CheekyChicago

You’ve been looking for a job for six months with no luck. You can’t quit. You’ve done everything you can think of. What next? To jump start your job hunt stand back. Take a deep breath. The single greatest barrier to getting the job you want is:

1. Lack of pinpoint focus?

2. Unreliable references?

OR

3. Not enough experience?

It’s number one: Lack of pinpoint focus.

Look at your resume. Does your job objective say, “Online marketing for a Fortune 50 company making computer components in the Chicago area?” If it isn’t that specific you are measurably slowing your job hunt. Remember that HR folk are the gatekeepers and straight-line thinkers. They demand specificity. If you could get to the hiring manager and exchange information, you might get by with a job objective that said, “PR or marketing for a Chicago-area company.” You might get by with no objective at all – or even just a career summary. Unfortunately, HR is there enforcing the rules. Rethink and rewrite your job objective. Test it with peers in your industry. Does it sound as if you know absolutely what you want to do? If it doesn’t, keep writing. If you’re not sure what you want to do next, stop the job hunt, get a part-time job and rethink your job goals. Get some help from an expert. Don’t waste your contacts when you can’t answer the most important question of all: “What do you want to do next?”

Re-contact everyone you haven’t talked with in six weeks. You are not perpetually perched on every contact’s frontal lobe. Give them a 30-second summary of what you’ve done so far. Then say, “I’ve changed my focus. Who should I be talking to?” Do not ask if they know of openings. You want contacts, not just rumors of openings. Ask them which companies in the industry they believe are on the verge of extraordinary growth, launching new products or eager to innovate. Those are always the best targets.

Look for at least two new associations to visit. You know the ones that serve only people who work in your industry. Which associations have overlapping memberships? An example would be the Society of Professional Journalists. It has members who work in all kinds of communications roles but started with the Society when they were students or reporters. Remember, you want to give information as well as get it. If you got job leads you couldn’t use, be sure to pass them to your network. If you’re not networking with your alumni association, you are missing the best network you’ll ever belong to. (By the way, you went to high school somewhere. Those people are all working as well.)

Finally, repeat the obvious. Don’t be afraid to contact people you’ve read about in the trade press. They may be opinion leaders in your industry and, if flattered, give you more names of people who can connect you to hirers.

Marilyn Moats Kennedy, founder of Moats/Kennedy, Inc. (formerly Career Strategies), runs a 35-year-old consulting firm which works exclusively on workplace issues. Read more at www.moatskennedy.com.