Your Job Search …  should be less pain and more successful….

This article comes from Peter Bregman and is extremely insightful.  Read about how to go through these times with less pain and more success.

• A way to increase your chances of getting that job.
• Of winning a new client.
• And maybe even enjoying it.

Peter says to  stop trying so hard with your job search.  At most, spend 1-2 hours a day on your job search.

Here are his job searching “rules”:

* Write your resume quickly and efficiently. Get the basic point across and then let it go. Same with a cover letter. Your resumé is not going to get you a job. If you’re a company, the same holds true for your marketing materials. I’m sure they’re already good enough.

* Don’t spend time on job sites. It’s highly unlikely, with all the people who are looking, that someone will hire someone they don’t already know (or someone they know doesn’t already know). Same goes for companies: don’t respond to RFPs unless you already have the relationship.

* Spend all your hunting time with people: at lunch, on the phone, going for walks. Finding a job or new clients is all about human relationships.

If you’re only going to spend 1-2 hours a day on this, what should you do with your other 12 hours? If you aren’t going to spend your days looking for work, how will you find it?

Here is his job searching “recipe”:

1. Make a list of all the things you love doing or things that intrigue you that you’d like to try doing. This is brainstorming so don’t limit the list or judge it; write down everything you can think of.

2. Separate the activities you do with people from the activities you do alone. For example, gardening, reading, meditating, and writing are alone activities. Volunteering to run a fundraiser is with people.

3. Look at the activities you do alone and figure out if you can (and want to) do them in a way that includes other people. For example, join a garden club. Or a reading or meditation group. Or write something that other people read (a blog counts). If you can (and want to) make them activities that include other people, keep them on the list. If not, then cross them off the list.

4. Now’s the fun part:  Spend 90% of your time doing things you love (or have always wanted to try) with other people who also love doing those things. If possible, take a leadership role.

A good friend of Peters has recently gotten involved in a church she adores. She loves all the pastors; she came to our house for dinner the other day and couldn’t stop talking about them. So she met with them and offered to help in whatever way they needed. She’s now leading a monthly strategy breakfast with the pastors and lay leaders of the church.

Another friend is training for a triathlon with a group of 15 others. He’s in the best shape of his life and can’t stop talking about it.

A company I know is doing pro bono work for charities and the government. Everyone working on those projects is energized.

Why does this work? Woody Allen once said that eighty percent of success is just showing up. When I first started my business, a great mentor of mine told me to join the boards of not-for-profits and do what I do best for them. Other board members will then see the results and want to hire my company to do the same for them and their companies. That’s the obvious reason.

Here’s the more subtle reason this works. Nobody wants to hire someone (or a company) who needs to be hired to survive. Depressed is not attractive. People want to hire energized people who are passionate and excited about what they’re doing.  Jobs come from being engaged in the world and building human connections.

And an even more subtle reason. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, and you’re doing it with other people who are passionate about what they’re doing, then chances are the work you eventually find will be more in line with the stuff you love to do.   And then . . . then your life changes (not to be too dramatic but it’s true). No longer are you, like my consulting friend said, “going after anything that’s out there.” You’re using this crisis as an opportunity to do work you love, at which you excel, with people you enjoy. You can’t help but succeed.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: that’s a fine strategy if you’re independently wealthy, getting that nice fat trust fund check every week to pay for your gym membership (or mortgage or kid’s tuition). But what about the rest of us? Our inability to pay the monthly bills might actually intrude on our ability to “enjoy” unemployment. I know how scary it is to be without an income.

And that fear is what you have to manage because here’s the kicker. It won’t take longer to find a job even though you’re spending less time looking. It’ll take you less time.

Pursuing things you love doing with people you enjoy will position you better to get a job; other people will notice your commitment, passion, skill, and personality and they’ll want to either hire you or help you get hired.

Also, actively pursuing other activities while looking for a job will make you more qualified for a job–because you’ll end up a more interesting person. When you finally get that job interview, you’ll be able to recount all the many things you’ve been doing (and will probably have a good time relating them) instead of saying that the only thing you’ve been doing for the past three years is looking (unsuccessfully so far) for a job.

The same holds true if you’re a company looking for business. Spend your time doing things that will make you a more interesting company to hire when the business comes back.

And even if it took the same amount of time to find a job, wouldn’t you rather spend your time doing things that are interesting with people you enjoy?

I just heard the story of a woman who decided to do work she didn’t enjoy for a few years in order to make a lot of money. Three years later the company went bankrupt. That could happen to anyone. Bad luck. But here’s what she said that I found the most depressing: “It’s as though I didn’t work for the last three years–it’s all gone. And what’s worse, I worked like a dog and hated it. I just wasted three years of my life.”

Don’t waste this time. The job search. The client search. Do it. But do it in a way that excites you. That teaches you new things. That introduces you to new people who see you at your natural, most excited, most powerful best. Use and develop your strengths. The things at which you excel. The things you love.

It’s well known that people have a harder time getting pregnant when they’re stressed about getting pregnant. And it’s unlikely you’ll get into a relationship if all you think about is getting into a relationship. The same holds true for finding a job (or, for a company, finding new business). However hard it may be, force yourself to do things you love with other people.  Let the work find you.

Source: Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global leadership development and change management firm.