Heads Up People!

I don’t think it’s just me. There is a sense of positive feeling in the air. And, no, it’s not the cherry blossoms. I think we’d all have to agree, as pretty as they are, we are all affected one way or the other by tree pollen. I’m going out of town, but I had to post this. For the past week or so, all I’ve heard is that more people are calling or more opportunities seem to be presenting themselves. Mind you this could just be Spring or something, but it you live in the North East as I do, then that can so not be the case. We’ve just had five days of solid rainy dreary weather, that could clearly only make the Grinch happy. Even the people in my various networking meetings who I wouldn’t describe as positive Pollyanna’s like moi, have been saying this. Over the past two weeks I’ve hear the same line from quite a few different people. These people are all in different industries, no not just health care and education. Their specialties range from IT to marketing, to advertising and so on. They are all saying with a pinch of disbelief, that they are getting calls for interviews. Believe me, I am one of the biggest skeptics out there and don’t believe a thing I read in the papers. So, why the head’s up?

I know I’ve talked about this before. This is the time we've all been waiting for. This is the time when you should be sprucing up your resume and networking like mad. Where you are and what you’re doing somewhat depends on how long you’ve been out of work. We’re all in different phases. For instance, me, I’ve been out for a long time. I was at the beginning of the way. I tell you, for those of you who are like me, depending on your circumstances, this was not a good thing. My experience was that I got tons of interviews and very close to landing a ton of jobs. But, just when they were ready to make me an offer, blam…they’d lay people off and close off the open requisitions. For myself, I haven’t been that unhappy. I have to tell you that most of these jobs I really didn’t want anyway and was kind of hoping they didn’t make me an offer. That being said, I do want to go back to work. I don’t want to be self employed like a lot of you out there. Here’s where my plan be seems to be helping.

My plan B is made up of several parts: 1. A job search support group. 2. Consulting for a private consulting group on a 1099 basis. 3. Volunteering in a campaign for a candidate that lives in my building. 4. Belonging to another organization and starting up another kind of support group. All these things keep me very busy and yes, I do keep applying for jobs and reaching out to network. As a matter of fact, these various activities lead me to network more than I usually would. More than that though, they lend me the opportunity to interact with people and to gain a sense of self worth that would generally be part of what I got from my job. Now when employers ask me what I’ve been doing “all this time” (you all know what I mean), I have something to say. In addition, I have something to update my resume with, that may put me towards the top of the pile.

The reason I am writing this, is not to toot my own horn. God no! This is the time, in marketing parlance, to position yourself well. You and I are the product. We need to get a sense of the market place and work on our “creatives’ read resume, to best sell ourselves into the jobs we want. We need to start working on it NOW! We all want to be ahead of the curve. I believe it is happening. It may be happening slowly, but if what happened was a result of a crisis of confidence, then now is a time to take advantage of a surplus of hope/positivism. You know, that’s all it takes for CEO’s to say “hey we’ve got to start hiring.”

I know this is brief. I’m going on a short trip, but I wanted to make this point because it is so important.

Let’s pump up our resumes. Start working the phones. Let’s keep feeding treats to that positive wolf. Enjoy your weak. IT WILL HAPPEN! We will all soon be back to work and whining about how little free time we have to enjoy.