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Our colleague, Rita Ashley, has a terrific offer going for the holidays.

Purchase her Networking Debugged or Job Search Debugged, job-search books, and get the other one free. Once you purchase a book, contact her with your email address and it will be her pleasure to send you the other book.

We’ve read these terrific, downloadable ebooks, and trust us, they are well worth your investment.

Here’s an excerpt from our review of Job Search Debugged:

Among the strengths of the rich, comprehensive Job Search Debugged is the fact that author Rita Ashley was a recruiter for many years, so she thoroughly understands the hiring process from the employer’s side of the desk. The other distinctive feature is that the book is filled with stories of clients and other job-seekers. Nothing beats real-life examples and anecdotes to get points across. Ashley is opinionated, and sometimes her positions clash — refreshingly — with conventional career-expert wisdom. She disdains, for example, the typical advice to be coy and guarded about one’s salary request when negotiating salary.

And a testimonial from a user:

“I struggled for four months and got no interviews. Once I read Job Search Debugged and changed my resume and outreach, I was offered interviews over 50% of the time and finally had three offers. This was the best money I have ever spent on my career.”

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

This article is part of Job Action Day 2011.

[Reinforcing the Job Action Day 2011 “Skill Up, Start Up, Speak Up” message is a group of bloggers dedicating blog posts on or around Job Action Day 2011 to the event. Scroll down to see their blog posts listed.]

As we prepared for the fourth annual Job Action Day, three themes emerged to characterize the post-recession job market:

1. A large number of job vacancies go unfilled because of a gap in skills between what employers need and what job-seekers offer.
2. Workers must become CEOs of their own careers to survive amid the current jobs crisis. That entrepreneurial mindset might translate to starting a business, freelancing, or simply taking a more proactive approach to their own careers.
3. Job-seekers may want to consider calling attention to the jobs crisis and ask business and government for solutions.

These messages translate to the theme for Job Action Day 2011: Skill Up, Start Up, Speak Up. We’ve compiled tips from authors and experts on this three-fold theme:

Skill Up

Keep developing your skills — constantly. Remaining stagnant can be fatal to your career. Often, after obtaining a college degree or technical certification, you may find it easy to coast through your career. Big mistake! Employers do not “buy” or retain people with “old” knowledge and skills. Here are some suggestions:

• Seek opportunities within your organization, industry, and community to build your skills, knowledge, experience, and professional networks. Skills, knowledge, experience, and networks are your essential career assets, just like capital assets of a company.
• Volunteer for projects, committees, and taskforces, especially if they allow you to develop cross-functional skills and knowledge, as well as cross-departmental contacts.
• Show interest in providing added value to your job role by going beyond the confines of your job description. Stretch out of your comfort zone.
• Promote your ideas and the ideas of others while collaborating on teams.
• Invest in leadership development programs and continuing professional development, whether your employer antes up for them or not.
• Join and become active in professional, trade, and community associations.

— Susan Guarneri, Career Assessment Goddess

Know what the employer needs. Even in a down economy, there are pockets where employers cannot hire fast enough — and have a big deadline to meet. Case in point: There’s currently a huge demand for individuals who know how to work with healthcare billing systems and coding. A federal mandate that all healthcare providers must keep electronic medical records by 2014 has led to a scramble across the U.S. to hire those with the know-how. Want in? Find out where local healthcare facilities are in making the transition, and where you can get training to meet their needs. It’s a perfect example of how you can skill up and get hired!

— Chandlee Bryan, career coach and resume writer, Best Fit Forward

Let your skills motivate you. The extensive gap between job-seeker skills and employer expectations is a complex problem. Motivation to meet employer’s expectations is one factor in the current gap. Richard L. Knowdell says that workers are motivated by skills they want to use. If there is a mismatch between the skills the worker wants to use and the specific skills an employer requires, what would motivate the job-seeker to get training and experience hor or she would need for the job? The job-seeker might be motivated by external factors such excellent compensation, flexibility, values match, job security, location of interest, or training opportunities. Often employers are not offering the extrinsic incentives that would motivate job-seekers to work at jobs that they don’t value. The lower a person is in what Abraham Maslow would call the hierarchy of needs, the more motivated a person would be to take a job that was not intrinsically motivating. Having affordable opportunities for training in a vocational program, apprenticeship, or college program would further motivate the job-seeker to develop skills to meet the employer’s needs. Creative job-seekers may find entrepreneurship a great opportunity to use and develop skills they value.

— Nancy Miller, M.S., CCM, Creative Lifework Design, clwd(at)njmiller.info

Know the hard-to-fill fields in which employers are having the hardest time finding skilled workers. If you have the interest in and aptitude for any of these sectors, you can gain a huge advantage by pursuing appropriate training:

1. Technicians
2. Sales reps
3. Skilled trades
4. Engineers
5. Secretaries, personal assistants, administrative assistants, office support staff
6. Drivers
7. Production operators
8. Laborers
9. Accounting and finance staff
10. Management/executives

— 2011 ManpowerGroup Talent Shortage Survey

Add value to your career brand and magnetism with five intangible skills. 1) being good at chit chat and small talk, especially at networking events, parties, and company functions; 2) being versatile and a team player who fosters cooperation and camaraderie; 3) being able to articulate your needs and problems as well as compliment and praise others; 4) adaptability and the ability to flow with change; 5) an attitude of positivity that spreads good vibe and energy.

— Deborah Shane, DeborahShaneToolbox.com

Paint a picture for the hiring decision-maker. Yes you can DO the job, but can you GET the job? Job-acquisition skills are equally as important as the actual job-related skills. Too often candidates rely on their experience or education “speaking for itself.” Having lots of experience doesn’t mean the recruiter can understand specifically HOW you can do this job. Great college coursework isn’t necessarily known outside of the college. Brush up your cover-letter skills. Use your cover letter (yes, some recruiters do read them) to draw clear lines between what the job requirements are and what you offer. And I mean literally. If you are having a tough time showing your skills are transferrable, use a table format in your cover letter. It should look like this:

— Maureen Crawford Hentz, nationally recognized expert on social networking and new media recruiting — and a long-time favorite contributing expert to Quintessential Careers.

