Job Search - The Voice of Job Seekers

Make Your Career As Resilient As Your Body

Your career needs your attention as your body does. Many of us act when someone admires our body’s pleasing development or notices our depreciating condition. At first, we do what comes to us naturally as a casual effort until reality hits and the seriousness lingers.

When I pursued my certification in personal training a few years ago, the more I learned about anatomy, the more amazed I became of the human body. I took away life to change perspectives of what the body can endure and what can break it down.

I attended sessions by personal trainers who trained in kinesiology who showed how muscles perform under stress and adapt to training. Your body adjusts to the lack of training (and often weakening) and to high-volume training (strengthening and endurance).

In working with people, most people think weight-loss will only require increase activity without considering a modified diet. Think about it, and it is not the exercise we lack.

If we’re overweight, and our metabolism is slow, and the pancreas is wearing out, we will need to modify our eating habits over time. Our bodies need to re-align a healthy body with a healthy lifestyle.

One of my favorite books in the last few years is “The Rise: Creativity, The Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery,” written by Sarah Lewis. Her book offers examples of many heroes who embraced the “near-win” yet showed the power of resilience to survive and eventually experience the gratification of mastery.

She tells the story of Ben Saunders who went to the North and South Pole solo and on foot. Saunders explains it in detail in this TED talk. The idea of surrender and, “…of not giving up but giving over to something much larger than yourself and circumstance and by releasing that resistance, finding the resources that you need to move forward.”

No matter how warm you can perceivably dress for 50 degrees below zero, your body still must resource the ability to resist freezing to death. Someone on Saunders team lost all of his teeth because of the uncontrollable chattering due to the extreme cold.

Your career must resist many changes during a lifetime, as does the body when it’s challenged to survive. As your career grows in resilience, more times than not, will thwart some of the residual of trauma and catastrophe of life. Just remember resilience does not avoid failure, which is a building block of success.

Here are some suggestions to make your job search and career more resilient:

Adapting to changes in job climate

Your body does the best it can to adjust to the lack of or volume of training you provide. You must look at your career trajectory the same. You will see multiple changes in any career path or industry. Today, those who navigate their careers anticipate change and keep fingers on the pulse of their training.

Know when and how to find time for training

When you’re consistently engaging your network via conversations, tea, or social media, training is easy to find. Too many times professionals are behind finding the needed training for career advancement. It costs a lot of money to register late for relevant training. More times than never, the cost discourages them from signing up.

Planning fuels motivation

People do well with nutrition management when he or she plans ahead. When you have budgeted and planned your actions, strategy becomes easier to execute. When you partner with someone who shares your motivation and goals, moving forward is easier.

Comfort is last when change is priority

Eric Heiden, the famous gold medalist skater, trained until he threw and continued his training. Successful careerists find ways to use the time and resources available no matter how scarce. It’s easy to find comfort when there is excess as it often masks the need. When comfort is rare, the power is using all at your disposal. You find rest, but it doesn’t equal comfort!

Similarly, you can control how well it survives even the worse conditions. Being laid off. Or falsely accused of something and you had to leave your job. Or being fired. Or just performing well enough. The good news is we’re all resilient. It’s a dominant attribute all of us have to survive along with grit. What differentiates each person is our ability to deploy it, as we choose to enact it.

No one has had smooth roads to success. Most of us are searching for our success, or an overload of satisfaction, and often the two can mean the same and co-exist in our lives simultaneously. Your body can do it. Your career can do it too. As Sarah Lewis’ book suggests, almost does count. You can use almost and some grit to finish–and land your next job.

image by: pixbay.com

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

The New (But not So New) Job Search

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Both Hannah and I agree today’s job search is more than obsessively tweaking your resume. The new job search is about disruption and agility. I have had Hannah Morgan on the show twice, but we talk periodically via email. She was my guest on episode 23 and episode 57.

During a recent email conversation she asked me to be on her Blab show. I gladly accepted her invite to talk about what’s new in job search.

Let me know if you are using some of the new platforms such as Blab, Periscope, or Snapchat. You can let me know in one of three ways:

Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your thoughts to the same number
Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message
Send email feedback to mark@thevoiceofjobseekers.com

Hannah Morgan is the Career Sherpa, a weekly contributor to U.S. News and World Report, and author of two books. Her very popular blog is mentioned among every top career site list, not to mention one of my favorite career blogs. To me, she is the voice of reason and balance when it comes to sage and useful strategies for those following her advice. I was quite honored to be asked to be on her show, and quite honestly, one of my career highlights since I started in 2008.

Here is some of what Hannah and I discussed:

Resumes are not everything, in fact, they’re more the rudder of a boat or ship
Skills gap needs to be closed by more conversations and networking
Mobile recruitment and being found through mobile platforms will differentiate you
Social networking is more than just updates—websites, LinkedIn blogging
Being disruptive and not just using traditional methods
Relying on job boards, and even email resumes are noisy and expected
Blab, Periscope, and Snapchat are where people’s personalities are, recruiters are looking
Interact with employers and recruiters. Create a show on new platforms and interview them about what they want

Need help with your career goals, directions, or efforts? Do you need coaching or instruction? I am here for it!

