No matter where you live and what the condition of your country’s economy is, job search will always be some sort of stress. This is more so in a country whose economy is struggling or even in an obviously developed and prospering economy. Make no mistakes: jobs, at least good ones, will always be competitive and consequently scarce. But your knowledge and skills on how to navigate this terrain will make the whole experience less stressful and rewarding. To find a job in a saturated market, the following will be helpful:
- Watch your belief and attitude
What you believe is central to your success or otherwise in the job search venture. You will not make progress beyond the state of your belief. First and most important: do you believe in yourself? Do you believe you have what it takes to get the job? You will need to answer these questions, for nobody or organization will expend their recruitment budget on one who has punctures in this vital areas.
What have you believed before now? That it must take knowing someone in an organization before you can get a job there? Check what you believe and do a reprogramming where necessary.
Similarly, your attitude is also vital to whatever heights you want to attain in life. Is your attitude such that resigns to “what will be, will be”, “if God says it’s mine, it’s mine”. Well, such attitude for sure will keep you unemployed for a long time. Life doesn’t give you what you desire, but what you’re able to negotiate! So negotiate with the right beliefs and attitudes and add some calculated action to these.
- Ignore the din
In the same way noise pollution has been a major concern in our world, so also is the phenomenon of “news pollution”! These are times that our print and electronic media churn out news items that cause peoples’ heart to fail with fear. Have you consciously or unconsciously been following news items – labour market reports, unemployment rates, job cuts, downsizing, and all such reports?
The best you can do is to ignore such noise and rise above it. This calls for strategic researching of jobs and opportunities and the alignment or realignment of your skills and qualifications for success in such a job market. Refuse to fear, fear paralyses. It demobilizes and numbs your thinking faculties.
Observe the trends, hear the news, analyze statistics, but you have a choice – to fear or to ignore the facts and forge ahead intelligently.
- Adopt a mindset
Mindset is a fixed mental attitude or disposition that causes you to respond to situations in a particular way and determines how you appreciate or interpret such situations. The cumulation of your belief system and attitudes will invariably form your mindset. Sure enough, in the course of job search you will encounter challenging situations and you will only win with the right mindset.
One way to have a positive mindset is to be “inverse paranoid”. This is the mindset that believes that there is in existence a great conspiracy propelling all things to work together for the good of him that holds such mindset.
You will surely struggle with ignoring and rising above certain situations in job search until you project this kind of mindset.
- Analyze the opportunities
To be successful in your job search, one of the important requirements is to be alive to opportunities in your in your environment. This is about keeping abreast of information and situations in your target industry and your ability to analyze them accurately in order to secure the target job.
No matter the condition of the job market in your immediate locality, your ability to source information and analyze relevant situations will help you anticipate or pre-empt job opportunities and consequently, strategically position yourself to secure them.
To be effective in this, you may have to do PEST and SWOT analyses.
PEST analysis entails a critical consideration of POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL and TECHNOLOGICAL factors in order to arrive at an intelligent conclusion regarding their implications for your success at job search under such prevailing climate.
SWOT analysis on the other hand, examines your STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, in view of OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS they present or portend to your success in any venture. PEST and SWOT analyses are critical exercises a job seeker needs to do to strategically assess and position her for success in the job market.
- Make job search a full-time job!
To give job search your best effort, you’ll have to make it a full time job (but not a career!). Success at job search is a calculated venture. It’s precipitated by specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound goals. This success mix is a product of wise planning and applying corresponding actions in the proper direction.
Perhaps, you’ll need to make a number of contacts in a week; read newspapers, do online searches, attend job fairs and career seminars. Whatever is relevant to your success at job search – give it the best shot!
Let me know what you think. To your success!
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