Look to community colleges for skills training. U.S. community colleges have received about $500 million in federal grants intended to improve career-development programs and train a currently unemployable workforce. The chosen colleges will use the money to buy equipment, hire staff, and develop job-training curricula. Each community college to receive a grant will collaborate with at least one employer with job openings. Some examples of the range of programs: At Honolulu Community College, the program focuses on reducing the high percentage of students enrolled in remedial mathematics and English courses. At Tidewater Community College, the Commonwealth of Virginia manufacturing.

— Herman Trend Alert

Especially look at community colleges that partner with local employers for academic programs tailored to the employers’ needs. “Community colleges in many states, especially North Carolina, have proved to be good partners with employers by tailoring very applied course work to the specific needs of the employer. Candidates qualify to be hired once they complete the courses — which they pay for themselves, at least in part. For instance, a manufacturer might require that prospective job candidates first pass a course on quality control or using certain machine tools.”

— Peter Cappelli, Wall Street Journal

Consider skilled trades and the schools that teach them. “88 percent of [DeVry University] October 2010 graduates who are active in the job market found employment in their field of study within six months” at companies like Verizon Wireless, Bank of America, the Department of Homeland Security, and Caterpillar.

— Kristin Samuelson, Chicago Tribune

Volunteer. “[M]ore employers [are] saying they look at volunteer work in evaluating job candidates. In September, LinkedIn, the professional networking site, added a field for members to list their volunteer work in their profiles, after a survey found that 41 percent of employers said they considered volunteer work as important as paid work, and that 20 percent said they had made a hiring decision based on volunteer work.”

— John Leland, whose New York Times article, describes a job-seeker who successfully sought volunteer work to give her the hands-on experience she needed to earn a certification that would advance her career.

Be the answer to an employer’s need. One of the easiest ways to land and ace an interview is to know as much as you can about what the employer wants to see. Check out StartWire News to find out what employers are looking for — each week the company conducts an in-depth Q & A interview with recruiting leaders at companies with 1,000 or more employees. You can also find actual interview questions asked by companies at Glassdoor — shared by employees who got the job, as well as interviewees who didn’t. When you know what’s important to the company — and how the hiring process works, it’s easier to land an opportunity.

— Chandlee Bryan, career coach and resume writer, Best Fit Forward

Mark yourself to market and build your personal brand. “[U]se your skills, experiences and capabilities as personal brand-building assets. Build a portfolio of career-enhancing competencies and experiences by regularly developing new skills that are transferrable from one role to another. Take calculated risks that get you out of your comfort zone; otherwise complacency is sure seep in — a career death knell in a marketplace where time-to-obsolescence is at an all-time low. If you’re hesitant to make such leaps, ask yourself how risky it is not to act at all. Lateral moves, special-project assignments, contributions to initiatives, leadership development programs, and outside-of-work experiences all can be helpful for building your brand. ‘Roles are simply more fungible than traditionally,’ Robyn Denholm, CFO of Juniper Networks, told me. ‘Relevance of skills, experiences, and competencies is what we look for most. We look at potential hires for what the individual can contribute. They each play a role in the organization, but the bounds of the roles are more opaque.’ To succeed in today’s job world, you’ll need to ask yourself a tough question: How well am I doing at acquiring sought-after skills and competencies? If you don’t like the answer, do something about it.”

— Cathy Benko, vice chairman Deloitte LLP and co-author of The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance In the Changing World of Work, on CNBC.com

Start Up

Develop an entirely new mind-set and skill set. “The old paradigm of climb up a stable career ladder is dead and gone. No career is a sure thing anymore. The uncertain, rapidly changing conditions in which entrepreneurs start companies is what it’s now like for all of us fashioning a career. Therefore you should approach career strategy the same way an entrepreneur approaches starting a business.”

— LinkedIn founder Reid Garrett Hoffman, quoted by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times

Establish multiple streams of income. Recently during a job-club session I lead, a 50+ job-seeker stood up and advocated a new approach to job search, specifically designed for the boomers in the room. He urged those who are seeking traditional employment (i.e., one job to satisfy you for your encore career) to shift their perspective radically. He said “multiple streams of revenue is the way to go. We need to find alternative ways to make money, and not rely on a single employer to pay a full-time salary and benefits, as we did for so many years.” This job-seeker, “Mark,” makes a very good point, one that savvy entrepreneurs and small-business owners the world over have been trying to capitalize on for some time (with information products, e-books, and other ways to make-money-while-you-sleep). Of course, multple stream of revenue takes a different shape, as the vast majority of traditional job-seekers won’t be penning ebooks to make a living, but the message is profound. Instead of searching for one full-time job to pay the bills, consider the following: one-part time plus another part-time job equals a full-time solution. Multiple part-time ventures — whether a hobby that you monetize, or a small business you decide to launch — may be the key to avoiding putting your financial destiny in someone else’s hands!

— Laura M. Labovich, MLRHR, job-search makeover coach, and founder of Aspire! Empower! Career Strategy Group

Consider multiple jobs, virtual work, temp work. “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines multiple jobholders as people who are either hourly or salary workers who hold two or more jobs; self-employed workers who also hold an hourly or salary job; or unpaid family workers who hold an hourly or salary job as well. Currently official figures indicate that about 5 percent of Americans fit this category. … Over the past decade so many companies have encouraged virtual work that it is almost expected. People are comfortable working with their laptops and smart phones, and have access to Skype accounts and collaborative workspaces. All of these tools make working away from a physical place practical, convenient, and cheap. There is no doubt that this form of employment will grow rapidly and, in my opinion, may make up as much as half the U.S. workforce within a decade as most employers recognize the benefit of allowing workers to be located remotely. … More employers are looking for temporary employees. … Potential employees are not sure they will have a job that lasts and may be happier with one or two temporary jobs that spread out their risk.”

— Kevin Wheeler, ERE.net

Become a freelancer. Even if you plan to go back to work full-time, taking on freelance work while you are between jobs will keep your skills current, enhance your resume, and expand your network — all while helping you make ends meet. Here’s a quick way to learn about — and pursue — potential freelance opportunities: Conduct informational interviews with organizations you’d like to work with — even if they aren’t hiring. Ask the question: What would you like to do now if you had the staff to be able to take on the additional work? If the need aligns with your skills, express interest in helping out — and offer to develop a proposal if the organization is amenable to freelance work. No money available? You may even want to take on a small project for free. Check out the story and free ebook of Charlie Hoehn, a recent graduate who spent a few months doing volunteer project work, resulting in more paid work opportunities than he could accept — doing work he could not have imagine being able to do otherwise.

— Chandlee Bryan, career coach and resume writer, Best Fit Forward

Know the areas of greatest freelance opportunity. “While freelancing is a possibility in many industries and professions, the opportunities are most concentrated in the following industries: sales, IT, creative services, marketing and operations.”

— CreditDonkey infographic

Are you a Millennial? Think “project.” “For Millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, a ‘new normal’ for work is a landscape where jobs are replaced by projects. In fact, over the past two years, we’ve seen nearly a 250 percent jump in Millennials electing an independent career as either a freelancer or independent consultant. Unlike previous generations, Millennials are making the decision much sooner in their career path to take control of their careers. The story for this generation is one of companies dissecting work into project-based deliverables with clear objectives and measurable results, while workers sell their knowledge in small installments, project by project. … In the new normal, the skills you possess are much more important than who you know or the politics of the organization. Focus on developing your strengths and your particular skill set to rise to the top of your independent career. Be the go-to expert for the area of work you choose.”

— Gene Zaino, Portfolio.com

Cultivate face-to-face connections. “Interviews with historians and Depression-era job seekers suggest that the formula for finding work hasn’t changed much. Then, as now, those who relentlessly work at making personal connections have better luck landing jobs. A growing body of research is showing how today’s job-seekers are often getting it wrong. Able to communicate with prospective employers around the globe, they are firing off resumes by the hundreds, trying to make far-flung electronic connections before focusing on their closest, physical-world relationships.”

— Joe Light, who cites examples of job-seeker success during the Depression gained by knocking on doors and making personal connections in his Wall Street Journal article, Job-Hunt Tips from Depression-Era Playbook

Actively pursue opportunities to hone the skills that employers consider most important but least common. Leadership courses, which tend to stress skills like communication and problem-solving, are excellent growth vehicles for any job-seeker. Stretch assignments or job rotations in a current company or volunteer roles in a nonprofit organization may also be viable alternatives. To be systematic about skill acquisition, job-seekers should work with a boss or senior mentor to set concrete and time-bound goals for mastery. Job-seekers can also position themselves to take advantage of wide-open upper-level opportunities by showcasing leadership experience, either in a previous job or volunteer role, and by regularly interacting with senior-level advisers who can advise them on what the market — and even specific organizations — are looking for in their leaders.

— Alexandra Levit, author of Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success

Don’t put all your career eggs in one basket. The instability of our current economy requires rethinking the conventional. The fluctuation in the stock market, the steady downsizing of businesses, the hesitancy of businesses to add new employees means we can’t rely and depend upon a single employer to provide us with a salary and benefits and everything else we need for a financially and emotionally secure career. Today, invest in other entrepreneurial options: consulting projects, selling goods online, speaking, or even taking on part-time work you would love doing. These are ways we can diversify our career portfolio, safeguard our income stream and feel more in control.

— Hannah Morgan, Career Sherpa.net

“Maximize your options by actively seeking out opportunities across your organization — not just waiting for upward moves. Companies have fewer layers than before; they are 25 percent flatter on average, with commensurately fewer career levels and tiers. Also, consider lateral and diagonal moves that allow you to acquire additional skills and gain new experiences. Understanding how to navigate in today’s lattice-like environment will help you now and at every career step ahead. Taking on opportunities across your organization will expand your networks in all directions, not just up/down but sideways too, opening multiple career-path options. ‘In the new organization, with each new job, you want to build up a collection of deep capabilities so that…. you’re much better prepared,’ Matthew Burkley, former CFO of Thomson Reuters’ Sales and Trading division, told me. Ask yourself: What actions can I take to create more alternative futures for me — and greater value for my organization? And remember that expanding the ways you provide value to your organization will offer you more options, both inside and outside its walls. And Burkley should know — he’s just taking over the CEO reins of a company that provides financial data for the energy industry.”

— Cathy Benko, vice chairman Deloitte LLP and co-author of The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance In the Changing World of Work, on CNBC.com

Develop startup skills. “In our chaotic, unpredictable economy, even young people who have no interest in starting a business, and who want to become professionals, still need to learn the entrepreneurial skills that will allow them to get ahead.”

— Michael Ellsberg, New York Times.

Create your own opportunity. “[The current economic] peril is also a fantastic opportunity, approached in the right way. Both recent graduates and mid-careerists are coming to realize that you can’t simply expect to get a job anymore. You have to make one for yourself. … Becoming independent and successful requires an entrepreneurial spirit, a willingness to patch together multiple part-time opportunities, the persistence to volunteer in an organization you admire in hopes of turning it into a real job, or the courage to launch your own venture. This new world is both uncertain and exhilarating. The likelihood of failure is high: Half of all startups fail in five years, and of those that succeed, very few become Facebook or Apple. Independence is financially risky and exhausting, as anyone who has cobbled together gigs or tried to open a coffee shop can tell you. But it also offers the prospect of personal freedom and wealth, the certain liberation from career dreariness, and the thrill of risk-taking. The recession may have savaged the job prospects of millions of Americans, but it has also caused a surge of entrepreneurship: The rate of startup creation is the highest it has been in 15 years.”

— David Plotz Slate/The Hive, which is “gathering, sharing, and highlighting your best ideas and stories about how to make (or remake) an independent working life in a time of economic uncertainty.”

Be prepared to add value. “Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day — more than a worker in India, a robot, or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow? And can he or she adapt with all the change, so my company can adapt and export more into the fastest-growing global markets? In today’s hyperconnected world, more and more companies cannot and will not hire people who don’t fulfill those criteria.”

— Thomas L. Friedman New York Times

Speak up

Know where you stand in the applicant pool. One of the worst aspects of the job-search process is feeling as though you’ve landed in the job application black hole: Ever applied for a job and never heard back? It’s a common experience. Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do today to get better feedback: send an @reply to a company recruiter on Twitter, drop a note on a Facebook page — when they know it’s public, they have more impetus to respond. You can also pick up the phone and ask the hiring manager for feedback, or sign up to receive automatic updates on your job-application status from StartWire, which provide updates for more than 5,600 companies. However you decide to follow-up, speak up! Because who wants to sit and wait for the phone ring — there’s no need to feel powerless.

— Chandlee Bryan, career coach and resume writer, Best Fit Forward

Work toward a support system for independent workers. “Freelancing — once a euphemism for unemployment — has grown to be a dominant force in the economy, with 42 million independent workers (more than the total number of autoworkers, teachers, and doctors combined) driving the U.S. economy. Entrepreneurial organizations are figuring it out by developing market-oriented models that build collective solutions to society’s problems. … We believe that this phenomenon, which we’re calling ‘new mutualism’, is not just a fad. Rather it’s the beginning of a movement that relies on sustainable, community-driven solutions to solve seemingly intractable problems. … Underpinning the philosophy of new mutualism is the belief that political and economic life flourishes in social networks, and that social change requires individuals to shift their thinking from ‘I’ to ‘we.’ At the core of this new movement is a culture of interdependence, mutual support, and affinity, with building sustainability, rather than maximizing short-term profit, as a goal. That’s why we’re working with our members to build a new social support system that makes sense now and two generations from now.”

— Freelancers Union

Raise awareness of solutions that aren’t college-centric. “It’s time that we as a nation accepted a basic — and seldom-mentioned — fact. You don’t need a degree (and certainly not an MBA) to start a business and create jobs, nor is it even that helpful, compared with cheaper, faster alternatives. Parents could turn the system on its head if they weren’t so caught up in outmoded mentalities about education forged in the stable economy of the 1950s (but profoundly misguided in today’s chaotic, entrepreneurial economy). Employers could alter this landscape if they explicitly offered routes to employment for those who didn’t get a degree because they were out building businesses. And the government could divert some of the money it now spends encouraging college for all, and instead promote the idea that creating a start-up is a worthy, respectable alternative to academics. This would go a long way to helping our unemployment problem.”

— Michael Ellsberg, New York Times.

Encourage local governments to focus on jobs. “Have your whole city wage a war for jobs. Everybody in charge of anything needs to focus on job creation. If they divert their attention, vote them out. … But not just any job will do — you want good jobs. The jobs war is won by knowledge jobs. Aim everything at those. The global economy is moving to the knowledge worker. You can build a slaughterhouse in your city, but that can’t be the leading job strategy. Good jobs are created by entrepreneurs working with innovators creating a winning business model. The jobs war is what should get city leaders up in the morning, what they should work on all day, and what should keep them from getting to sleep at night. … To reenergize, to strike lightning on your city’s GDP growth, its brain gain, its quality job creation, its vitality, and its future prosperity, don’t expect national answers. ‘Everything is local’ is truer regarding job creation than anything else. You have to jumpstart your city yourself.”

— Jim Clifton, excerpted from The Coming Jobs War (Gallup Press, October 2011), in Gallup Management Journal.

Put your money where your mouth is. Starbucks is teaming up with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a group of community lending institutions set up to provide financing to community businesses that need help. 100 percent of each donation will help create and sustain jobs in underserved communities. To launch this project, the Starbucks Foundation is donating the first $5 million. Donors get a wristband to wear as a symbol of support.

— Create Jobs for USA.

Contact news-media outlets to ask for more coverage of the jobs crisis. “If only there were as many reporters eager to report from the multiple scenes of our jobs crisis [as covered 2011’s Hurricane Irene]. Despite the fact that, in poll after poll, Americans say that jobs is the issue most important to them, a study by the National Journal concluded that reporting about unemployment fell during the last two years while stories about the deficit skyrocketed.”

— Arianna Huffington in an article, What Hurricane Irene Can Teach Us About the Jobs Crisis.

Write letters to the editor, blog posts, and social-media communications appealing to job creators. “[T]he only way we’re going to get jobs is by turning to actual job creators: business itself. With all their cash, companies shouldn’t be waiting for Congress to give them tax incentives to hire people. They should be trying to jump-start the economy — and fend off another recession — by making investments, and hiring workers, that will lead to renewed prosperity. The only way that’s going to happen, however, is if our society implicitly makes the kind of compact that German society makes explicitly: We have to be willing to allow companies to sacrifice short-term profits for the long-term good of the country. As the leadership expert Michael Useem wrote recently on The Washington Post’s Website, business needs to make ‘people a priority, not just earnings.’”

— Joe Nocera, What Is Business Waiting For? New York Times.

More Job Action Day Bloggers:

• Quintessential Careers Blog, Job Action Day 2011: Skill Up, Start Up, Speak Up.
• Career Doctor Blog, #JobActionDay11: Speak Up: It Takes a Village to Turn a Jobs Crisis Around.
• Quintessential Resume and Cover Letter Tips Blog, #JobActionDay11: Skill Up, Start Up, Speak Up: Expert Tips to Fire Up Your Job Search.
• A Storied Career, #JobActionDay11: A Start-Up Story of Triumphing Over Job Loss
• Deborah Brown-Volkman, The Career Coach’s Job-Seekers Urged to “Skill Up, Start Up, and Speak Up” for Fourth Annual Job Action Day.
• Susan Guarneri, Career Assessment Goddess, The Start-Up Mindset: 10 Tips to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
• Maggie Mistal, Career Advice Blog, Job Action Day: 3 Actions Jobseekers Can Take To Bridge the Skill Gap.
• Nancy Miller, Job Action Day 2011, Life Work News, Skill up for Employment.
• Hannah Morgan, Career Sherpa, Start Up: Building A More Stable Career.
• Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers, Job Action Day 2011 — How to confidently drive your career bus where you want to go.
• Meg Guiseppi, Executive Career Brand, Today is Job Action Day 2011!
• Deborah Shane, Deborah Shane Toolbox, Raise Your Career Metabolism, Bring Your A+ Game and Develop More Magnetism.
• Wendy Terwelp, Rock Your Career, Job Action Day: Start Up — How to Network.
• Tim Tyrell-Smith, Tim’s Stategy, Start Focusing On New, Creative Networking Ideas

See http://www.jobactionday.com/2011-Job-Action-Day.html for the complete, updated list of Job Action Day 2011 blog posts.

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

Two online events in November are designed to provide job-seekers with critical advice and insights from top career professionals around the country. Both events are sponsored by Quintessential Careers, a leading career information portal.

“Jobs are scarce. Many employers are not hiring; in fact, a number of employers are again laying off employees,” said Dr. Randall Hansen, publisher and CEO of Quintessential Careers. “We may no longer be in an economic recession, but we are certainly in a jobs recession - and these two events are designed to empower all job-seekers, from recent college grads to baby boomers.”

The fourth annual Job Action Day takes place on Monday, Nov. 7, and includes expert and empowering articles, tips, and blog posts that give both workers and job-seekers information, ideas, and concrete steps that they can take to secure their futures — both in the short-term and in the long-term. Job Action Day 2011 focuses on three themes:

Skill Up: The skills mismatch is a huge issue in the current jobs crisis. Thousands of jobs are going begging because employers can’t find skilled employees. This theme focuses on what job-seekers can do to attain the skills that will help land these jobs (including retraining, internships, apprenticeships, lateral job moves, and more).

Start Up: Refers not only to starting small businesses as an alternative to traditional jobs or unemployment, but a whole new mindset of being the CEO of your career — having a portfolio of portable skills, a great network, flexibility, a project-mentality; not sitting at the computer visiting job boards, but getting out there and meeting people, knocking on doors, taking ownership of your career path.

Speak Up: Job-seekers have the option to be more vocal and demand action from our elected officials — using the media to push a jobs agenda and demanding better media coverage of the jobs crisis — as well as from the so-called job creators to create more jobs.

More information about Job Action Day can be found here.

The second event takes place a week later on Nov. 14, when Quintessential Careers celebrates its 15 years of serving job-seekers with the unveiling of tips, insights, and advice from 15 of the country’s top career experts. Other features, according to Hansen, will include the 15 best career books, samples, tools, and more. “These 15 career experts together have an amazing breadth and depth of career and job-hunting know-how - and a passion for sharing that knowledge with job-seekers, career-changers, and the entire career community,” Hansen said.

Some of the career experts providing insights include Richard Bolles, author of the best-selling career book in history, What Color is Your Parachute?; Tory Johnson of Women for Hire, a top career site for women; author and Generation Y expert Lindsey Pollak; Steve Rothberg, founder of the top college job board, CollegeRecruiter.com; and Eric Shannon, CEO of LatPro, a specialty job board for Hispanic and Spanish/English and Portuguese/English bilinguals. The full list of experts can be found here.

About Quintessential Careers: For almost 15 years, this comprehensive career development site has been empowering job-seekers of all ages find their ideal careers and jobs. With more than 5,000 pages of content — from articles, quizzes, and tutorials — Quintessential Careers offers visitors no-cost content that can improve their lives.

About Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.: Randall Hansen is the founder and publisher of Quintessential Careers. He has been involved in the career industry for more than 20 years, and is the authors of numerous career-related articles, tutorials, and books.

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

The community of resume writers, career coaches, and other career experts called the Career Collective, of which I am a member, was asked to blog this month on the topic of Mid-Year Job-Search Checkup. I am posting my response, along with links to other members’ responses at the end of this entry. Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

A Guest Post by Dan Puleio

When the year reaches its midpoint, it can seem like only yesterday that you made your New Year’s resolutions. Now find yourself repeating the same old habit patterns you promised yourself would not happen again.

Regarding your job-search activities of past months, you reflect back at how exhausting it was to spend all day (at least that’s what you told people), day after day, and actually accomplish the equivalent of about an hour’s true productivity when you were last employed on the job and “on your game.” You asked yourself at each day’s end, “What did I actually accomplish today, and why am I both mentally and physically exhausted?” I suggest the answer is that you were chasing activities and not focusing on results.

A job-search campaign that consists of activities instead of results reminds me of a sailing analogy, such as skippering a boat with a luffing sail (Webster’s definition: to cause a sail to shake by turning too close to the wind). It’s slow, inefficient, a lot of painful work, and there’s nothing to show for the effort expended. The solution is to recognize the condition, make corrections, and you’re then cutting through the water, back “on your game” and actually having fun!

Note that the corrections were activities that produced results…tangible measurable results. Whether it took a single action or a half dozen, only the results counted — which is how you approach your profession and how I suggest you approach your job search.

Okay, so let’s get down to bottom-line solutions…the game plan. Think of the solution as a two-sided coin. “Heads” defines and measures results (not simply activities) that will move you incrementally (yard by yard if you will) toward your goal of rewarding employment. The following suggests a scorecard that defines, measures and tracks results:

Have fun building your own weekly scorecard, but be tough on yourself.
For example, a recruiter callback to ask for your middle initial does not award points in this game!

The flip side of the coin is your approach to the game plan — a mental attitude that is totally focused on the goal. It requires a rekindling of the approach you used to achieve every significant achievement in the past.

Think about the job search in terms of a business project that totally immersed you. One in which you had a personal “ownership” in the results. Despite the headaches, you were excited…you were “on your game.”

Heck, sometimes you even forgot to eat! It was on your mind when you were exercising, sleeping or even (you fill in the blanks)! You started each day focused and enthusiastic over the battles that would be fought and won. That’s what it takes to win any difficult endeavor.

Stay with me for one final point that addresses a common job-seeker lament, “But Dan, a renewed positive attitude, action plan, and improving economy aside, how do I overcome the huge number of competitors dumped on the market in recent years?”

The truth of the matter is that most of your competition has, for all practical purposes, given up the job search. Since I have been using sports analogies, allow me to continue on this tack and close with a bit of humor.

All clients I agree to work with have the credentials, knowledge, and attitude to be the “athletes” on the job search playing field. I’ll wager that you also have what it takes. Those busloads of burley guys you saw in the stadium parking lot are not your competition. Come game time, they’ll be sitting in the stands eating hot dogs, drinking beer and watching you play the game.

The success stories of the coming months belong to those who execute an ambitious, pro-active calendar. They left the “Pity Party,” are back in the locker room, and are on their game.

Play well for the rest of the year.

