If you are still looking for a job, it is time to rework your strategy …
What do you do when you’ve tried every strategy you can think of but still haven’t found a job? You might be tempted to bang your head against the wall but that won’t solve your problem. Then what will, or at least might help you get a job?

“When you feel like you’ve exhausted all your options, you need to consider yourself a product that the market didn’t seem to take a liking to,” says Diane Danielson, author of Table Talk: The Savvy Girl’s Alternative to Networking and founder and executive director of the Downtown Women’s Clubs.

“You need to pull the product off the market and tweak it a little to draw attention,” she says.

Niche area
“While it’s human nature to say you do everything, that approach ends up yielding fewer opportunities,” Danielson says. “So, clearly define a niche area where you have enough expertise. Not only will this strengthen your belief in you and increase your confidence but also convey a good impression about you to others.”

For example, if you’ve worked as a teacher and would like to use your considerable writing and editing skills in your next job, look for companies that produce educational books or non-profit agencies with educational missions. Then sell these organisations the fact that you’re a writer / editor with expertise in education.

Sales pitch
“You need to pretend you’re in sales,” says Deborah Brown-Volkman, president, Surpass Your Dreams, a career-coaching company. “Get some sales books and learn how to create a 30-second pitch and handle objections. Learn how to spin what you’ve done so the interviewer or someone you meet at a networking function knows exactly what you want and what’s in it for the company you want to work for.”

Time management
Lots of jobseekers say they’re doing everything they’re supposed to be doing to look for work, says Damian Birkel, founder of Professionals in Transition. But Birkel notes that often jobseekers need to adjust the mix of their search activities.

“Many times when you talk about the allocation of job search time, most of it is spent answering ads both electronic and in the paper,” says Birkel, who lost his job twice in a 10-year period and survived three corporate downsizings in the years that followed. “Another way to think of it is that 100 per cent of the people are responding to the job openings. Meanwhile, there is the vast and hidden job market.”

Outside counsel
If you’re one of the many who have been job hunting for months, or even a year or more, you may simply need some help from a third-party — a neutral observer like a counsellor, therapist, coach or clergyperson. Many cities offer affordable options if you’re willing to seek them.

“During one three-month run of unemployment, I found a psychologist at a place that charged a sliding-scale fee,” says Bob Johnson, director of communications at St Bartholomew’s Church and a self-described “king of unsuccessful job searches in the past”.

“On the morning of our first appointment, I called to cancel, because I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed,” recalls Johnson. “Thank God she called back and managed to convince me to drag myself to see her.”

Johnson says the psychologist gave him a fresh perspective on what he was doing. She didn’t help him land a job immediately, he says. But perhaps more importantly, “she helped me see the woods instead of the trees”.

Source: The Telegraph (kolkata, India)