Ready for Summer Yet?

How to Beat the Job-Search Blues

By Maura Judkis

Posted: April 15, 2010

Jacob Roberts wasn't that surprised when he got the ax. The 28-year-old New Yorker worked in finance, after all. Shortly after things began to head south on Wall Street, he started saving money and revamping his résumé. Roberts was snared in the fourth round of layoffs at Information Management Network, a corporate finance conference company where he was an assistant producer. Still, he wasn't worried. "The way I looked at it at the time was, 'I'm 28, I have a college degree, and I live in New York City. There must be plenty of jobs,'" he says.
He was wrong. Roberts's search lasted more than eight months—from mid-June 2009 until late February 2010—before he accepted a job with the online medical portal WebMD as an associate editor. He says the job aligns perfectly with his aspirations to work in writing and editing. Here's how he got his new gig—and what he learned along the way.
[See the Best Careers for 2010.]
Remember that finding a job is a full-time job. After Roberts was laid off, he took a two-week break before starting his search. "I treated it as an extended holiday," he says. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't [taken time off] ... But in retrospect, it probably wouldn't have mattered. I didn't find a job for more than eight months." Roberts took several breaks in the midst of his job hunt. He says each hiatus helped him combat fatigue, but he regrets wasting time. "I should have used that week to think of new ways to look for jobs. I sort of got complacent."
Volunteer for a ­worthy cause. To avoid spending money, Roberts seldom left his house. After endless hours at a computer futilely applying for jobs, Roberts started volunteering 14 hours a week, which gave him a morale boost. New York Cares, a network that matches participants with a variety of projects throughout the city, led him to community service helping inner-city kids maintain a neighborhood garden. When the weather turned colder, Roberts taught English as a second language at an Arab-American center in his neighborhood. It gave him a chance to network with other unemployed volunteers, who assisted one another in their job searches.
[How to Turn Volunteering Into a Job.]
"It's not totally altruistic," says Roberts, who included volunteer jobs in his résumé. "'What have you been doing since you lost your job?' was always the second question I was asked in an interview, and it was better to say, 'I've been volunteering,' than just 'searching for a job.' My line was, 'It gives me an opportunity to help people, which I never had while I was working.'" Even though he's now employed, Roberts still volunteers through New York Cares, spending two hours a week helping inner-city high school sophomores prep for the SAT.
Find ways to beat discouragement. The toughest thing about Roberts's job search wasn't rejections: It was silence. "If someone sent me a rejection, I'd be happy, because at least then I'd know that somebody had seen my résumé, looked at it, and said, 'You are not worthy,'" he says. But at other times, "there was complete silence from everyone and everywhere." Roberts wrote freelance articles and a short-lived blog to break the monotony. "You can't do the same thing for nine hours a day," he says.
Leave no stone unturned. Roberts's search utilized every major job-board website and his entire network of friends and former colleagues. While he originally sought only writing and finance jobs, he cast a wider and wider net until he found himself seeking hourly wage jobs at Barnes & Noble and GameStop, to no avail.
In the end, working with a recruiter helped him land his current job. Roberts was contacted by Iben Krogh of Park Hudson International in December 2009 for a job that he felt wasn't a good fit, but Krogh was able to get him the interview at WebMD a month later for a six-month, contract-to-hire position. "It's a numbers game," Rob­erts says. "If you call 100 people, it's always the 101st who will give you a job. There's always that hope."

Something New Called Focus 2!

Focus 2 is a new program here with Career Services! We are very excited about it.

It helps you decide what your major should be!

OR if you have a job you want it tells you what major would be best!

FOCUS-2 is a self-guided, online career and education planning tool for use by college students.  It will enable you to assess your interests, values, skills, personality, and aspirations as they relate to careers and college majors.  FOCUS-2 is designed to help you choose the best major for you and explore occupations that match your profile.  Students who use FOCUS-2 make better decisions about their goals and plans and learn how to manage their careers.

Be sure to check it out today!

Etiquette Tip of the Week:

In honor of Administrative Professionals Day (Secretaries Day), coming up April 21: Too many people think an interview or sales call begins when you meet the interviewer or client.  Your interview begins with the security guards when you enter the building.  Kill with kindness any security personnel, receptionists or administrative professionals you meet along the way.  They are all part of your interview process.  Be upbeat, pleasant and make eye contact with everyone you meet on your way in and out.

As you know, it’s polite to give credit where credit is due. Thus these tips are from www.cultureandmanners.com

Events for the Week:

4/17	Bright Future Employment Fair
4/28	International Career Fair

Quote from the Office:

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke