Tick tock...how to win the race against time if you are searching for a job.

Searching for a new job can feel a bit like a race. Often a race against time.

Time for all of us is probably one of our most precious resources. It is the one thing that is equal to all human beings. Irrespective of our colour, religion, politics or how much money we have in the bank, we all have exactly the same amount at our disposal each day.



When looking for another job, how you chose to spend your time, and on what, are absolutely crucial to your success in securing the next role.



Lots of clients say to me “I just don’t know how I used to have a full time job and fit everything else in”. “The days and weeks just seem to be slipping by”.



So, what can you do to manage your time more effectively, to win the race? To get the best results? Here are a few of my thoughts and suggestions:-



• Identify when you are at your best, when is your “best” time of day? This is when your concentration levels are at their highest. For the larks, it will be early, first thing, for others it may well be in the evening. Do the things that require some brain focus at these times.



• Schedule it. Block out the time in a diary or even on the kitchen calendar when you will be working on your job search. It’s also worth sharing your schedule with your friends and family so you get fewer interruptions. Job searching is a full time job, and you will find you need to put as many hours in as a full time job.



• Take a break. Athletes can’t perform 100%, for 100% of the time, they need warm up time, peak performance time and also rest and relax time. As a job hunter you need a similar pattern. Make sure you are regularly recharging your batteries and taking a break, even it that is just a brisk walk round the block.



• Get some variety. Break up your day with different tasks. If you are used to working as part of a team, being at home can be lonely. See who you can meet up with to network, or how you can get out of the house. Or even have a chat with on the phone.



• Keep a reflective diary. Jot down what you have achieved. Okay the ultimate goal is to land a job, spend time at the end of each week to think about what you have accomplished and what you have learnt, and how you are feeling. This will help you feel as if you are moving in the right direction and towards that big goal.



• Have a to do list. Jot down what you are going to do each day, each week and each month. Tick tasks off as you go along.



• Analyse the tasks you are completing – look back at how you have spent your day, ask yourself what have I actually done? How have I spent my time? It’s easy to get sidetracked. One client recently did this, and whilst he thought he was spending at least 4 hours job searching, he had in fact spent two hours researching the form on the horses!



I hope you find these suggestions useful, if you are job searching and have some tips on how you are managing your time I’d love to hear them.

It's Valentines Day, So What's Your Passion?

Passion is a very evocative word, visually I imagine it to be red in colour, taste like good quality chocolate and feel very powerful.

The dictionary states it to mean deep love or desire. Some of us are lucky enough to find a job or a whole career that we are truly in love with.

I’ve met lots of people for which this is true…the lady who had a deep love of fabrics and who just loved making things on her sewing machines.

Another, who after a life in Finance had discovered their love of photography.

To be truthful some I remember had stranger passions than most, for example the man who was in love with rats and wanted to run a pest control business.

However, for an awful lot of people their true love is never found and their career passions lay lost deep in side. They never ever see the light of day or a declaration heard.

For others passions are put to one side and reserved for spare windows of time when all other activity is finished. These are rare weekends or snatched evenings of illicit wonder.

So how come some of us find a career we love, and yet others don’t?

I believe for a lot of us career passion is lost in the wonder years…these are the years just before and just after we leave full time education. Very often the loss is caused by a savage but innocent silent kill…by a passing comment from a parent or teacher.

For example, the fabric lady in fact became a nurse, even though she knew after her first term of studying she hated it and loathed the whole environment, but she kept at it because she felt she had to.

She had to keep at it because her enthusiasm had been killed some thirty years earlier, by a passing comment from a careers teacher that sewing was not a proper job.

Yet today a proper job is no more, a proper job is what my father had, for over 50 years he worked for the same organisation and I believe by luck his job was incredibly suited to his skills.

Today in the world of work we can to a certain extent make jobs, bit by bit piecing the elements of things that we enjoy the most, often this happens by taking on projects or covering for colleagues. So slowly we can tap into our passions and our love to give us enthusiasm at work.

Sadly I believe most organisations don't understant passion, they just don’t comprehend. Managers don’t understand that if they can find out exactly what their team member really enjoys doing life for both of them can be simpler.

I suspect this happens because a lot of organisations today are just such huge lumbering giants, making so much noise they can’t hear what’s going on in the offices, the corridors and the shop floor. So totally blind to the natural abilities, talents and natural love, emotion and passion that reside there.

So what’s your career passion?

Is it alive?

Or is it buried so deep you just can’t remember? Or can you remember, but had it crushed a long while ago?