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It's late on Day 10 of my job hunt and not much action today.

I actually didn't get much done regarding the job hunt because I spent all day taking our son to Texas A&M University.

I did receive a follow up call regarding a very good opportunity through one of my Seattle contacts. I have to call them back tomorrow, follow up is very important.

I also received all my unemployment paperwork over the weekend. I’m required to make at least 5 contacts a week and log them into their system.

Tomorrow will be a day of follow up and regroup.

Can I get into my spiritual box for just a minute?

I don't believe God created us to be alone. In the book of Genesis everything was going well and God was very happy with himself. The first negative word that came out of his mouth was in Genesis 2:18 "And the LORD God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone;'"

I agree, it's not good for us to be alone.  If you've been cooked up in your house for a week looking for a job on the net, you need to get out!

Something great happens when you get out and meet people. When you tell them you are looking for a job they put you on the spot. "Oh, what do you do? What kind of job are you looking for?" then your mind goes blank! Think!

Getting out and meeting people is a great prelude to going on interviews. People you meet ask you questions that make you think about how you want to position yourself.  Maybe you have been doing the same kind of job for years and when you are out meeting people, you bouce new ideas with them.

Where do you go out to meet people?

I found a great site www.meetup.com, you can search for your city and find lots of different groups meeting.

Another good source is looking for chambers of commerce. Most cities have multiple chambers which hold monthly mixers.  Some charge an entrance fee of $10-20 and if you spend the money, go early and stay late. I look for the ones that don't charge because I find that it tends to be a better networking crowd. If the networking meeting is held at a bar, I scratch it because it's going to be a waste of time. My wife and I went to one at a bar last week (despite our better judgement) and it was just a meat market (sorry for being blunt but that's what it was). People in bars are not too interested in business talk!

So remember, next time you've been in the house for a while, frustrated, desperate, tired of looking for a job, frozen in one place, get out and network!

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The Job Hunt can be extremely frustrating.  Some frustrations have nothing to do with the job hunt itself but will definitely impact the progress you make.

For example, some states have a rule that your last check from your employer needs to be a written check with pay stub.  I suppose they have put this rule in place so to assure that everyone is delivered their last payment stub. So instead of getting my last paycheck deposited into my account I got a check that my bank wants to hold for days! They told me that they have to because my account balance is too low. Hmmm, I think I know that, that's why I want to deposit this check!

So day 8, can't get any money, don't have an interview scheduled, haven't heard back from any applications, anyone would be frustrated, right?

I can't go there. If you are frustrated and looking for a job, snap out of it, it wont help you! Frustration leads to desperation and desperation will be your kiss of death! A desperate job hunter…

• Glosses over job description details. Job descriptions offer clues about the company culture and nature of the job. The desperate job hunter glosses over these details and may very well apply for jobs they really don't want.
• Doesn't spend much time with cover letters. Hastily written cover letters may reveal your desperation. Rather than carefully reading the job description and properly formulating a response, in your desperate moments you might be screaming "Hire me please, I really need this job!"
• Will sound stressed out. If you are frustrated and desperate, your voice will be stressed and the other person at the end of the phone line will know that you are willing to take just about anything.
• Has terrible body language. Nothing worst than going into an interview with “desperate” written on your forehead. If you are stressed and desperate at home, you will do the same at an office during an interview.
• Will overwork themselves. If you are sitting at your computer for 18 hours a day, “looking for a job” you might be desperate. You need to get plenty of sleep and know that tomorrow is a new day in your job hunt.
• Fakes it until he makes it. Faking will never get you in the right job. Whether you are lying on your resume or inflating yourself to cover your desperation, faking anything will not get you the job you want or need. Get out of desperation and into faith. Faith it until you make it.  Know that the perfect job is out there for you. Perhaps the perfect job doesn’t have the title you have been calling yourself for years.

So today could have been a day of great frustration for me. However, I know that I’ve gotten through much tougher challenges before. I wrote what I thought was a great cover letter for what looks like a great job opportunity. In coming days, I might write at length how I wrote it.

Until then, have faith.

I was reading an article about preparing for an interview, "Answering for one of the trickiest questions".

The article suggested taking a personality test and I went to www.keirsey.com where you can find their "Temperament Report"

After answering 50 questions the result was that I am an "Artisan"

Here is an excerpt of my report:

Artisans at Work
Artisans seek to make an impact upon the organizations where they work and upon society at large. Their alertness to current realities, the joy they take in variation, and their tendency to follow their instincts to 'what works' make them good troubleshooters and negotiators, talented performers and craftspeople and excellent leaders in all kinds of emergencies and chaotic situations.

I think the worst part of the job hunt is feeling like you are not making any progress.

It is our human nature to be inpatient. After all, you know the bills that are coming! The severance pay is nice (if you got one) but there is a sobering thought about knowing that after that, the faucet is off. Well, you get your couple of hundred a week for unemployment but if you had a nice job and lived accordingly, you are headed for drastic changes.

I think it is important that you know that you will have some very active days and other days it will seem like you made no progress.  One of the mistakes I made today is sitting on the computer all day and obsessing about finding something. Search, search, search and the entire day goes by and I hardly did anything.

