5 Ways to Derail a Job Search, Plus 1...Harvard Business Review

Green Mountain Train Wreck, March 21, 1910

Kudos to the article author, career strategist John Lees, as he is absolutely spot on in his assessment of how we become our own train wrecks.

If You're Looking for a Job, Get Out of Your Own Wayby John Lees 
 August 15, 2012 
Why do some job hunters give up when they are just in sight of their goals? I've just seen Simon, a client who has been looking for a job for 6 months. Like many people on the market, he started out optimistically but has given up — not officially, mind you, but he's suddenly taken an urgent interest in redecorating his house. 

His argument to hire a career coach is summed up in this comment, 
"By insisting that job searching is logical, simple and hardly worth thinking about, we don't think about it at all. We act as if it's as simple as making an online purchase. Yet it's an activity which is all about influencing, communicating a brand, eliciting support, and making connections — skills that can take half a lifetime to perfect."

Here are his 5 Ways to Derail a Search Summed Up:

1. The first type are people who think they know how to get hired, but don't.
2. Habit and pride are powerful forces, demonstrated by the category of people who have got their own way of doing things.
3. Then there are people who are too angry to change strategy. 
4. Don't forget the people who engage in activities that look like job hunting.  
5. Finally, there are the job hunters who know what to do, but don't do it.  

Read the article here.

I would add a 6th Way
Often my clients come to me after they have committed the article's five top job search errors and lost valuable search time. But, I would add a sixth as well. The job hunter who expects and assumes that their next position should come through a search firm because their last four did.

Time changes executive opportunities in marketplace as career growth raises position level and the corresponding availability jobs at the top. Successful job hunters respond with new approaches, tactics, tools and technologies that meet the current status quo.  


 

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