Also, join our Linkedin community! You’ll enjoy some of the insights shared by community members and other career pros!

I would still like to help self-published career professionals promote their books. If you’re interested, find more info here.

I will not publish a show on the week of July 4. Please enjoy the catalog available in iTunes and many other podcast directories.

Don’t forget the last show for the season is July 26, and the new one will begin on Sept. 6. I will be publishing new articles (up to 3x a week) on the blog. If you’re a career pro and love giving career advice, let me know. I would love to have more guest writers during my hiatus and beyond.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

10 Job Search Lies That Will Get You Caught Up

This article was originally published on Career Metis!

No one pays you for effort. Not in 2016.

People who know little about finding a job will get sucked into taking advice from anyone who shares anything with some authority. The sadness is the person is lazy. These days, you must test everything, even as it comes from a reliable source until the person’s advice is consistently effective.

I have saved you a little trouble by filtering out the following common but overused, clichéd, and antiquated job search advice we’ve all heard:

1. All I can do is submit Resumes,right?

Assuming that you are looking for a job, and your time is about your job search like the lady says in the Geico commercial, “That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works!” Networking, reading job advice, connecting with people who are helpful, going to Workforce Connection and more are part of finding a job. If you value your effort and time, get referred by people you know or people you’re just getting to know. Over half of recent new employees are hired through referrals from employees within a company.

2. All I need is a LinkedIn profile,right?

Wrong. You need an active LinkedIn profile. Don’t tell me, are you the one with the photo of you and your spouse/date/girlfriend/best friend. Unless you have your own website, I recommend you manage your LinkedIn profile as you would your own website. Regularly offer your network updates, participate in groups and participate in conversations. Most of all, connect, connect and connect!

3. Recruiters and employers really don’t care about a thank-you note of my kind, I think.

I beg to differ. You’ll find recruiters and employers who can care less about them, after all, the thank-you note itself doesn’t make or break the opportunity. It does set you apart. I have seen many job seekers grab the attention of employers through a thank-you note. My recommendation is to email a note, and deliver a handwritten note or card to each participant in the interview. Employers note shows you cared about the time interviewers took out of their schedule to meet.

4. You must have a job to get hired.

Although many big employers have sent that message to the public, not all of them are neglecting unemployed job seekers. Even small businesses might be ideal and less restricting of employment status. Keep in mind that if you are a likable candidate, then your chances are just as good as anyone else’s. But if you need to take it higher, there are ways to do volunteer or consulting work to list on your resume. It is more advantageous to you to show current activity than it is to just look for a job.

5. Keep doing what everyone tells me to do.

Uh…no. If all you do is follow everyone else’s advice then you will yield the same results. There is a voice that is telling you to try something unconventional and bold. Exhaust the what ifs and fire away but it helps to ask advice from a smart and savvy person who is thriving in your desired career. If you don’t know him or her, then you have more work to do.

6. Look full-time to get a full-time job.

Slightly misleading advice depending on your definition of what a full-time job search looks like. Following that advice in the 1980s means that you are filling out applications, and scouring the newspapers from 9-5. Ten years ago, a full-time job search meant spending time looking in the papers, applying to countless online job board applications. You may have even been organized enough to use an excel spreadsheet to keep organized. Today, you can hours between networking on and off-line, researching companies using job boards as an outline to match your accomplishments up with the responsibilities, learning new skills and abilities, and so much more.

7. Paste your resume into your LinkedIn profile.

It’s easy, right? What a mistake! You’re missing an opportunity to complete your career story. Ideally, your resume is the table of contents, your blog (what you don’t have one?) has a few chapters of your career, and your LinkedIn profile along with other social profiles are an epilog (OK, epilogue) of your career. My personable but not personal rule applies across the board.

8. All I want is a job.

Let’s say that’s true. Any good hiring manager is going to detect it easily by asking, “Why do you want this job?” I betcha’ you can’t answer that question! If you want a career, understand this, the day you stop focusing on filling out applications is the day you will begin you career. Yeah, see #6 again.

9. “You can’t…”

Who says? People will tell you not to email the president of a large company. Who says you can have coffee with the president of a small profitable company? People will tell you not to beg for a job. Who says you can’t go to your community radio station (people are listening to radio still) or start a podcast where you interview people who are thriving in the field you are interested in?

10. Follow Your Passion.

To me, this advice is as misleading and uninformed as marrying someone solely based on lust. Now there are people who will give that advice with a caveat: passion should be based on knowledge, skills, and abilities of the job/career. People who marry with only lust as their latch will find divorce quicker than a falling star.

You have my permission to turn off your discerning ears once people start their sentences with any of these phrases. Just be sure we discard the message and not the messenger. It’s now obvious everyone is not caught up with the 2016 job search or has left 1990 behind.