The July 2011 Career Collective Links:

• 4 Summer Strategies to Step Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman, #careercollective
• Putting Your Job Search Up On The Rack For Inspection, @dawnrasmussen, #careercollective
• Mid-Year Job Search Checkup: Are you wasting your time? @GayleHoward, #careercollective
• What is your unique value proposition? @keppie_careers, #careercollective
• It is Time for Your Check-up Ms/Mr Jobseeker, @careersherpa, #careercollective
• How to Perform a Mid-Year Job Search Checkup, @heatherhuhman, #careercollective
• Reposition your job search for success, @LaurieBerenson, #careercollective
• Mid-Year Job Search Checkup: What’s working and What’s not? @erinkennedycprw, #careercollective
• Mid-Year Job Search Check-Up: Getting Un-Stuck, @JobHuntOrg, #careercollective
  
• Mid-Year Check Up: The Full 360, @WalterAkana, #careercollective
• 5 Tips for Fighting Summer Job Search Blues, @KCCareerCoach, #CareerCollective
• Are you positive about your job search? @DawnBugni, #CareerCollective
  
• Where Are The Jobs? @MartinBuckland, @EliteResumes, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Job-Search Checkup: Get Your Juices Flowing, @ValueIntoWords, #CareerCollective

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

The community of resume writers, career coaches, and other career experts called the Career Collective, of which I am a member, was asked to blog this month about social media in the job search. I am posting my response, along with links to other members’ responses at the end of this entry. Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

These job-search tools to maximize your personalized job search are part of the Quintessential Careers 2011 Annual Job-Hunting Report: The Era of Personalized Job Search and Recruiting: Extending the Conversation.

Facebook

Use The Internet To Find A Job — Part 8: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The June 2011 Career Collective Links:

• Make Your Career More Social: Show Up and Engage, @WalterAkana, #careercollective
• You 2.0: The Brave New World of Social Media and Online Job Searches, @dawnrasmussen #careercollective
• How to Get a New Job Using Social Media, @DebraWheatman #careercollective
• Social Media: Choosing, Using, and Confusing, @ErinKennedyCPRW #careercollective
  
• How to Use Social Media in Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman #careercollective
• Updating: A Social Media Strategy For Job Search, @TimsStrategy #careercollective
• Your Career Needs Social Media - Get Started, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland #careercollective
• We Get By With a Little Recs from Our Friends, @chandlee #careercollective
• Expat Careers & Social Media: Social Media is Potentially 6 Times more Influential than a CV or Resume, @expatcoachmegan #careercollective
• Job Search and Social Media: A Collective Approach, @careersherpa #careercollective
• How Having Your Own Website Helps You, @keppie_careers #careercollective
• Social Media: So what’s the point?, @DawnBugni #CareerCollective
• Tools that change your world, @WorkWithIllness #CareerCollective
• HOW TO: Meet People IRL via LinkedIn, @AvidCareerist #CareerCollective
  
• Effective Web 2.0 Job Search: Top 5 Secrets, @resumeservice #CareerCollective
• Jumping Into the Social Media Sea @ValueIntoWords #CareerCollective
• Sink or Swim in Social Media, @KCCareerCoach #CareerCollective
• Social Media Primer for Job Seekers, @LaurieBerenson #CareerCollective

 

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Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

 

A guest post by Heidi Hamilton

Are those who live the penthouse life, cruise around in private yachts and go to the best schools really more intelligent than everyone else? Or could it be something else that propels these particular people to the top?

Many studies have shown that people tend to think attractive people are smarter than average and this evaluation has a name. It’s called the “Halo Effect.” The idea behind this is that if we hold a positive opinion about someone or something, we tend to then attach all sorts of positive attributes to them. The opposite is also true. If they are not nice or difficult to get along with, we then attribute negative opinions. It’s an “all or nothing” perception. This also seems to magnify at a certain turning point that is usually upon death; it’s usually in the direction of “good” since no one likes to speak ill of the deceased.

So how is this applicable to securing employment in today’s job-starved environment?

A similar effect has been found in hiring situations. It has been noted in studies that good grooming of applicants in simulated employment interviews accounted for more positive and favorable hiring decisions than did job qualifications even though the interviewers claimed that appearance played a small role in their choices. The advantage given to attractive workers goes beyond hiring day to pay day. Further studies in the U.S. and Canada have found that attractive individuals get paid an average of 12 to 14 percent more than their unattractive coworkers. So it pays, literally, to get cleaned up and put your best foot (and face!) forward.

Positive begets positive. Language is another application of the Halo Effect. Employers are far more willing to consider you for the job when you’ve got a positive attitude than if you’re being a “Negative Nellie.” Negative attitudes are just as contagious as positive, and what employer wants a company full of complainers?

Okay, but what if you’re dumb, ugly. and negative?

Attitudes can change. If you can’t do this on your own, seek a positive affirmations buddy to point out when you’re being a downer. Perhaps there’s someone in your religious denomination who provides a life improvement skills class, or maybe you can hire a life coach. Some are even willing to extend you a sliding pay scale.

Concentrate on adding to your appearance. You can buy a new outfit, get a haircut, shave your facial hair, or even get contacts or a more fashionable pair of glasses.

Lastly, there is no such thing as dumb in my book. Every single one of us is better in some areas than others. Find your weaknesses and work on them. Strengthen and increase your vocabulary by memorizing one new word every three days and using it at least three times a day. Extensive vocabulary can increase an opinion of your intelligence. Having a “practice makes perfect” attitude, and all of the self-improvements above could very well be what you need to land your dream job.

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

The community of resume writers, career coaches, and other career experts called the Career Collective, of which I am a member, was asked to blog this month about Best Advice for Career Changers. I am posting my response, along with links to other members’ responses at the end of this entry. Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

A Guest Post by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.

How does it happen? Perhaps you just begin to lose interest. Perhaps you find something that interests you more. Perhaps your company is downsizing. These are just some of the numerous reasons people find themselves on that precipitous cliff looking back on their career just as the dirt begins to crumble beneath them.

Are you facing that career change plunge? Do you wish you were? Take it slowly and make sure what you really want to do is change careers. Then use this 10-step plan, and you will be on much more sure footing — and on a path toward career change success. Finally, remember that career change is a natural life progression; most studies show that the average job-seeker will change careers (not jobs) several times over the course of his or her lifetime.

Step 1: Assessment of Likes and Dislikes. A lot of people change careers because they dislike their job, their boss, their company. So, identifying the dislikes is often the easier part of this step; however, you will not know what direction to change your career unless you examine your likes. What do you really like doing when you’re at work, when you’re at home - in your spare time. What excites you and energizes you? What’s your passion? If you’re really unsure, consider taking one of more of these career assessments. The key is spending some time rediscovering yourself — and using your self-assessment to direct your new career search. (For more assistance in finding your new career, read Finding Your Career Passion.)

