I read this article (below) back in 2006 and it really resonated with me so I tucked it away. I read it recently and again it resonated so much that I had to share it with all of you.  After all, I am a coach, and one of the most important things for me to educate my clients on is this very subject. If you don’t take charge of your job search, than who will? You can apply this same statement to all of your life. If you don’t take charge of your life, your goals, your finances, your well being, your health, your relationships, your happiness…then who will?

It’s a bit of a Wake-Up Call message. Yet still, many people will find it difficult.  Why?  Because most people would rather be comfortable and unhappy then uncomfortable and happy.  The good news is there is a very simple way for you to build your “take charge muscles”.  Curious?  OK, I will give you that simple solution right here, right now, and all you have to PROMISE to use it. (I have this saying on my computer that says “Good information is perishable. Just like milk, use it now or you will throw it away.”)

A Simple Solution to Building Your Take Charge Muscles-  Ask yourself this question. “What is one thing I can do right now to take charge of something in my life?”  Now choose something you have been indecisive on, something you’ve procrastinated on, some call you know you “should” make, a follow up email that is on your task list.  Just pick one, and say in your mind “I can take charge of this, right now” . Now imagine for a minute if you do this today, tomorrow and every day for the rest of your life.  Your productivity will soar, your results will improve dramatically and you will feel so good about your ability to take charge in your life.

Here is the article

Take Charge of your Job Search: 12 Steps to Success

By: Michelle Casto

Despite what many people may say, a job search does not have to be an unpleasant experience. There are those people who choose to take charge of the process, who actually find the process to be very rewarding and stimulating.

Conducting a job search is in many ways a self discovery process and an opportunity to put your true endurance and attitude skills to the test.

Here is the secret to experiencing job search success: Be Productive, Be Proactive, Be Positive, Be Persistent, and Be Polished. It is a very easy formula to follow: Do your homework on what you want to do and where you would ideally like to do it. Do more than you think is necessary before it needs to be done. Maintain a positive attitude, it will make all the difference in the world.

Don’t give up too easily, good jobs go to those who “keep at it.” And throughout the entire job search process, be sure to look and act the part of a professional.

Steps to Help You Take Charge of Your Job Search:

1. Clarify Your Career Goals: When you know what you are looking for in a career, it is much easier to locate a job in that field. If you are not sure what you want to do with the rest of your life, see a career coach or counselor for assistance.

2. Tailor Your Resume and Cover Letter: Invest in a resume and cover letter reference book to view examples of good resumes. Use the examples as a guide to create your own version. Think of your resume and cover letter as “self-marketing” tools. Then, have a few, qualified people review and critique your first few drafts. (Remember, these are works in progress that are never really finished, as you will be continually updating them).

3. Identify Potential Employers: Appropriate employer directories and resources are available for your use in the library or local university career center. Get familiar with books, magazines, and on-line reference materials in your career field and use them regularly. Only rely on the resources that help you to identify relevant employment contacts.

4. Establish a Network: Identify people in various organizations and companies who can give you insight into their employment needs. Identify faculty, acquaintances, friends, and relatives who can assist you in your job search. Become actively involved in professional organizations.

5. Research Potential Employers: Read literature about them, talk with people who know of their work, check them out on the internet. Gather as much information about the company as you can, so if you ever get an interview, you will already be prepared.

6. Practice Your Interviewing Skills: Make an appointment for a mock interview session with a qualified career counselor. If possible, video-tape yourself to see how you can improve your interviewing technique.

7. Conduct an Informational Interview: Ask your contact(s) if they have a half hour to talk with you about their industry. Ask a lot of questions, listen up, and take notes. This is an ideal time to ask if there are any job opportunities within their company and/or people they may know that you should contact. Have a resume in hand, just in case they ask for it.

8. Follow Up with a Thank You Note: Immediately following the interview, send the person or persons you met with a thank you note to show your appreciation. For actual job interviews, follow up with a telephone call within an appropriate amount of time to find out the status of their decision. Show interest without being overly aggressive.

9. Get Organized: Place all of your job search materials in one binder, so that you can refer to the information easily and quickly. Make notes to yourself about the interview, something the person said you would like to remember, or other important information.

10. Develop the Skills and Qualities that Employers are Looking For: Desirable skills include: Good oral and written communication skills, initiative, honesty, reliability, the ability to work in a team, and resourcefulness. Equally important skills to have are appreciation of diversity and the technological know-how for access into your industry.

