Looking for a new job? Get out of your own way

Yup, it’s tough out there. There’s nothing like a few dozen store closings and plant shutdowns to dampen your enthusiasm for job search.

There’s more than one way to handle such bad news. One popular option is to use the faltering economy as the reason for not finding work.

Well OK, but to steal a line from Dr. Phil, how’s that working for you?

To help restore your focus on searching for a job effectively, I’ve gathered seven of the most common mistakes people make when it comes to the psychology of the hunt.

1. Playing the head game. Talking yourself into or out of any activity without research is a bad way to run your life. But job seekers do it all the time when they believe such generalized comments as “No one’s getting jobs these days.” No one? And even if it were true, can you afford to wait until people have more positive things to say before you look for work?

2. Acting from fear. Fear of not finding work, fear of getting stuck in the wrong job, fear of losing health care benefits, fear of not succeeding … if I had a penny for every fear I’ve heard from job seekers, I’d buy stock in antidepressants. The fact is, fearful job seekers run the risk of ending up in truly awful jobs.

AMY LINDGREN

WORKING STRATEGIES

3. Not planning to succeed. In a tight job market, the worst thing you can do is go after a job half-heartedly. The antidote is to swear off of tentative, let’s-see-if-this-works efforts and start making plans for a successful job search instead.

4. Not sticking to decisions. When you go after a particular type of job, your best bet is to follow that plan unless and until you have overwhelming evidence that you made a bad choice. But to switch goals because you’re not getting responses to your résumé? Not until you’ve tried everything from revising the résumé to presenting it in person to relying on networking for all your leads. If your job search strategy is not exhaustive, your results are not conclusive.

5. Not setting a consistent pace. It’s typical to take a day off here and there, and important to honor that need for rest. But when weeks pass without significant job searching, you’re setting yourself up for emotional crashes. In job searching, maintaining a steady pace is the key to emotional health.

6. Ignoring good advice. By now you’ve heard that networking is very important to a successful job search. You’ve heard that most jobs are gotten through contacts. You’ve heard that networking can help you find jobs that are still in the planning stages. And yet, it’s a good bet that you spent more hours last week assembling online applications than you did speaking to your contacts. Why do you think you’re the only person in the world that networking can’t help?

7. Entering a job search as if it were a job. I’ve spent a lot of news ink on this point, largely in response to the myth that you should job search 40 hours a week. I know that’s supposed to push people to invest more time, but spending time is not the same as being productive. Think about it — if you envision a job search as your job, you’re going to want letterhead and cards and a desk and a desk calendar and a place to put your coffee cup. … Pretty soon you’ve organized your life around being unemployed. A better analogy is that this is a project to be managed. That means you need a deadline, check-in points, a budget and a team. And you need results.

- Marie G. McIntyre is an Atlanta-based workplace coach. Her weekly column is syndicated by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Send questions at www.yourofficecoach.com.