Vexed And Perplexed

Remember when you were at the beginning of your job search?

I do. It was in June and I’d just bought a shiny new bike (the lovely Trek 7000, a snappy black and silver model). So I was fairly philosophical about the whole thing. I’d spend the summer in a casual search, enjoy the weather and get fit on the bike, and return to work in the fall. A “summer vacation” as it were.

In fact I remember telling a friend of mine that I wouldn’t start to panic unless I didn’t have any significant leads by the middle of August – needless to say I’ve pushed back the panic deadline as April is upon us.

As summer changed to fall, and then to winter with no new job, I realized it was going to be necessary to start to look at positions outside of my chosen field, and very likely not at the level of responsibility I had left, to reeneter the job market.

As much as you may resist this approach (and I did for a long time), reality must be the driver in this tight market. Read more…

For a minute there I thought she had gotten the job!

A friend of mine who has been searching furiously for work for several months had an energizing interview the other day.  She called me, ecstatic – not because she had received an offer but because the experience reminded her of something critical for all of us.

“I realized about 15 minutes into the discussion that I was totally engaged because I was talking about the things that I know I’m really experienced in,” she said. “It was the first conversation I’ve had in months that reminded me that I am a competent professional – and whatever happens, I really feel good about that.”

Today’s lesson from her experience?

Don’t ever forget how good you are. Read more…

Remember when you could actually talk to a recruiter?

Ahh, the memories of those halcyon days!

This is not “bash the recruiter” day – Lord knows I’d love to talk to one. But if you’ve been searching lately, you’ve got to admit that leaping across the electronic wall separating you from the person with the job is a job unto itself.

This, of course, is the argument for networking. Nothing like working those contacts to keep your name out there in case something comes through. To be honest, I’m more of a “retroactive” networker – it’s something that drops off my scope until I need it – a habit I’ve promised to break once I return to the land of the W-4.

But the fact is, after a point, you find yourself revving those search engines because often, that’s the only source you have to see what’s available. I have actually kept track of the number of submissions I’ve made and it is approaching four figures. And while I have an impressive folder of the “autoreply” message saying they’ve received my qualifications, the material responses are less than 20 – and that’s no lie.

I have, however, received countless invitations to open a franchise, join travel firms that operate out of various European countries, and engage in all manner of activity that requires no more than the disclosure of my personal checking account information. Seriously. Read more…

Gloria Fenwick

I always said that one of these days I was going to quit the old nine to five grind and go into the consulting business for myself.

I mean a person with my vast background and experience, not to mention a sharp wit and winning personality, should have no trouble convincing a client to engage me on a project or two.

Well the Gods have smiled upon me and a couple of weeks ago, a friend referred me to someone who needed some writing done and voila! a contract was born.

I approached the project with my usual enthusiasm. My client and I (giggle) had  a 90-minute discussion about what she was looking for, resource materials, timelines and rates. I asked all manner of well-thought-out questions about the organization (environment), audience (well, you need to know who’s reading), and style. (jargon, academic, folksy, I write them all). Read more…

I raise my hand as “GUILTY” when it comes to neglecting professional networking.

I didn’t think I needed it. I was working. Many of the organizations I worked for were very conscious of professional development and provided many opportunities for continuing education and certifications. I took responsibility for keeping myself up to date on the relevant aspects of my field, Human Resources (HR).

So why did I need to network?

As in so many other situations, hindsight brings startling clarity. When I lost my job last June and began to think about a search strategy, I realized I had no network. Sure, I knew a few former co-workers who were still in HR, but with rare exceptions, I hadn’t interacted with many of them in the recent past. In addition, until very recently, I had moved from position to position with a manager with whom I had a great working relationship or through a personal contact, so I hadn’t really searched independently for a job in almost 20 years.

This, my friends, was a serious wakeup call as the role of “anonymous searcher” can be long, tedious and frustrating. Time to change direction. Read more…

“But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.”
- Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Extended unemployment can feel like your own "Wrinkle In Time."

Time plays funny tricks on you when you’re out of work.

You move from a structured routine when a significant portion of your day is dedicated to your career to a situation where one day just flows into the next. You move from regular interaction with colleagues and co-workers to intermittent and eventually diminishing contact, because their lives are going on as usual.

It’s not personal you know. Think about the last time you left a job voluntarily and you all said “We’ll keep in touch.” But somehow you don’t because that common thread that formed the basis of your relationship has changed.

In the early stages of search, particularly if you’ve received some severance, you maintain some structure because the job search becomes your full time occupation. But if it continues for an extended period, and you’ve exhausted your obvious channels, it’s not unusual for your time to start to drift. You understand less and less why it’s taking so long to find a new opportunity. And it’s easy to begin to lose hope.

In her Newberry Award winning book “A Wrinkle In Time” Madeline l’Engle crafts a story about good and evil around the concept that time is not the linear operation we are accustomed to. In this story, three teenagers travel across a “tesseract”, a portal of sorts through time and space to face the villain “IT” who exists in a parallel universe.  

The first time I read this book I was ten years old, fascinated by the notion that time could “bend” and did not necessarily move in the linear pattern so familiar to me. I’d never considered that time could “start” and “stop” arbitrarily or that there was anything other than the orderly tick of the clock.

Until now. Read more…

After nine months of looking for a job, after 30 years of working, I realized that there must be other people out there whose frustrations mirror mine and thought it might be helpful for those people to have a place to talk about it.

I’m a Human Resources exec who is very much like that person I wrote about in the inaugural post. After the first few weeks of enthusiastic search (it was summertime then – and it’s almost summertime again) I began to realize that this was going to be a different journey.

So partially to retain my sanity (as I continue to search) and partially to provide a forum for those who are tired of being “correct” about their feelings about endless search, I thought I’d fire up this blog and see what happens. Read more…

You know who you are.

You’ve always worked. You’re good at what you do. You’re out of work and you have been for a while.

I mean like several months. In that time, you’ve exhausted every job board, called everyone you know – repeatedly – leveraged all your networks and finally considered jobs you’ve only pitied in the past.

And still, you’re out of work. And you have to keep looking.

Your (working) friends mean well. They sympathize, they encourage, they offer supportive words. And you appreciate it – but they just don’t get it, do they? Read more…