Have you hit a brick wall in your job search? Do you keep getting rejections? Do you keep getting ignored? Don’t lose hope or confidence in yourself. Here are 5 ways to help you get “unstuck”.
- Try a fresh perspective – a different geographic location, different job title, different industry. Are you going for jobs that are too narrow or too few? Try to think more broadly about your skill set. Ask yourself, “are there other job titles for which I am qualified?” Some industries have moved to other cities. Ask yourself, “Am I willing to move?” Do you have unrealistic expectations about salary? A new job in a new city may pay less than what you earned before.
- Re-connect with former colleagues, supervisors – get introduced to new people. Email or call up that former boss, distant cousin, or old-time friend who moved to another state. Re-connect and re-build your relationships so that you can be introduced to even more people.
- Build your skills – if you find that on interviews you are getting rejected because you lack certain skills, ask yourself, do I really want this job? If you do, then you need to go back to school or online to build those skills. It is important to find out what else are they looking for that may not be indicated in the job description, or if it is, it is not easily recognizable as a top priority. Some lengthy job descriptions ask for dozens of skills but you can’t tell which one is the most important, or which are the top three. Often the most important one is buried in the long list.
- Refresh your look Feeling dated? Maybe you could refresh your look – clothes, hairstyle, or shoes. Buy yourself something new, get a haircut, or treat yourself to a manicure, massage to help boost your confidence.
- Feeling lack of confidence? Go back to your top accomplishments. Think back about your best times, best projects, finest hours – when was the last time you really felt good about a particular project, accomplishment, or activity? Write them up in the A.R. problem, action, results format and practice talking about them. Concentrate on those to build up your confidence in yourself. Use those accomplishments in your cover letter, resume, interview and follow-up to show that you can get results.