Qualities:

1. Character (someone who abides by morals and high ethics in all situations),
2. Confidence (someone who is comfortable leading and following, composed, and has healthy self esteem), and
3. Competence (someone who possesses the knowledge, skills, and motivation necessary to succeed in their career field).

11. Continue to Learn: Stay abreast of current trends in your field. Read, Read, Read. Attend workshops or lectures about your field of interest. Always be open to new information.

12. Repeat this Process: Repeat this process until you have secured your desired position.
Keep in mind that a full time job search may take anywhere from six months to a year to conduct, so be sure to start early. And remember that in the job search game, there are three kinds of people:
There are those who are destined to be successful.
There are those who are determined to be successful.
There are those who are neither destined or determined to be successful.

Which kind of job searcher are you? To be successful, take charge of the process and use the 5 P’s. All it takes to land your ideal job is fore-thought, maintaining a positive mental attitude, having a high level of energy, taking inspired action, following up and displaying professionalism.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that 290,000 non-farm jobs were added in the month of April, the largest monthly gain of any month in the past 4 years!

For April and March combined, 573,000 jobs were added. After steadily losing jobs in 2009, we can finally be encouraged that the economy is sustaining its own recovery.

Jobs Added in Past 3 Months:

April: 290,000
March: 230,000
Feb: 39,000

These industries showed notable job gains:

Professional/Business Services: 80,000
Leisure & Hospitality 45,000
Manufacturing: 44,000
Services to Buildings/Dwellings: 26,000
Healthcare: 20,000
Construction: 14,000

Interestingly, the unemployment rate actually rose from 9.7% to 9.9% – indicating that thousands of workers who had given up their job search gained a new enthusiasm and restarted their searches.

Love the good news! Here are 3 good signs in this article!

1.  Manufacturing in the U.S. expanded

2.  Stocks Climb

3.  Rising Orders

May 3 (Bloomberg) — Manufacturing in the U.S. expanded in April at the fastest pace since June 2004, indicating the world’s largest economy accelerated as it entered the second quarter.

Stocks gained as the supply management’s report showed expanding production and a gauge of factory employment at the highest level since 2005. Parker Hannifin Corp. is among companies benefiting from a global manufacturing resurgence that may soon spark the hiring needed for a sustained economic expansion.

“This speaks to the tremendous health of the manufacturing sector and should be consistent with further gains in hiring,” said Carl Riccadonna, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York. “The strength in economic activity in the first quarter has carried into the second quarter, and in fact, is probably accelerating.”

Readings greater than 50 in the supply management group’s index signal expansion and today’s report marks a ninth consecutive month of growth. The factory index was projected to rise to 60, based on the median forecast of 76 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Estimates ranged from 57 to 65.

Stocks Climb

Warren Buffett’s defense of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and an airline merger also helped propel stocks. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1.3 percent to close at 1,202.26. The 10-year Treasury note declined, pushing the yield up 3 basis points to 3.69 percent at 4:13 p.m. in New York. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Manufacturing is rebounding globally. Europe’s factories grew last month at the fastest pace since June 2006, while Australian manufacturing growth jumped to the highest level since May 2002, other reports showed today.

A manufacturing index based on a survey of euro-area purchasing managers increased to 57.6 from a March reading of 56.6, London-based Markit Economics said. A gauge of factory performance in Australia surged 9.3 points to 59.8 in April, the Australian Industry Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers said.

Consumer spending rose 0.6 percent in March after a 0.5 percent gain that was more than initially estimated, Commerce Department figures showed. Incomes increased 0.3 percent, the first gain this year.

Consumer Spending

The figures show American consumers, whose spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy, are gaining confidence in the recovery. Their purchases in the first quarter rose at a 3.6 percent annual rate, the fastest in three years, the Commerce Department reported last week.

Construction spending unexpectedly increased in March, propelled by gains in state and local government projects, a Commerce Department report showed. The 0.2 percent rise followed a 2.1 percent drop in February.

The ISM’s production index jumped to the highest since January 2004. The new orders index increased to a three-month high, while inventories at factories and at their customers declined.

“Production is barely keeping pace with demand, and the prospects for solid manufacturing growth in the coming months remain quite good,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase in New York, said in an e-mail to clients.

