keeping up the fight in your search: Keep an ear out for positions that other people you know may be looking for. This not only helps you spiritually as it is always a good thing to do a good turn for another but also can provide you with leads. I once e-mailed a woman I know who had a large amount of experience in the non-profit world with a potential place to look. While she didn't persue it (her husband was working where they were and she found contract work) she did pass on a site for non-profit openings (which also didn't show up on Indeed) which had at least one job opportunity published that I had never heard of.
Hail Alma Matter: Many college recruiting opportunities are also available to you as alumni. This can be important because in some cases the companies do required on campus interviews to maintain there relationships with the university, which is good because they have to select people to interview, which can be a good thing if you live within reasonable driving distance of an alma matter.
The Job Interview
I'm going to be brief, because there are certain things that are important and they can be summed up fairly quickly:
- Be honest - They know when your lying, generally. And that's an automatic DQ.
- Show how your qualifications match the job, and do it utilizing examples.
- If there is a part of your job that the interviewer clearly likes, has positive regards, is part of what the interviewer likes about the employer: Focus on this if it is relevant. People like talking about things that they like and they remember that experience (irony: I picked up this rule from Season 4 of the Apprentice when Randall won the Learning Annex challenge).
- Lesson from a Professor who had run his own company: The mindset to keep going in, especially for second interviews: The good companies, the ones you really want to work for, are looking for colleques, not people who will just cower.
- References can always help. The job that I have now: Part of the reason that I was called back, I believe, was because of the reference that my last employer gave me (I speak to him regularly and he mentioned that they had called him).
- This is slightly repeating but to make clear you should always try to leave an interviewer with the sense that A. You can do the job and B. That they would want to work with you personally. Once I learned these rules my interviews went much better (with the exception of an interview with an insurance company which seemed to just be us being on different pages, like I was Coleman Hawkins trying to play with the Metallica or something).
I hope this helps and just remember, eventually if you keep going, something will happen. To get my present job I had applied to almost 800 jobs, got about 30 interviews, but what was important was the 1 job I did get. Even if its one in 800, its the 1 that is important not the 800.
Feel free to direct this to anyone you feel could get use out of this. This is about helping people, not my ego.