Maintain Your Levels of Motivation During Your Job Search

By David Smith

Job Seeking?  You are starting out on a roller coaster journey….with the initial rush of excitement with the prospect of making serious life changes, which is almost inevitably followed by several ‘downhills’ of disappointment.

If you are in work, there is always the chance that if you don’t find something soon, you could start to feel a little resigned to your current situation.

If you are not working, this can lead to difficulties that are very hard to talk about [I worked for Jobcentre Plus and its legacy agencies for long enough to know this to be true…trust me!]

Here are a few tips to help you hold on tight….[sorry about the continued ‘roller coaster analogy….]

 

Start as You Mean to Go On!

Your CV and Linkedin profile must be fully ship-shape and Bristol fashion.  This forms the basis for your Job Search and if you don’t get this element in place first, everything else you do will be built on a shaky platform and will not be as effective.

A well prepared CV and fully optimised Linkedin profile will give you the confidence, and will open up more opportunities from the outset.  Of course, you will find that a few tweaks will be necessary along the way to fine-tune your process.

Set the Pace

Early birds…..worms….blah blah blah…!...but you should start your job hunting as soon as possible each day.  Procrastination is the enemy in the job hunting arena.  Save your Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | [insert time-waster of choice] for later in the day, when you have finished the essential business of providing the means to fill your fridge.

Give yourself plenty of time to check all your preferred job boards, Recruitment Agency sites and I-want-to-work-at-this-company recruitment portals.  Get your CV into the ether and all your applications done.

Obviously, this is hard work and pretty demanding, especially the ‘competence-based’ application forms.  Give yourself regular breaks, but set a time limit to get back to work.  Similarly, set yourself a time to finish work for the day, don’t burn yourself out.

Stay Organised

Keeping track of your efforts will prevent any work duplication and will help you to keep tabs on any follow up you need to do. 

Going back to my Job Centre days, job seekers were encouraged to keep a Job Search Diary, which was always viewed as a chore to complete, but it was always the most organised job seekers that kept better tabs on their efforts and could measure their success better.  It is a fantastic incentive to putting forth concerted effort.  It was usually this group who found earlier success.

If you would like the organiser I have put together [it is just a purpose built spread sheet,] just drop me a line and I will email it over for free.

Cultivate Your Network

Don’t go it alone!  Use the network that is already in place, whether that is friends and family, or contacts within your industry, from colleagues to customers.  Just beware of the ‘bull-in-a-china-shop’ factor; there are a few points of etiquette to consider when [re]connecting with old and new contacts.

If you need any help with any of the points mentioned in this brief post, drop me an email – [email protected] or send me a Tweet @Careervisa

The main thing to remember is ‘Don’t Give Up!’  The search for your desired job [especially in the current ‘cool’ climate] could take several months realistically.  Hopefully, these few tips will shorten your journey somewhat.

 

Images:  Foto79 and Stuart Miles | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  Back to Candidate blogs