Step 2: Researching New Careers. Once you’ve discovered (or rediscovered) your passion, spend some time researching the types of careers that center around your passions. Don’t worry if you’re feeling a bit unsure or insecure — it’s a natural part of the career change process. How much research you do also partly depends on how much of a change you’re making; for example, changing from a teacher to a corporate trainer versus switching from a nurse to a Web designer. You can find some great career information and a skills-matching service at O*NET Online from the U.S. Department of Labor and basic job information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook. Here are some other great Career Exploration Resources.

Step 3: Transferable Skills. Leverage some of your current skills and experiences to your new career. There are many skills (such as communications, leadership, planning, and others) that are transferable and applicable to what you want to do in your new career. You may be surprised to see that you already have a solid amount of experience for your new career. Read more: Strategic Portrayal of Transferable Skills is a Vital Job-search Technique.

Step 4: Training and Education. You may find it necessary to update your skills and broaden your knowledge. Take it slowly. If the skill you need to learn is one you could use in your current job, see if your current employer would be willing to pick up the tab. And start slowly. Take a course or two to ensure you really like the subject matter. If you are going for a new degree or certification, make sure you check the accreditation of the school, and get some information about placement successes. Check out these college planning resources.

Step 5: Networking. One of the real keys to successfully changing careers will be your networking abilities. People in your network may be able to give you job leads, offer you advice and information about a particular company or industry, and introduce you to others so that you can expand your network. Even if you don’t think you already have a network, you probably do - consider colleagues, friends, and family members. You can broaden your network through joining professional organizations in your new field and contacting alumni from your college who are working in the field you want to enter. A key tool of networking is conducting informational interviews.

Step 6: Gaining Experience. Remember that, in a sense, you are starting your career again from square one. Obtaining a part-time job or volunteering in your new career field not only can solidify your decision, but give you much needed experience in your new career. You might also want to consider temping in your new field. Work weekends, nights, whatever it takes to gain the experience.

Step 7: Find a Mentor. Changing careers is a major life decision that can get overwhelming at times. Find a mentor who can help you through the rough patches. Your mentor may also be able to help you by taking advantage of his or her network. A mentor doesn’t have to be a highly placed individual, though the more powerful the mentor, the more success you may have in using that power to your advantage.

Step 8: Changing In or Out. Some people change careers, but never change employers. Unfortunately, only the very progressive employers recognize that once happy employees can be happy and productive again - in a different capacity. It’s more than likely that you will need to switch employers to change fields, but don’t overlook your current employer. Remember not to start asking about a job switch until you are completely ready to do so.

Step 9: Job-Hunting Basics. If it’s been a while since you’ve had to use your job-hunting tools and skills, now is the time for a refresher course. Consider spending some time with one or more of our tutorials. Key tools include:

• guide to researching companies
• resume resources
• cover letter resources
• interviewing resources
• salary negotiation resources

Step 10: Be Flexible. You’ll need to be flexible about nearly everything - from your employment status to relocation and salary. Set positive goals for yourself, but expect setbacks and change - and don’t let these things get you down. Besides totally new careers, you might also consider a lateral move that could serve as a springboard for a bigger career change. You might also consider starting your own business or consulting as other avenues.

Finally, here are some resources for special categories of career changers:

• women career changers
• minority career changers
• older (50+) career changers
• disabled career changers
• transitioning military

Searching for even more career-change advice? Check out all the tools, tips, and resources in our Job & Career Resources for Career Changers.

For more detailed advice on changing your career, you might consider buying or borrowing one of these excellent career and job change books.

Finally, find some other great tips and suggestions in our Career Change Do’s and Don’ts.

The April 2011 Career Collective Links:

• Are You Ready for a Career Change? @Debra Wheatman
• Changing Careers? Ask yourself these questions. @erinkennedycprw
• Changing Careers: Not for the Fainthearted, @GayleHoward
• Career Change Isn’t An Exact Science, @careersherpa
• When it’s Time to Recycle Your Career, @WalterAkana
• Best Career Change Advice: Target & Plan, @JobHuntOrg
• How social media can help you change careers, @keppie_careers
• Expat Careers: You Are Not Your Job Title, @expatcoachmegan
  
• Changing The Direction Of Your Career, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland
• Career Changer: Can You Quell Bottom-line Ache? @ValueIntoWords
• Top 3 + 1 Tips for Making a Successful Career Change, @KCCareerCoach
• Changing Careers: Look Before You Leap, @barbarasafani
• 10 Commandments for Career Changers, @LaurieBerenson

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

Has this ever happened to you? You’ve been instructed to list your career accomplishments, and you can’t think of any. Or you’re asked in a job interview, “What accomplishments are you most proud of?” — and you freeze up. You know you have had accomplishments, but you just can’t dredge them up. The inability to come up with accomplishments happens to lots of job-seekers. We know because we ask our resume and cover-letter clients to list accomplishments as part of the process of preparing their job-search documents. Although we stress that accomplishments are far more important than duties and responsibilities, a surprising number of clients are unable to articulate beyond the day-to-day tasks they performed in their jobs. Accomplishments are the points that really help sell you to an employer — much more so than everyday job duties, and you can leverage your accomplishments for job-search success at all stages of the process: resume, cover letter, interview, and more. Find out more about why and how to use your accomplishments in our article, For Job-Hunting Success: Track and Leverage Your Accomplishments.

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

Our colleague Meg Guiseppi has just released a new e-book 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search and How Your Brand Will Help You Land, which she describes as “a practical guide to executive branding, marketing your ROI value and navigating the new world of job search.”

Guiseppi notes that the rules have changed “and, if you’re like most people suddenly thrown into job search, you’re still relying only on the old methods or only on the least effective new methods, and wondering why not much is happening.”

Here’s her description of the book:

With over 100 pages, 23 chapters and 3 bonus chapters, this ebook is packed with the how-to, actionable advice and resources you need to accelerate your search. Designed as a reference resource, you’ll come back to it often, as you move through the job search process.

You’ll find proprietary materials and tools I’ve developed to use when working with my executive job-seeking clients.

You’ll also find samples of career documents I created for actual clients, so you can see how branding meets jobs search.

The book is $29.95, and you can download it as soon as you buy it.

