This week’s post is part of the Monthly Career Collective Bloggers. This month’s topic is: How to Heat Up Your Job Search. Scroll down to see what my fellow writer’s suggest!
Is being unemployed feeling like a chronic condition? Chronic — it’s not sexy, exciting or fun. Worse, chronic means it’s not changing and won’t go away. Those of us with chronic illness know all about this chronic syndrome. It weighs you down and keeps you from being “light on your feet”.
So, how do you find hope when you’re feeling your condition is “chronic”? Perspective. What do I mean? Check out American World Soccer Cup Team goalie, Tim Howard.
Here’s a guy with a very difficult to manage and off-putting chronic illness, Tourette Syndrome. Living with this, he’s risen to world class athlete status. He’s the focal point of media attention that makes his visible, and to many oft-putting, symptoms very public. FYI – I read somewhere that his mother said that she thought that playing soccer goalie, which requires supreme focus, helped his Tourette’s symptoms. He didn’t twitch as much when he played. My bet is he played often!
Few of us, even if we were healthy, have the stamina or determination of Tim Howard. But I believe that there’s usually something to learn from people who achieve the extraordinary that we can apply to our own lives.
When you look at your job opportunities and the employment landscape, do you think, ” I’ll never find work”? Are you blaming it on a lousy job market, a difficult illness, your age or even the time of year? They could all be true.
But — and here’s the thing — can you find something that you are good at and you can do and work this angle as hard as possible?
OK – most likely you won’t be playing for the Soccer World Cup or the NBA. You might not get to be president of the company. But your challenge is to get out of the chronically unemployed syndrome. Can you do it?
Let’s face it. You can’t do as much as you’d like to impact your chronic illness. But you can take charge of taking care of yourself as best you can. The same is true with your employment. What are you going to do about it?
CareerCollective Bloggers have this to say:
- Turn Off The Computer, Tune Into What’s Happening, & Heat Up the Job Search, @chandlee
- Heating up the Job Search-How to Stay Motivated During the Summer, @erinkennedycprw
- Light the Fire Under Your Feet, @careersherpa
- Cool Job Seekers Heat Up Their Search in the Summer, @barbarasafani
- Some assembly required, @DawnBugni
- Summertime, Sluggish Economy Provide Strong Motivation for an Updated Resume, @KatCareerGal
- 9 Ways to Heat Up Your Job Search This Summer, @heatherhuhman
- Getting Out From Under Chronic, @WorkWithIllness
- Upping Your Job Search Flame; Be ‘Needed, Not Needy,‘ @ValueIntoWords
- Is Your Career Trapped in the Matrix? @WalterAkana
- Put some sizzle in your job hunt – how to find a job now, @keppie_careers
- Summertime – and the Job Search Ain’t Easy, @KCCareerCoach
- Heating up your job search. 5 ways to dismiss those winter blues, @GayleHoward
- Hot Tips for a Summer Job Search, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
- Treasure Hunt—Yo-ho-ho! Heat Up Your Job Search, @resumeservice
Meg Montford says
While everyone has some kind of barrier to attaining the job they want, each of us also has special gifts that makes us unique. When we tap into our uniqueness, we can find our passion and our drive to succeed. I have coached a book editor with fibromyalgia, a marketing manager with bipolar disorder, a chef with diabetes – they’ve all managed their own accommodations to make their careers work. Often if you don’t see it as a disability, others won’t either.
Rosalind says
That’s such a good take on this. Thanks for adding your thoughts, Meg.
GL Hoffman says
I appreciate the plight of the chronically ill. The role of attitude is so important. Although most of us able bodied and non-chronic sufferers try our best to identify with the tough real world situations many face, we tend to forget over time. That is when a can-do attitude can be the second thing we remember about you.
Rosalind says
As always, your insights on “spot on”. Thanks GL.