There is a dearth of advice specifically for job seeking during a major recession. Most of the suggestions that are made on this blog, Brazen, employment specialists, and experts are poorly suited for this economic climate. Sure, treating your job search as a job, networking, staying upbeat, follow-ups, thank you notes, polished resumes, is sound advice. But this advice is more suited for a regular economic climate. Now, in our heady times all this advice has just become mandatory. Obviously, if your resume looks like crap and your cover letter doesn’t address what qualities you bring to the table then you should heed these advices. But the problem people are running into is that they are doing all the right things and are getting nowhere and find that there isn’t anymore advice to be had.
I’m sure that most you unemployed folks have been doing all of this and to no avail. The only thing I haven’t done is put on a suit and go door-to-door with my resume in hand. What annoys me is that there is little advice that is specific to a recession. For example; everyone says that you should network and that it’s the greatest way to get a job. But what I’ve noticed is that when you sit down for an informational interview or just a plain phone call to a distant contact, all you get is sympathy and the, “I’ll stay on the lookout for something.” In this difficult time people don’t offer to take your resume and shop it around because they don’t want to get your hopes up. So all you’re left with is condolences and a future contact. Sure these people would love to help you out, but they can’t, and so they won’t for fear of letting you down.
Don’t get me wrong, all this advice is great and I definitely became a better job candidate as a result of soaking it all in. But now, everyone is looking for a way to get ahead and since everyone is following these sound suggestions, it doesn’t give anyone a leg up. I feel that the standard job seeking advice is actually more suited for people who are still employed. That’s the perfect time to expand your LinkedIn network, to establish a presence in the blogosphere and develop an expertise in a certain area, to reach out to employees of companies you are interested in and facilitate a healthy relationship with them.
However, if you haven’t done any of that and find yourself standing in your previous employers’ parking lot with all your now useless work shit, it seems obnoxious to ask that person who’s fumbling for his keys to develop a blog presence over the course of 6 months and then to leverage these new connections into some sort of job.
The truth about the job search in today’s economy is that it’s all about patience and luck. Once you’ve become the best possible presentable candidate and you’ve leveraged all your connections all you can do is keep chugging along and hope for something to pop up. As they say, it only takes one person to hire you.
