I think we're all familiar with the rant, If you don't have a job, your new job is to get a job.You need to do it full time.
And while the advice is meant to be constructive; it may be time to question
it, especially when there are so few job openings available.
Take, for example, Jim's situation; he's been looking for a job for the past 37 days. "There are no new jobs that I qualify for that I haven't already applied to," he says. "I bugged all my buddies and old bosses for leads last week, like I do every week," he goes on, adding that though they're still being nice, "I think they're getting sick of taking my calls."
And Jim doesn't stop there. "There are no user group or professional association meetings on my schedule for this week," he says. "I've answered questions on God forsaken Linkedin. What else am I supposed to do with all this job search time? What am I supposed to tell my wife when she calls from the office and asks what I've accomplished today? Am I supposed to say nothing, unless you count achieving a new level of frustration?"
Relax, Jim, I say, and tell your wife to back off. Doing the same things over and over again expecting different results makes you one thing; crazy. That's hardly the result you're looking for.
What you should do instead is set up an automated job search strategy.
Go to the job portals where positions in your profession are advertised and set up a few automated job search agents; that way new job postings for which you qualify will be e-mailed to you once a day. It should take you no more than 30 minutes a day to apply to those for which you qualify.
Next see if you can meet your old colleagues for lunch once in a while. If you can join the company softball team on which you used to play. Keep it friendly, everyone already knows you need a job.
Finally use the time you have left for some kind of service work. There are opportunities listed all over the web at places like Architecture for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity, Volunteer Match, One Brick, the Network for Good and countless others.
What will volunteering do for you?
- It will keep you productive and active in your profession
- It will give you something exciting to talk about when you do land an interview
- It will give you a reason to wake up in the morning
- It might keep you from feeling depressed
- It might teach you that your value may be what you give Vs. what you take home
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