Here’s a quick rundown of the contents:

• Targeting your search
• Tapping into the hidden job market
• Defining your executive brand and ROI value
• Creating your resume and biography
• Managing your online identity and online reputation
• Leveraging social networking and social media
• Networking your way into the job
• Working with recruiters
• Branding and nailing your interviews

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.

The community of resume writers, career coaches, and other career experts called the Career Collective, of which I am a member, was asked to blog this month about organizing your job search. I am posting my response, along with links to other members’ responses at the end of this entry. Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

You’ve decided to look for a new job, but life just feels too chaotic, and you don’t know where to begin. Here are some tips to get you going:

1. Don’t use your need to organize as a tool to procrastinate your job search. This point is key. It’s easy to tell yourself day after day that you’ll look for a job as soon as you get organized. Set a time limit — just a few days or perhaps a week at the most — to get your ducks in a row.

2. Designate a headquarters site in your home from which you’ll launch your job search. Whether you use the kitchen table or you already have a home office, you’ll be more productive if you have a specific place to execute the work of a job search.

3. Eliminate chaos and clutter. I know I have difficulty working when my workspace is piled with books, papers, bills, mail, and junk. Taming your clutter will help clear your mind. Spend a day ruthlessly throwing away things you don’t need and finding logical places to store the things you do.

4. Assemble basic equipment. Determine and gather materials and equipment that you will need for your job search. A computer with Internet access and a printer are highly desirable. You’ll need pens and paper, sticky notes, a calendar and/or planner, a phone with answering machine or voicemail, and a file box or filing-cabinet drawer in which to store information you collect during the job search. Directed at this concept of a wrokplace from which to conduct job-hunting, Brian Krueger offers Job Search Central, an online chapter in his book College Grad Jobhunter.

5. Develop a system to track your job search. You’ll need a way to monitor which companies and positions you’ve applied to and the status of each application. Tracking is especially important for followup. If you’ve applied and heard nothing from an employer or interviewed with an employer, you’ll need to track that information so you can make a followup phone call or send an e-mail. See our articles The Art of the Follow-Up After Job Interviews, Job Interview Follow-Up Do’s and Don’ts, Follow Up All Job Leads: Don’t Wait by the Phone (or Computer) and Critical Job-Hunting Tips: Key Follow-Up Advice. Many systems are possible; find the one that works best for you. You could print out our Job Lead Follow-Up Log or replicate it on your computer or by hand. You could use a columnar pad, legal pad, or spiral notebook. You could use index cards or spreadsheet (e.g., Excel) or database (e.g., Access) software applications. You may want to consider a service such as JibberJobber to help you track your search and contacts.

6. Make a schedule. Commit to a block of time every day to work on your job search. The amount of time you allot will correspond with whether you are currently employed, as well as other demands on your time. It’s often said that successful job-hunting is a full-time job, so consider putting in as close to eight hours a day as you can (if you’re employed, you may put in only a fraction of that time). More importantly, think of the job search as a job that you must report to each day, and begin your job-search day in your designated workplace. Don’t spend your entire job-hunting “shift” sitting in your work station, however, because any aspect of your search that keeps you from getting out and networking with people will ultimately slow your search and delay your results (see No. 9).

7. Update and optimize your resume. You’ll need to have the best resume possible ready to go when you start applying for jobs. You can find tons of advice for crafting an effective resume. Consider having your resume critiqued and perhaps revamped by a professional resume writer. Sadly, when I was in the resume business,the vast majority of resumes I saw prepared by job-seekers were weak.

8. List and research organizations you want to target in your job search. Where do you want to work? Start with a list of 20-25 organizations that you consider ideal to work for (see, for example, our article, Uncovering a Company’s Corporate Culture is a Critical Task for Job-Seekers). While you may respond to ads and Internet job postings that don’t represent organizations on this list, you’ll find your job search is most effective when you have specific organizations to target. Once you’ve begun your list, research each organization (see our Guide to Researching Companies, Industries, and Countries) and consider conducting informational interviews (see our Informational Interviewing Tutorial to learn more). Use the information you gather to tailor your resume, cover letters, and interview responses to each targeted organization.

9. Start or build your network. Most people get their jobs through networking, so commit yourself to get out there and meet people. Request advice, their business cards, and their suggestion for who else you should be talking to. Start with your list of targeted organizations: Whom do you know in the organization that you could network with? Or do you know other people who know organizational insiders? Then move on to friends, professional organizations, alumni of your college, and the many network contacts that you can learn more about in our wealth of networking resources on Quint Careers.

10. Gentlemen and Ladies, start your engines! Once you’ve reached No. 7 above, you’ve really begun your search; yet, until you’ve done that initial organizational legwork, you’re not not totally out of the starting gate. Do that foundational work as quickly and efficiently as you can and then respond to ads and build your network and job leads. See our article, 10 Ways to Develop Job Leads.

Final thoughts
It’s time to transcend inertia. Convince yourself that getting organized isn’t that hard, and then do it quickly and efficiently. You’ll feel much better once you clear away mental and physical clutter and build you job-search momentum.

The March 2011 Career Collective Links:

• Personal Branding to Fire Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman
• Succeeding in a “Final Jeopardy!” World, @WalterAkana
• 5 Steps to Retool & Jumpstart Your Job Search, @erinkennedycprw
• Your Job Search: Let’s Just Start Again Shall We? @GayleHoward
• Checklist for Spring Cleaning Your Job Search, @careersherpa
• 5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman
• Put Spring Into Your Job Search, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland
• Toes in the Water, @ValueIntoWords
• How to Revitalize a Stale Job Search, @KCCareerCoach
• How to re-think your job search, @Keppie_Careers
• Wake Up and Smell the Flowers: Spring Cleaning Your Resume, @barbarasafani
• Spring Cleaning and Your Personal Brand, @resumeservice
• Spring clean your mind clutter first, @DawnBugni
• Managing Your Career 2.0: On Giving Something Up To Get It Right, @Chandlee

Not sure how you could benefit from a professional resume writer? Check out Joan's experience: "I cannot believe what a difference this made. I have had 3 calls for interviews and just accepted a job that pays me 15% more than I made before!" See Joan's resume before -- and after -- the pros at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters transformed it into a powerful marketing document. Get a FREE resume evaluation from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service. Or order a resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document.