Being In Transition

Last night, I spoke at JobSeekers of Princeton, the country's oldest church-based job search support group, located in the Trinity Church of Princeton. It was an honor to be invited to speak there. When group facilitator Ed Han contacted me to see if I would do it, I was excited.

Knowing that many job seekers are experiencing prolonged searches, I created a talk called "Being In Transition." Here are some of the points.

Losing your job is stressful, to say the least. Then the job search itself adds to the stress, especially because of what it means to be "in transition."

When you are "in transition," it's all uncertain, all the time. Unlike when you were working, there are no offices, no hours, no time sheets, no staff meetings, no nothing. All the structures you knew are now gone.

This uncertainty and lack of structure can leave the job seeker feeling adrift and anxious. If the job seeker isn't careful, the stress can accumulate and lead to serious effects including depression and illness.

To avoid this outcome, job seekers are advised to follow every one of the basics they learned in Job Search Boot Camp, whether they learned the basics via outplacement, or via a local PSG, or a group like JobSeekers. These basics replace the old structures with new ones, and establish a disciplined approach to the job search. In effect, the job search becomes Your Job.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, today's job searches can stretch on for a lot longer than you would wish. It's a Buyer's market for employers and they can hold out for the "perfect" candidate while perfectly acceptable ones are rejected.

To "hang in there" during a long search, HR executive Lee E. Miller recently published his recommendations. It's a good article and worth tracking down.

The essential notion is to ask yourself, What can I do differently?

In my field of Organization Development, we have a technique called Start Stop Continue where you ask yourself three questions:

What could I Start doing to increase movement toward my goal?

What could I Stop doing to increase movement toward my goal?

What could I Continue doing, but do in an improved way, to increase movement toward my goal?

I had the attendees get into small discussion groups to work on these questions. They came up with a bunch of terrific ideas, including:

Start exercising. Start targeting companies.

Stop sitting at the computer all day. Stop being a loner.

Continue networking. Continue brainstorming with fellow job seekers.

And many more actionable ideas to galvanize your search.

Posted by Terrence H. Seamon on Wednesday July 11, 2012

Terry is an organization development consultant who provides leadership and team development services to employers in New Jersey. His forthcoming book Lead the Way explores the challenges of leadership. Additionally, Terry is a job search and career coach whose book To Your Success provides a motivational guide for anyone in transition. An alumnus of PSG, Terry co-founded and co-moderates the St. Matthias Employment Ministry in Somerset, NJ. He can be reached at thseamon@yahoo.com and via his website: http://about.me/terrenceseamon