The factory employment index increased to the highest since level since January 2005. Manufacturing payrolls probably expanded for a fourth straight month, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey before a May 7 report from the Labor Department.

Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve policy makers said last week that the labor market is showing signs of improving, and kept interest rates near zero to ensure the expansion becomes well-rooted.

Employers increased payrolls again in April, economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast before the Labor Department’s report, which may also show the jobless rate held at 9.7 percent.

The ISM’s supplier delivery gauge, a measure of the time it takes to receive goods, fell to 61.3 from 64.9 the prior month. The index of prices paid rose to 78 from 75.

Flush with profits, businesses are spending more on equipment. Business investment rose at a 13 percent annual rate in the first quarter after a 19 percent surge at the end of 2009.

Rising Orders

Parker Hannifin’s total orders were up 23 percent in the first quarter and its international industrial orders surged 42 percent from a year earlier, the maker of hydraulic equipment reported last month.

“In most of our markets, we continue to see a more consistent picture of improving year-over-year trends,” Don Washkewicz, the Cleveland-based company’s chief executive officer, said in an April 20 conference call. “North America continues to show signs of recovery.”

Efforts to stabilize inventories contributed 1.6 percentage points to growth in the first quarter after a 3.8 point boost in the prior there months, the Commerce Department’s report on gross domestic product showed last week.

I just read this great article that raises awareness about your online presence. Have you Googled yourself to see what information you can find out about YOU? Since hiring authorities are doing this more and more, it is advised that you begin today to manage what information is available for others to see.  This article came from Tom Ruff’s Weekly Wisdom.  Tom operates a very successful recruiting business in the Biopharm industry www.tomruff.com. He is quite a champion in many aspects of life.  Enjoy the article and take action.

6 Career-Killing Facebook Mistakes

by Erin Joyce, Managing Editor

1. Inappropriate Pictures – It may go without saying, but prospective employers or clients don’t want to see pictures of you chugging a bottle of wine or dressed up for a night at the bar. Beyond the pictures you wouldn’t want your grandparents to see, seemingly innocent pictures of your personal life will likely not help to support the persona you want to present in your professional life.

2. Complaining About Your Current Job - You’ve no doubt done this at least once. It could be a full note about how much you hate your office, or how incompetent your boss is, or it could be as innocent as a status update about how your coworker always shows up late. While everyone complains about work sometimes, doing so in a public forum where it can be found by others is not the best career move. Though it may seem innocent, it’s not the kind of impression that sits well with a potential boss.

3. Posting Conflicting Information to Your Resume – If you say on your resume that your degree is from Harvard, but your Facebook profile says you went to UCLA, you’re likely to be immediately cut from the interview list. Even if the conflict doesn’t leave you looking better on your resume, disparities will make you look at worst like a liar, and at best careless.

4. Statuses You Wouldn’t Want Your Boss to See - Everyone should know to avoid statuses like “Tom plans to call in sick tomorrow so he can get drunk on a Wednesday. Who cares that my big work project isn’t done?” But you should also be aware of less flamboyant statuses like “Sarah is watching the gold medal hockey game online at her desk”. Statuses that imply you are unreliable, deceitful, and basically anything that doesn’t make you look as professional as you’d like, can seriously undermine your chances at landing that new job.

5. Not Understanding Your Security Settings - The security settings on Facebook have come a long way since the site started. It is now possible to customize lists of friends and decide what each list can and cannot see. However, many people do not fully understand these settings, or don’t bother to check who has access to what. If you are going to use Facebook professionally, and even if you aren’t, make sure you take the time to go through your privacy options. At the very least, your profile should be set so that people who are not your friend cannot see any of your pictures or information.

6. Losing by Association - You can’t control what your friends post to your profile (although you can remove it once you see it), nor what they post to their own profiles or to those of mutual friends. If a potential client or employer sees those Friday night pictures your friend has tagged you in where he is falling down drunk, it reflects poorly on you, even if the picture of you is completely innocent. It’s unfortunate, but we do judge others by the company they keep, at least to some extent. Take a look at everything connected to your profile, and keep an eye out for anything you wouldn’t want to show your mother.

Being happy may not come naturally to you.

You are entitled to be happy, so why not choose happiness everyday.

