The Search: How to Turn Downtime Into Job Offers
December 5, 2009 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
IF there is one thing that most unemployed job seekers have in abundance, it is time. And yet many of them misuse it.
Sean Kelly
This is understandable. Someone who has just lost a job may be accustomed to a workplace with its schedules and deadlines, and its expectant bosses and co-workers. If you fail to finish an important assignment, you’ll hear about it.
Compare that with post-layoff life. You can assign yourself tasks, but no one will come after you if you don’t finish them. When you get up in the morning, it can seem as if a long clean carpet of time is ahead of you, but then you may decide to go to the gym, have a leisurely lunch, take a nap, check out “Dr. Phil” on TV followed by “Judge Judy,” and then you’re ready to make dinner.
Or, you may engage in a whirlwind of sending e-mail messages, Googling, calling and appointment-making, only to realize that very little of it got you closer to finding a job.
“Having no structure is the biggest enemy to being organized and being focused,” said Julie Morgenstern, a productivity consultant in New York and author of “Time Management From the Inside Out.”
Job seekers should create specific work hours and a time map along with mini-deadlines, she said. Like many other experts, she recommends treating job hunting like a full-time job.
Looking for a job involves so many steps that trying to define and prioritize them can be overwhelming, said Kimberly Bishop, chief executive of a career management and leadership services firm in New York.
“I don’t think that there’s ever a time that the job search process is easy,” …
Read the original article at NYTimes