Adieu

Posted: January 15, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Friends and Faithful Readers

I launched this Blog in October 2013 in anticipation of publication of the first edition of my book, I’m Fired?!? A Business Fable about the Challenges of Losing One Job and Finding Another.  That book was published by Lighthouse Point Press (thank you, Ralph Yearick) in 2015.  I took a break from the blog in 2016 to work on a second edition of the book, which was published in 2020 (again by Lighthouse Point Press  and especially thank you to Ralph Yearick) and in February 2021 I began posting to the blog again.

Overall, I’ve published 135 posts, or somewhere north of 40,000 words. I will admit that some posts were “re-posts” of prior posts, but not too many.

I’m delighted that I’ve reached a number of people.  2021 was my best year ever with almost 3,500 views from 1,500 visitors. All-in I’ve been fortunate enough to have the blog visited by 7,500 people who’ve looked at over 11,000 pages.  I feel good about that, and I sincerely hope that they have found help with their job search.

I had two major goals for this blog. One was to help job seekers get back to work, and the other was to sell books (I will admit to the crass commercialism).  I think I’ve done what I can to accomplish the first goal. Contained in this blog are hundreds of tips and techniques, encouragement, and the occasional reality check to support the job seeker. What the blog has not done, is generate book sales.

If you are familiar with book publishing these days, you know that it’s tough. For every good book published there are a dozen self-published books that are awful, and there is no easy way for the shopper to tell them apart.  If you look on Amazon and find my book, you’ll see that the second edition is ranked #6,096,742 in all books and #3,318 in Job Hunting Books.  There is simply too much competition.

So, it’s time for me to do something different with my Saturday mornings and I will stop feeding this blog weekly.  I am considering another book, or I may blog again on a new topic (this was not my first blog).  I may even feel inspired sometime and add to this blog, but our weekly visits have come to an end.

For my loyal readers and followers, I bid you adieu, until we meet again.

Take the Interview

Posted: January 8, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Job Search | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Happy new year!  I hope you are staying safe and healthy and ready to jump into 2022 with both feet.

As I’ve said several times recently, this is a wacky job market. There is huge demand in food service, warehouse work, and other trades. There is a significant number of voluntary quits in all arenas, which means that those jobs need to be filled by someone else.  I expect the employment activity this first quarter of 2022 to be through the roof. It is a great time to be job seeker.

So, let’s imagine what would otherwise be an unusual scenario.  Say you apply for a job that you are only lukewarm about, but they call you for an interview. What do you do?  You could pass because you really don’t want the job, and I just told you that there were plenty more fish in the sea, right?

Take the interview! There are at least three good reasons that you should take the interview and go into it as if this is the best job ever.

  1. Practice – To land the job you really want, you need to be good at being interviewed. This gives you the best possible practice. You get to hear and respond to questions, gauge the interviewer’s reaction, and practice your questioning techniques.
  2. Networking – Even if you don’t think you want this job, you might learn about a different job at this company, or you might be able to include the recruiter and/or hiring manager in your network to help find a job someplace else.
  3. You might like the job – Want ads are tiny slices of jobs, designed to attract candidates and to weed out the unqualified.  You won’t really know what the duties, the work environment, etc. are just by reading the job posting.  But, by going through the interview process and talking with people, you might find out that this job is better than you thought.

Let’s be real, what the worst thing that can happen by interviewing for a job you don’t think you want?  Maybe you waste a couple of hours of time.  Maybe you run into your current boss in the HR office (awkward).  Maybe you have to turn down an offer.  Those are all pretty small risks.  If you get a chance to go through the job interview process, take it. The practice alone is worth your investment in time, and maybe it will turn out even better than you expected.  If you need some help with your job search, try this: https://im-fired.com/about-the-book/.