Job Search Campaign Tip: An Activity Diary

Use your diary as a place to plan what you want to do. List all activities that you are going to perform that will get you back to work. You might initially plan on updating your resume and reading the classifieds to gauge the state of the labor market. If you are further along in the job search, you might list some networking targets or identify some employers where follow up on earlier contacts might be beneficial. Frequently, throughout the day, record what you did, who you talked to, how you felt.

This is going to become your Special Place where you have a record of your journey from the badlands of unemployment to the green fields of regular work. Visit it often to keep updating your plans, record your smallest successes and failures, and unload your emotional baggage.

When you can't bear the thought of one more telephone call leading to one more rejection; when you can't find the energy to get dressed up to visit an agency or cold-call an employer; when you can't stand the sight of another misleading ad or internet job site; then reach for the comfort of your journal. Read over what you have written and see the changing moods of your long pilgrimage. See if you can identify a pattern. What were you doing when you felt despondent and alone? What were you doing when you felt upbeat and positive about the future? Concentrate on your own specific actions, not merely your reaction to outside events. If you can find a thread relating what you do to how you feel, you have found a valuable key for managing your hunt for work. You now know what to do to feel pretty good and what not to do to avoid a recurrence of despair.

Maintain your diary throughout your job search and it will become an increasingly rich source of information about you and your inner self. It will challenge you to get active and it will comfort you when you just want to curl up into a ball and turn your back on life.

When your final exultant entry is made - I got a job! - find a quiet time to completely read through all the entries to give yourself a full appreciation of how far you have come and how hard you have worked for your eventual success. Give yourself a mental pat on the back for hanging in there and never accepting defeat.

Then close it up and lock it away in a safe place. If you ever find yourself jobless again (and it happens to many of us over and over), take it out. Reread it for the insights you will gain, and the mistakes you'll be able to avoid, in your next (probably shorter) job search campaign.

Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a respected Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and emotionally supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Previous
Page: 1 | 2