In Reflection – Traveling Tips for the Winding Road of a Job Search

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

As many of you know, I write new articles every other month, using the “leap month” to reflect on comments and respond to questions from the article of the past month.  This is a leap month in which I am responding to comments from back to back articles on “Traveling Tips for the Winding Road of a Job Search”.  For those of you who did not get a chance to read the September and October issues, please go to Traveling Tips - Part I and Traveling Tips - Part II.

In summary, in the September article I wrote about each of the following Five Stages of Transition for Job Seekers and tips for getting through them:   

• Stage One: Emotional Reaction/Responding 

• Stage Two: Reflection and Acceptance

• Stage Three: Organizing and Preparation 

• Stage Four: Starting and Maintaining the Job Search

• Stage Five: Employment or Reworking of Goals

In the October article I gave suggestions on how to avoid the following Top Ten Classic Pitfalls of a Job Search:  

1. Failing to fully prepare for the journey!

2. Having no clear goal or destination in mind.   

3. Limiting one’s thinking about employment options!  

4. Not recognizing when you’re going in circles.

5. Avoiding job search methods that bring you face to face with real people!

6. Allowing an “ideal” prospect to bring the job search to a screeching halt!

7. Feeding the fires of fear and cynicism rather than hope and optimism.

8. Taking everything personally.

9. Driving on empty: failing to take care of oneself along the way.

10. Giving up too soon!

Thank you for the many responses from my readers to both articles - it seems they struck a deep chord for many people, both personally and professionally. In the interest of keeping this newsletter to a reasonable length, I have selected three questions/comments from readers that I believe will hold the widest appeal to other readers. Enjoy!     
 

Sorting one’s losses as way of moving through grief.

Dear Denise, I shared your article about the Five Stages of Transition for Job Seekers with my job club, and as you suggested, asked them to identify which stage they thought they were in. My participants represent a variety of backgrounds and situations – young and old, new and experienced in the work world, disabled and non-disabled, and at various places on the economic scale.  What amazed me is how many identified with Stage One, expressing that they continue to feel grief, anger, and even despair at finding themselves unemployed. I am just wondering if you have any additional tips for helping people to deal with their sense of loss at this stage in their journey. Thank you for your ongoing inspiration!

Vocational Instructor and Job Club Leader
Calgary, Alberta 

Thank you for the question, as I am sure that many people are experiencing similar circumstances with their job seekers or in their own personal lives.  Dealing with grief and loss is a huge issue for people who have lost their jobs, making it very difficult to put their best foot forward in the attempt to find new employment.  William Bridges, my favorite author on the subject of dealing with change and transition, suggests that it is in fact, near impossible to start a “new beginning” without first “fully experiencing the ending”. I am sure that means different things to different people depending on their situation, but what everyone has in common in facing “an ending” is the feeling of loss.  In supporting people to cope with loss I think it is helpful to “sort” them, as not all losses are equal. Here are some questions to entertain in the face of a change that represents loss: 

• What aspects of your situation remain the same? 

(E.g., The loss of employment does not necessarily mean that your living situation will change, nor that your primary relationships with friends and family will be altered.  What about your health, your hobbies and passions outside of work, and/or your religious/spiritual practices will remain constant throughout this transition?)

• What aspects of my situation are not really lost, as in “gone forever”, but rather, altered or changed in some way?  

(E.g., You may not continue to share a workplace with your old co-workers, but they can still be in your life.  You may not work at The Steak House anymore, but it doesn’t mean you won’t still be a chef.)        

• What aspects of your situation will you need to replace?

(E.g. You might need to find a new way to bring in income, or another means to getting to work as your place of employment changes.)

• What aspects of your situation will you need to rebuild?

(E.g., While you may feel the loss of your current network through work, you can be confident that you will build a new network; while your confidence may have taken a hit, it doesn’t mean you can’t build it back up!)

• What aspects of your situation do you need to relinquish and what step(s) can you take to that end? 

(E.g., In dealing with the loss of a sense of belonging you had to a particular place or organization, you might write a letter to your co-workers thanking them for the many ways in which you enjoyed their camaraderie or to a supervisor or mentor acknowledging what you learned or gained through his/her guidance.)    

Perhaps sorting what is altered from what is gone, and what is temporarily missing from what we may never come again, can help to alleviate the overwhelming sense that “all is lost” and renew a sense of gratitude and abundance for all that remains, even in the midst of loss. 
 

Job developers share “classic pitfalls” with job seekers!

Hi Denise!  The recent article that outlines “The Classic Pitfalls to Avoid in the Job Search” is, to me, an excellent refresher for Job Developers as well as Job Seekers.  I am often amazed that Job Developers forget so many of the tools they are taught, but this list is an excellent refresher.  As a consult/trainer for job developers (and others) I so often hear how many Job Developers are struggling to find jobs for applicants in today’s economy, yet others seem to be merrily continuing on.  My observation is that many of them have fallen into many of these pitfalls, particularly in their reliance on today’s technology.  In a day when electronic communication is everywhere and all the time, it is the face-to-face contacts and relationships with employers that are really making the difference and helping applicants to “stand out” and get noticed.  I have also observed that, while job placements increase with the broadness of employment goals, job retention has dropped dramatically:  many goals written in employment plans have become so generalized so as to capture a job lead when it occurs (in order to get the placement) that the long-term goal of extended employment, upward mobility, etc. have been lost.  Lastly, the “fires of cynicism” are burning bright right now and job developers also need to take care of themselves in this economy or face burn-out.  This is the time for teams to come together and for agencies to collaborate for the larger picture of employment success.  Yes, many of these agencies compete with each other for state contracts or for funding to continue their programs, but if staff continue to turn over at high rates, no one wins.  Thanks for this wonderfully insightful article!

