Leaving Behind the Muddy Tracks of 2009—Here Comes 2010

All the hard-learned lessons and trials of 2009 may be caked to your boots, but it’s time to leave the muddy tracks behind you. We’re entering a new year and a new decade. On Sunday, December 20, the Washington Post’s Kiplinger Personal Finance column started off with: “In 2010, look for a sign of prosperity that we haven’t seen in years. It reads ‘Now Hiring.’”

What shape this hopeful turn takes and how many new jobs will open up, and when, remain to be seen, but 2010 holds promise for opportunities for the more than 7 million who lost their jobs in 2009. The Post added a caveat to its cheery employment outlook—that a “full recovery is far off”—but that’s nothing new. Economic recoveries are never fast, and they tend to be different from region to region, depending on what makes local economies tick.

Whether the new job opportunities turn out to be permanent or temporary, full-time or part-time, freelance or contracted, they will be competitive. Salaries may not match what they were in 2008, but it is better to be back in the market at a somewhat reduced income level than living on memories. As the economy grows, your salary will also rise again, but you have to be part of it for that to happen.

If you are unemployed—possibly since months ago or even longer—or underemployed, now is the time to recharge your job hunting batteries. Make sure your resume is current, get back in touch with your network, connect with agencies, refresh your online profile, and be ahead of the rest of the contenders for the jobs that do open up.

Good-bye mud. Hello new decade. Happy New Year!

One Tomato at a Time will resume two posts a week on January 5.

Holiday Cheer When You’re Out of Work—Keeping It Simple

The holidays put many people in a frenzy of decorating, shopping, wrapping, cooking, eating and reveling. For some, it’s a time of reflection, and for others, a time to party. Whatever your usual approach to December’s holidays, when you are out of work your perspective changes.
Instead of buying new decorations, you bring out your old favorites. Rather than shopping and spending in your usual fashion, you may make some gifts in your kitchen—or if you are crafts minded—by hand, improvising from what you already own. You may decorate your homemade gifts with recycled paper and ribbons. Holiday gatherings can take on a festive air with music and games that draw everyone into the fun.

Another way to spend part of the holidays is helping others who are less fortunate than you are, contributing your time and energy to feed and help the homeless. Bringing cheer and warmth to others by sharing your holiday can instill the same feelings in you.

By keeping your holiday plans simple, you can find the peace that is the essence of the season. By focusing on simple pleasures, like being with friends and family or helping others, you can do a lot more than “get through” an otherwise often stressful December. You can find joy.

I wish you much joy and peace.

The “Gifts” of 2009

As the holidays approach, the out-of-work jobseeker could easily fall into a gloomy cloud in the midst of the festivities. If you see yourself sinking into this mood, stop now and look back on the gifts, small or large, that you have received and given in the past year. “Gifts?” you ask. “Is she crazy?”

Well, maybe, but I know that since my own layoff I have learned a lot and met many great people I probably never would have known. For one thing, I became an active social media participant and a blogger, now with more than 80 blog entries posted. My professional community grew because I participated in LinkedIn groups and local organizations, attended countless networking events, and tweeted. This year, through webinars, seminars and workshops, I expanded my knowledge on such topics as web analytics and search-engine optimization. I volunteered my expertise as a judge in a professional awards program and as a career advisor. To bring in some cash, I began freelancing as a writer, editor and marketing pro and spent the last four months filling in part-time for someone out on parental leave, learning a whole new field for me—international development—and gaining new friends.

Sure, I’ve had my moments of fear for the future, but learning, growing and sharing have lifted me so that I can look ahead with hope rather than back with regrets.

My suggestion to you is to make your own list of “gifts” during 2009. Everyone’s list will be different, but, unless you have totally isolated yourself, you are likely to be surprised by all that you have gained this year, even if you lost your job. The gifts can be prizes as small as a hug or a phone call or as large as learning a new skill. They can be family-based or in your wider professional community.

Special Note: During the holidays, I will post two more entries on this blog before launching head first into 2010. You’ll find these on December 22 and December 29.

Taking Stock—What Do You Really Want to Do?

We’re approaching the end of the year. A lot of people take this time to make resolutions for the next year. If you are out of work, and the months have been ticking away without a hot job lead or an offer, the holiday season is a great time to stop and consider what you really want to be doing. Here are some things to ponder:

• Do you really want a full-time office job like the one you had before or would you like to try something new—maybe two part-time jobs?
• Would you enjoy more flexibility in your work life, possibly working from home most or all of the time?
• Have you considered working independently as a contractor or freelancer?
• Would starting your own business be your dream come true?
• Is there another line of work you can pursue that also fits your talents and today’s job market?
• Do you have skills, knowledge or talents that can transfer to a totally new field, such as the in-demand alternative energy industry or health care?
• What’s most important to you: benefits, salary, interesting work, flexibility, etc.?

How you answer these, and the many other questions you can pose for yourself, should drive the direction you take as you move forward in your career path.

