Enduring Truths for Careers and Job Search

The University of Wisconsin has had many distinguished alumni and faculty who have been known to produce noteworthy quotes. The Winter 2009 On Wisconsin magazine cites many of these remarkable quotes in “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Yes, that phrase was uttered by a UW alum, Jim Lovell in 1970.

As I read through the quotes, some of them struck me as enduring truths relevant to our tough economic times and our careers and job search. Here are a few to consider:

1. “What is most personal is most general…The very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal, and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people.” – Carl Rogers (psychologist) in On Becoming a Person (1961).

Jason Alba of JibberJobber has often written about his career transformation into an entrepreneur after he was laid off from an IT Manager job. Most important, he has shared his private emotions which ran the full gamut from disbelief, anger, and despair to a sense of fulfillment and joy with his new career. His most emotional blog posts seemed to generate the most comments – people saying they felt the same way! In "Evolution", Jason relates how his career has taken a different path than he had imagined or planned for. He asks some really important and timeless questions for you to ponder and answer for yourself.

Similarly, Kris Parfitt of Career Leadership Coaching, relates her feelings about being laid off last month and the “cracks” in her contentment that she had been experiencing for years. In “It’s About Time You Answered Your Calling” she confesses her doubts and fears, but also her hopes, dreams, and commitment to her calling in coaching. She asks, “Do you have ‘cracks in your contentment”?

2. “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” – Abraham Maslow (psychologist) in The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966).

The majority of job seekers I encounter seem to believe that the volume of resumes dispersed in their job search is all that matters. So they diligently shoot their resume out there into the “black hole” of cyberspace in response to job postings and wait to hear back. And wait, and wait. They are acting as if the only tool (hammer) they have at their disposal is a resume, and consequently every job posting they see becomes the “nail”.

Richard Bolles, of What Color Is Your Parachute? fame, talks about “Landing a job in this tough economy” in a recent interview. He mentions that there are at least 16 strategies (tools) a job seeker can use!

Andy Klee writes “How to Find a Job in Any Economy” in the Career Rocketeer blog. He promotes a different approach (toolset) to job search that he successfully used 20 years ago. His four-step method bears contains many nuggets of common sense that still apply to today’s job search.

Optimizing your online and offline self-marketing documents, such as your resume, cover letters, bios, social networking profiles, blogs, onine portfolios, and websites with keywords and phrases is a modern-day tool that is no longer optional for a successful job search. The effectiveness with which you can get noticed by potential employers and recruiters and pull them toward you, rather than having to push a resume at them, can make all the difference in how quickly you land interviews. "The Power of Keywords in Your Social Networking Profiles and Online Resumes" by Marci Reynolds gives you the rationale and best practices for revamping your online tools.

3. “Never think you’ve seen the last of anything.” – Eudora Welty (writer) in The Optimist’s Daughter (1969).

Rather than seeing “the glass half empty”, let’s focus on “the glass half full”. The power of a positive attitude and the ability to experience happiness in our every day activities and relationships are often undervalued. For those who are unemployed, it might feel like happiness and “good times” are gone forever. But a positive outlook and the capacity to feel joy and happiness, even in mundane moments, are precisely what can make your job search, your career, and your life a more meaningful journey.

Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project shares “the days are long, but the years are short” in “In Which I Get Teary Reading My Own Book”. Her Twelve Personal Commandments and Four Splendid Truths related to happiness are enduring thoughts to live by in your career and life.

Finally, there are “The Top 20 Things Oprah Knows for Sure”, an interesting and revealing assortment of her quotes about happiness, life, choices, and trust among many others. I remember when Oprah started out as a shy, tongue-tied, and somewhat unattractive Weather Girl on a local Baltimore (MD) TV channel. I lived in Baltimore at the time and watched that TV station. I remember thinking, “Now there is someone who is not going to make it in show business”. All these years later, I watch her on The Oprah Show and realize just when you think you have seen the last of something (or in this case someone), life will prove you wrong!

Cross-posted at Career Goddess Blog