Everyday the sun comes up is an opportunity to choose to be happy.  You don’t have to…it is an opportunity. Life is minute to minute. I don’t know the future so why not plan on it being great!  That is a reason to feel happy.

Somewhere in my life I started counting every day, for the opportunity to be happy. Even if just for one thing, I could be happy about on this day.  So far, the sun has come up 16,834 days for me and I plan to have the rest of them start with a choice to be happy.  Will I be perfect…probably not. Will I make the most of the opportunity? You bet I will.

Our lives are full of potential sources of happiness, yett sometimes we become victims of negative thinking because we are focusing on all that has gone wrong. We have a habit of thinking that we have to face the challenges of survival, and struggle. Struggle is overrated.

Try this instead. Choose to focus on what makes you happy. You can find one thing, if you just look. There are many things all around you, it is simply up to you to identify it. A shift in your thinking and in your emotions occurs almost immediately.  It changes the way way you start to look at your life. The point of view, from which you see the world, is brought into perspective, and you can see that being alive truly is an opportunity.

All resistance and obstacles are created in the mind.  If you find yourself resisting or feeling blocked from experiencing happiness, you simply want to look within yourself and define that boulder that is blocking you. You will start to see, that you too, can choose happiness.

Keep a journal.  “My Choice is Happiness”  For those times that happiness seems to be a difficult choice, review your journal and all of the wonderful moments you have cataloged.  Happiness is unfolding all around us. Writing about what you notice, including the emotions you experience, gives you a treasured resource that will always be there for you.

What makes them so great?

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2010/size/

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2010/full_list/

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2010/states/CA.html

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2010/pay/

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2010/benefits/index.html

This is a great idea I wanted to share with you. Even if you come across this article after the 5 days, start your own wave, today. Its a fantastic idea that supports connection and making a diiference!

Day 1: It starts today! The five-day “Pay It Forward Wave” to help friends find work January 11, 2010

Hello Everyone,

Today is the first of five days to create a powerful wave of action across the country in a tremendous force for good. If you didn’t see my earlier post about this idea, please read it for the full story.

Please do something right now. Just take a moment to do something simple and easy.

Reach out. Make a call. Ask a friend what one or two things you can do to help with his/her job search.

Pass the word so we can get thousands across the nations mobilized to help get friends back to work! Please help by sharing this on your email lists, Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Ideas for Things to Do:

Forward a job lead
Write a LinkedIn recommendation
Review a friend’s resume and give objective feedback
Set a time to meet for coffee or a drink (heck, we all need one these days!). In-person meetings are important, it bouys spirits and sparks ideas and energy – plus it’s fun!
Make some calls on a friend’s behalf
Pass on a link to a good job site or a great article on job search
Make an introduction to a friend in a company he/she is interested in
Reach out to a colleague who has been laid off from your company to see how he/she is doing and offer to make connections for him/her
Become a “Job Buddy” – commit to meet on a regular basis to set goals and provide gentle accountability (if you are both looking for jobs, there’s a double benefit)
Offer to do some role playing for a job interview
Tell (and write down!) four strengths/qualities you see in your friend
Review or help write a strong cover letter
Invite a friend to connect to you on LinkedIn with the purpose of giving them access to your network so he/she can see if you have contacts in companies on their wish list
Help with career ideas, brainstorm on other ways to use their skills, suggest good companies to target, how to transition into a new industry

Let’s make this big push building a huge Pay It Forward Power Wave across the country!

Thanks so much,

Sue
KIT List Founder

www.KITlist.org

What is holding you back? Get clear on this because what you first think is holding you back might not be what is actually is.

This is about defining the boulder that is blocking you from what you want.

Ask yourself tough questions – why?

Resistance and obstacles are manufactured in your mind.

When you ask tough question or better said, quality questions,
then you have a chance to breakthrough whatever is holding you back.

Try theses:

What’s one thing am I not doing, that if I did do, would improve my job search?

What are ten things I want to accomplish this week?

What am I willing to do to get it?

When will I do each of these?  (Make your plan)

What is standing in my way?

Who can help me or be a good resource for me?

You will notice the habits and behaviors that you can be responsible for. A problem honestly acknowledged is at least half solved. Most professionals struggle in their career and they ultimately make a decision, a commitment “I will” rid myself from this behavior.

Use the questions above and discover your boulders.  Then simply say “I will” rid myself of these habits and behaviors.  Now do it.