Sometimes, jobseekers feel so driven by a sense of duty to those who rely on them for support, they overlook this important introspective step. Taking it now could make your search for gainful employment in 2010 more productive and rewarding.

Waiting to Hear if You Got the Job? You’re Not Alone

To receive a rejection notice at all these days is remarkable, so don’t take it to heart if you don’t. Once upon a time, employers would send a short note to all applicants cut in the first review to let them know they were out of the running. That practice has all but disappeared.
If you receive a rejection note after making the first cut, even a sterile “Thank you for applying,” consider yourself lucky. It doesn’t happen often.

This omission is probably a result of the massive number of applications submitted today for every job opening. In fact, one employer recently received more than 1,500 applications for a set of five openings. The prospect of having to send notices to even one-tenth of the applicants would be daunting. However, they did send rejection emails to all who were not chosen after undergoing a stringent audition, and they were written in a positive, almost personal tone. Such a rarity!

Anyone would rather receive a rejection letter than to never hear from an employer, especially after one or two interviews, but that happens more often than not these days. The worst rejections are the ones you never receive or you learn about when you meet by chance the person who did get the job.

If there is one lesson to learn from this change in how applicants are treated, it is that you should not take it personally. Nearly everyone is having the same experience you are.

However, as I wrote in my last blog post, Don’t Hold Your Breath—Be a Proactive Jobseeker, you can break the deafening silence yourself rather than waiting for notification from an employer.

Don’t Hold Your Breath—Be a Proactive Jobseeker

Suppose you submitted an application, made it through the first cut, had a phone interview and went on to an in-person interview. You are a success story already, even if it doesn’t feel that way yet. Every time you make it to the next level, you have achieved a goal.
Suppose you’ve even had two interviews, having made it to the finalist level, maybe even the top two. What should you expect next? Assuming the interview went well, your hopes are high for an offer.

You go home, write and send your thank-you note, and wait. How long should you wait? What is your strategy?

It is kosher and advisable to ask at the interview, if it hasn’t already been stated, what the time line and decision process will be.

However, don’t hold your breath. If a long time passes and you haven’t heard, there are a couple of likely scenarios. One is they have decided to delay making a decision or they are just slow—in other words, no offer has been made yet. The other is that you didn’t get the job.

No matter which scenario may be at play, take the initiative yourself to make a call or write an email to the lead interviewer, recruiter or hiring manager. Use this contact as an opportunity to restate your interest in the position. If it has not been filled yet, you increase your odds another notch by being proactive. If the job went to someone else, you will have closure so you can stop hoping this one will come through and put it behind you.

Hiring Decisions--How Do They Do It?

Recently, an online employer located in the Washington, DC area that was seeking to fill five lateral positions received more than 1,500 applications. As a hiring manager, I can’t imagine what a daunting job it must have been to sort through them, but they did. I say “they” because it must have been a team. I recall receiving 150 or more for one opening many years ago and thinking I’d never get through them…but I did.

Before applications went almost entirely electronic, I would create three piles. As I whittled the stack of letters and resumes down, I tossed all that lacked required information, had gross errors, or were obviously done in haste or addressed to the wrong organization, straight into the NO pile. Why waste time? My other two piles—MAYBE and PROBABLY—were trickier. The PROBABLY category was for those whose experience most closely matched the requirements and who wrote convincing, well crafted cover letters. This never turned out to be a large pile, but it had depth in quality. The MAYBEs were all the rest that had some qualifications but weren’t shoe-ins. Since the process went electronic, the physical piles have disappeared, but the general approach is often still the same, and it’s not easy.

Imagine yourself as a hiring manager or recruiter with 1,500 applications to review for those five positions. If you saw your own application among them, how would you do? Which pile would yours land in?

Keep this in mind when you write your next cover letter or fill out an application. Staying out of the NO pile is largely in your control. All you have to do is apply to jobs that are appropriate and pay attention to details. And, by targeting the right jobs—ones for which you are truly qualified—and writing compelling cover letters, you can also avoid the MAYBE designation. Landing in the PROBABLY pile is success and will likely lead to a phone call.

Rejected for a Job?—Get Over It

Rejection is part of the process of applying for jobs. There are only two possible outcomes for each application—you get hired or you don’t. How qualified you are for a job is no longer an issue, once you have been rejected. For each position, only one applicant can win out. But does rejection make you a loser? No, not at all.

The main thing to remember is that being rejected for a job is not about you. Companies have a wide range of reasons for the decisions they make that have nothing to do with you personally. They may hire internally after an open search, find another candidate whose experience is a dead-on match for the job description, or decide to delay filling the position for economic reasons. The scenarios are innumerable, but they are not about you.

It is important to not internalize rejections. If you do, they will eat you up—and suck the life out of your job hunt. And, the longer you are on the market, the more rejections you will have. Sure, they are disappointments, but it’s unproductive to let them hang you up. The best advice is to get over them quickly, brush off and move ahead.