When you are laid off, its a great time to take a couple of hours out of your day and start doing things around the house you have been meaning to do but never had the time.  Take the time to patch and paint those holes and nicks on the walls. I have TONS of leaves in my front yard (in San Antonio, Live Oaks shed their leaves in the spring). I did 20 minutes of work today until it got dark, but I should have put in a couple of hours.

Tomorrow, I have to take some time off the "job hunt" to take my mother to the doctor. It will be a good time to think of the new professional blog I need to start. I get to pick up my laptop from the shop so I will again be mobile!

Thank you for reading this blog. I only hope that if you are currently unemployed, you find it valuable. Please comment if you have anything to add to it!

Today has been a day of... hmmm can't think of a word... maybe discombobulation? I've been on the phone with AT&T support for a good three hours. Now I can finally get my job hunting under way.

First order of business was to call my recruiter. She's told me of a very good opportunity and its a good this that I invested the time to put a portfolio together because it will help her present me as a good candidate.

I still have to work on my budget and look for ways we can cut expenses. Part of the reason I spent so much time with AT&T support is because I was determined not to spend money to upgrade the phone as they always suggest that.

I need to continue searching the job boards and instead of submitting my resume I will forward those to my recruiter to see if she has any inside track into them.

Finally, looking over the 10 steps I posted yesterday, there is one crucial step I need to start working on. To put a blog together that reflects my professional capability. I've had this in mind for weeks but haven't decided what I write about.  I've already got the site in place (http://www.alchemybox.com), just need to go ahead and write my first post.

Well, Day 5 of "The Job Hunt" is a wrap for the day!

Didn't get all the wind I wanted behind my sail. 

I made progress in cleaning up our home office. 

I also searched for new opportunities and found a promising lead that I'll be working on tomorrow. My recruiter left me a message and scheduled a call for tomorrow about an opportunity.

Made some progress on scheduling a plan for the week.

I found a gem of a web page: 10 steps for those that got laid off
I totally agree with all these steps, I wish I would have found this a week ago!
I'll start working on it tomorrow!

Re-group:

Today is a day of re-grouping and do things I didn't get around to on Friday:

1. Clean up the home office
2. Put together a budget for the next month


Plan:

Need to get my calendar for the week in order. I'm starting to use Google calendar and I like it!

Search:

Need to go through some job boards.  One of my favorites is www.indeed.com. It has a great way to filter jobs and it aggregates various sites.

Here is a good list of others (I don't use all of these):

General Sites:

www.sixfigurejobs.com
www.linkedin.com
www.monster.com
www.careerbuilder.com
www.dice.com
www.hotjobs.com
www.theladders.com
www.big4.com
www.execsearches.com
www.execunet.com
www.nichejobs.com
www.truecareers.com
www.craigslist.com

www.dice.com
http://jobs.techrepublic.com.com/a/all-jobs/list/q-user+group
www.computerwork.com
www.justtechjobs.com
www.javaranch.com
www.biznets.com
www.jobshark.com
www.computerjobs.com
www.telecomcareers.net
www.sapgenie.com
www.simplysap.com
www.sap-resources.com
www.saptopsites.com
www.sapjobsite.com
www.oaug.org
www.oracjobs.com
www.orapeople.com
www.houseoffusion.com

Finance/Financial Services:

www.jobsinthemoney.com
www.efinancialcareers.com
http://www.globalriskjobs.com/
www.bankjobs.com
www.insurancejobs.com
www.greatinsurancejobs.com
www.careerbank.com
www.nbn-jobs.com
www.fjn.com
www.ihireaccounting.com
www.capitalmarket-jobs.com

 
Management Consulting:

www.corenetglobal.org
www.ifma.org
www.frpa.us
www.ayersgroup.com
www.thefeng.org
www.dallasblue.com
http://www.HumanCapitalists.ning.com
http://www.humancapitalinstitute.org
http://www.workforce.com
http://www.imc-chicagoland.org/index.htm
http://www.astd.org/
www.shrm.org
www.hr.com

Public Services:

www.clearedjobs.com
www.corporategray.com
www.agacgfm.org
www.asmconline.org
www.ngma.org
www.devex.com
www.medzilla.com
www.Healthcareers.com
www.himss.org
www.ncmahq.org

Today was supposed to be clean up day. I have to admit, I didn't get much done.
 
My wife is a realtor and I spent most of the day working with her to address brochures and get them ready to mail.
 
I'll get my home office cleaned during the weekend and regroup on Monday.

My home office is a mess and its a good day for clean up.

One of the most difficult things to do right now is think about the financial issues.  I would like it to simply go away. To get a job today that pays more and start working next week would be nice. That actually happened to me once. I left Motorola with 8 weeks severance pay and within two weeks I was hired for $25K more!

But back to reality, this is a time when we need to look at and scrutinize all expenses. Everyone should probably do that! If you are looking for a simple budget worksheet, this is a good place to start: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC062062791033.aspx

Another item in my agenda is #followfriday. Many have asked me what is #followfriaday? There is a great article that explains it all - #FollowFriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend

Last of my list will be to check with my recruiter on a game plan for next week.