Your job hunt – be upbeat, not frantic

"Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiseling and scraping and polishing."

----- B.C. Forbes

Unemployment definitely generates feelings of apprehension and extreme anxiety. Is it justified to let such feelings come to the fore in your job hunt? If you let it happen, you are surely asking for trouble.

You could desperately want a job and hence going about from pillar to post to get one. The need could be desperate, but should you let that desperation be an attribute of your efforts to get a job. The question therefore, is what is it that tells apart desperate job hunt behaviour from a proactive one and how could you subscribe to the latter?

Stench is smelt much before any fragrance. If you feel unduly fraught, pessimism and unconstructiveness will have the better of you; you are liable to become glum. Any prospective employer will be able to discern your state of extreme anxiety and be more inclined to reject you rather than absorbing you in his organization.

Here are some guidelines to maintain your poise and be proactive in your job search:

·   Avoid barefaced trumpet blowing:  Never ever dole out your resume to all and sundry; it is an important paper and not a handbill. If you do so, it will send signals that you are supplicate a job, like what a tramp does with a begging bowl. Rather than conveying an impression that you desperately need a job, you should be able to create an impact about your capability to contribute usefully in an organization. Thwarted job hunters should conduct introspection on their true worth in the employment arena; this will raise their level of self-assuredness and bring about a practiced conduct in them. Help could be taken from career counselors in this regard to give a positive boost to your job search.

·   Don’t pursue matters unnecessarily:  There are people who make desperate telephone calls or shoot out emails to confirm and re-confirm – be they receipt of their applications or schedule of interviews. Such inquiries are not taken favourably and tend to create a wrong impression that you are not persevering but insistent and that you lack basic business etiquettes. You need to avoid being branded as such; hence you should understand and respect the hectic schedules at the other end. Remember that a person, who is too insistent on his efforts and inquiries, rarely finds few people to agree with him; life does not pay off to them.

·   Don’t make wild assertions:  During interviews, you need to be cautious about how you portray yourself. Your words convey everything; it may happen that you are misinterpreted or taken as one with a presumptuous attitude. Whatever you speak should help in differentiating you from others; gratuitous and unwarranted assertions should be avoided. Being candid is what is appreciated; you need to prove that you are worth appointment to the post applied for by giving calculated illustrations of what you have achieved and how you can be of use. If you are able to explain yourself in a balanced and purposeful manner, you will create an impact.    

         The dividing line between a proactive job hunt and a desperate one is rather thin; discerning it is an extremely complicated matter. However, being practical, positive and upbeat in the process is what matters and is crucial to get that job offer.

            A person who is firm, pushy and self-confident always stands out and tastes success, particularly in tough times. When the going gets tough, it is the tough who get going. And all employers know this and can determine assertiveness from insistence. Besides evaluating you for what you are, they simultaneously also try to conclude efforts that would be necessary to mould you into their setup. And if they find that such efforts could be colossal, they may refrain from selecting you. But most importantly, remember that if you are facing in the right direction, all you need to do is keep on walking.