Job searching can be an agonizing waiting game. You apply for jobs, sit down for promising interviews, and anxiously wait for responses. Yet your phone stays silent and the emails don’t come.
But have you also noticed that when you take a break from waiting and focus on something else, your much-desired response finally comes in, or even pleasant surprises you weren’t even expecting?
This is a basic universal principle at work: the less you appear to need something, the more you will attract it.
Talane Miedaner, author of Coach Yourself to Success, calls this “detaching from the outcome” (Ch. 94, p. 228). She explains: “To attract what you want, you need to want it with all your heart and at the same time, not need it or have to have it.” “If you really want a particular job,” she says, “it helps to have offers at a number of places, to increase your bargaining power.”
Focusing on getting that ONE particular job — to the point of desperation — will have a harmful effect on your search. “People can sniff out desperation a mile away,” says Ms. Miedaner. “If you rely on one person or organization to meet your needs, you’ll soon be in trouble because you will depend too much on them and wind up repelling them.”
Acting in such an anxious manner is especially unattractive to prospective employers. Hiring managers don’t care how badly you need a job to pay your bills. All that interests them are the problems you can solve for their company.
If you want to get hired faster, it is critical to detach from the outcome. You must dial down your desperation and diversify your job search activities to reduce your neediness and create more possibilities for yourself. Here are 10 things that can help you accomplish both:
1) Edit out “desperate jobseeker” language from your LinkedIn profile. Here are three strategies you can implement right away.
2) Rework your finances to live on less during a period of unemployment. Doughroller.net offers a list of 10 free and low-cost online budgeting tools.
3) Practice meditation to reduce anxiety and stress. Learn how in Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: a 28-day program by Sharon Salzberg.
4) Stop reading negative news reports about the labor market. Instead, subscribe to Mark Hovind’s JobBait newsletter, to learn about employment trend updates and breaking news that can help your job search.
5) Take a temp, contract, consulting or part-time position. Besides making money, you’ll keep your skills fresh and be more employable; one job will attract another.
6) Engage in offline activities to expand your network, like joining a professional association or visiting a job club.
7) Get off the job boards and try a targeted direct mail campaign. Build a list of 75-100 companies you’d love to work for, and then send a letter of inquiry/interest to the decision-maker.
8) Showcase your value. Start a blog and write about what interests your target employers. Use free tools like Blogspot.com or WordPress.com; add your blog link to your LinkedIn profile; tweet your posts on Twitter.
9) Resist the urge to rewrite your resume over and over again. Tell yourself “it’s good enough;” then spend more time on networking; because people hire people – NOT resumes.
10) Ramp up your networking activities. Follow the guidelines in the book: Highly Effective Networking: Meet The Right People and Get a Great Job by Orville Pierson.
Detaching from the outcome will help remove the unattractive affect that desperation can have on your job search. If you follow some of the steps above, you’ll notice an increase in job-search responses, leading to more interview and offers!
© 2011 Joellyn Wittenstein Schwerdlin, The Career Success Coach. All Rights Reserved
