For Today’s Job Search, You Need All the Help You Can Get

Sept. 25, 2008 - PRLog -- If you haven’t had to look for a job in the past few years, you may be surprised by how much the search process has changed. And if you’ve looked at a newspaper or watched the news on TV, you are probably not surprised by how much tougher the competition has become. With layoffs becoming a daily occurrence for nearly every occupation, finding a job in your own field and at your previous level of employment is not something you can take for granted. Once the shock of being unemployed wears off, you’ve got to buckle down and make the job search your job. Be prepared, it may be a job you have for awhile.

“Start your job search by identifying and then cultivating your network,” says Joanne Meehl, career transition management consultant and author of The Resume Queen’s Job Search Thesaurus and Career Guide for Professionals. Contacts are the basis of your network. Make a list of contacts, starting with people you know well, then move “outward” to people others know well, and so forth. When you’re finished with your list, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see dozens or even hundreds of names. Reach out to these people and let them know you’re looking for a new position. Networking is a great way to build up your resilience and confidence, and optimally, a new job.  

Like any job, the job search requires its own set of skills and tools. For example, a resume is no longer a chronological listing of employment history, education and references, but a marketing document designed explicitly for the goal of landing an interview. Today many companies won’t even look at a resume that’s faxed or mailed to them without having been requested. Hiring managers take 8-10 seconds to skim a resume and decide if they want to read further. Your choice of words, therefore, is vital.

“The ability to communicate effectively in all stages of a job search is the key to getting the job you want,” says Meehl. She wrote The Resume Queen’s Job Search Thesaurus and Career Guide for Professionals specifically for professionals in a job search today. Although organized like every other thesaurus, it is much more useful. It contains only words that are relevant to a job search and, unlike other thesauri, contains practical suggestions to enhance your ability to “sell” yourself more effectively, before, during and after the interview, so you can land the job of your dreams . . . or at least one in your own field.

The Resume Queen’s Job Search Thesaurus and Career Guide is available from the publisher at http://www.satyahouse.com and online retailers including Amazon.com.  

Joanne Meehl, aka The Resume Queen (http://www.theresumequeen.com), has over twenty years experience in career transition and job search consulting, with offices in Minneapolis, MN and Westborough, MA. She is also a widely published essay writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and elsewhere.

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