Colleen Hart Katuin, MS
Supervisor, Supported Employment Consultation and Training Center
Anderson, Indiana

Thank you, Colleen, for your feedback, and, yes, I would wholeheartedly agree that job developers share many of the same pitfalls as job seekers!  In fact, I heard from many job developers expressing the same!  In this time of economic turmoil, when the “fires of cynicism burn bright”, as you put it, I think your suggestion about teams coming together and agencies collaborating is both timely and essential.  When people come together to express their concerns and their inspiration, their fears and their hopes, more often than not, people will draw on one another’s strength and courage, renewing the purpose and passion that brought them to the field in the first place.  When we walk alone, it can be a long, lonely and discouraging journey.  Walking hand in hand, we take turns carrying the lantern, and help to keep each other on track.  Whatever context you are working in, think about who you might go to with the suggestion of bringing people together early in the new year in order to rally and inspire the troops.     
 

The two faces of change and transition!

Dear Denise, It was refreshing to read your thoughts on the stages of transition as they related to a job search.  I would be interested in reading more about how to help people through particularly painful and difficult transitions, and in particular, how to help them see the opportunity that may arise as a result of the change they are going through.  After all, change wears two faces, don’t you think? 

Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor
Santa Fe, New Mexico

I would agree with the reader that Change and Transition wear at least two faces! 

While each of us lives out a tough transition in our own unique way, we are all standing on the same threshold marking a passage from how things were to how things are going to be.  People who study such things say this: Standing on a threshold and living a transition is a time of “betwixt and between”; a time in the parentheses; a time that can be compared to feeling invisible, being in the wilderness, falling into the dark, or living in the floating worlds.  One of my favorite definitions of transition came from Marilyn Ferguson who wrote, “Transition is feeling like Linus when his blanket is in the dryer.”  Obviously such a time carries ambiguity, confusion, and a feeling of being lost.

At the same time, the threshold in a tough transition can be viewed as an enormous opportunity.  It is a time when we can be inwardly transformed and outwardly changed.  A time associated with major reformulation, open-endedness, and possibility.  Instead of a time of what is, it is a time of what can be. At any moment, the way we ordered our thoughts and actions in the past can be revised.  There is the potential for initiating new ways of thinking, new ways of making connections, and forming relationships that we never experienced before.  We may break free from old ways of perceiving and dream up new ways in which we want to live.  And so the question arises:

How do we, in the midst of the pain and loss of transition, remain open to the opportunities it avails? 

I wrote extensively on this subject in the November., 2007 issue of this newsletter, entitled, “The Dark Night of the Soul: Perspectives and Opportunities" which you can access from the archives on our website.  In short, however, I would suggest that we have all walked out into the wilderness and lived to tell the tale.  Perhaps it would be helpful to identify what worked and what did not work in past transitions.  What if we were to harness our perspective and channel our energy and attention by entertaining questions like the following?   

• Given all the transitions I have experienced in my life, what worked and what didn’t?
   

• What did I learn about asking for help and reaching out to other people?
   

• What did I learn about being alone and keeping things to myself?
   

• What did I learn about discouragement and apathy?
   

• What did I learn about my strength and resilience?
   

• What did I learn about patience, persistence, and determination?
   

• What sapped my spirit and what helped to lift them?
   

• Which of these lessons carry wisdom for me today in my present transition?

In addition to the wisdom we have gleaned through our own experiences, it doesn’t hurt to lean on the wisdom of others.  Let me share this passage from a letter that Carl Jung wrote to a friend who was going through a painful time and asked his advice .  I found it in the book “Tough Transitions” by Elizabeth Harper Neele.  Here is part of his letter:

Dear N.,   I am so sorry you are so miserable … I would seek out one or two people who seemed amiable and would make myself useful to them … I would raise animals and plants and find joy in their thriving … I would surround myself with beauty – no matter how primitive and artless – objects, colors, sounds.  I would eat and drink well --- I would wrestle with the dark angel until he dislocated my hip.  For he is also the light and the blue sky which he withholds from me.  Anyway, that is what I would do.  What others would do is another question, which I cannot answer.  But … no half-measures or half-heartedness.    

As ever, C. G. Jung

What a perfect way to end the last issue of this newsletter for 2009, borrowing from the wisdom of Carl Jung.  I wish all of you the happiest of holidays, plenty of oil in your lanterns, logs on the fire of your innermost heart, and always the strength to take the next step of your journey not with half-measures, but with the fullest of measures, not half-heartedly, but with the wholeness of your heart.

Peace and joy to you and yours,
 

~ Denise

Putting it into Practice