I did what I knew how to do. After reading dozens of job ads, I wrote one. I fashioned the perfect job description, typed it out, and carried it in my planner. Each morning, I would look at the job ad and think, “This is the perfect job for me and it’s out there.”

I chose a new, side-line function and started going to meetings. Rather than networking in my world of advertising, I sought out two similar professions—marketing and sales. I attended, as a guest, meetings for the American Marketing Association and the Sales and Marketing Executives. I wasn’t exactly qualified, but I had skills that were similar. I was bright, cheery and fun. I laughed and talked with my new friends, and exchanged business cards.

Over salad, the man next to me asked, “Where do you work?” Without hesitation, I said, “Well, I’m in an advertising agency now, but I really want to do marketing for a professional firm—you know, attorneys, accountants, or architects. Something like that.”

Well, I’m recruiter and I have your job. That was it. I had an interview within 2 days, an offer within 2 weeks, and a new job—about 12 weeks after writing that short, succinct “Perfect Job Ad.”  My new salary was about 20% more than my old one—the then HUGE sum of $50,000 per year. I eventually made more than $200,000 from that conversation over salad and hot rolls. What can you learn for this?

Be specific in your job search. Dream up the perfect job and pursue that. Write it out and carry it with you. After you read it 30 days in a row, you’ll begin—like a moth to a flame—to move toward people, events and conversations that will get you closer and closer to your perfect job.

Be targeted in your networking. If you are looking to work with equipment leasing in a bank, find a way to network with leasing professionals, bankers, credit union employees, and manufacturers who need leased equipment. There’s a professional gathering—a monthly meeting or conference—for everything! Get on line and find your perfect audience. Then, show up and work the crowd.

Speak exactly what you want. When you are networking, tell others what your perfect job would be. The more specific you are, the more they can help you. If you’re not sure, choose one option and speak it until another option feels better. No one is keeping score—you can change your mind daily if you wish. As you speak your desired job, it will become more and more real to you.

Ideas fly in when we’re specific. Notice that if you are looking for beige carpet for your house, you start noticing carpet ads everywhere. You drive down the street and see a flooring store you never knew was there. People start spontaneously talking about their flooring projects. We find what we seek. We are very powerful that way.

I wish you a $200,000 dinner. Soon.  (Maybe you’ll be able to make that in two years, instead of the 4 it took me!)

Job seeking works best when you engage three important talents: your imagination, intuition, and unshakable optimism. (You know—the optimism that keeps you going to networking events and job clubs week after week.) Job seekers make the mistake of thinking it’s all about what they know, or whether they have a key word on the resume. Job seeking is an art—and those who are attuned to the process win more often and win sooner.

Your imagination is required for job seeking because you’ve got to get creative about jobs similar to your number one choice. If you want to be, say, a territory manager in beverage sales, you might imagine what industries might have the same type of position. One such client was able to generate the ideas of food sales, alcoholic beverages, oil, pharmaceuticals, etc. Opening up your mind beyond the industry you know the best allows you to make the easiest career shift—same function, new industry.

Another option: Go beyond your traditional job title. Ask about and research jobs that require the same set of skills. A great site for this is www.mynextmove.org.

Imagination also helps in a networking conversation. As you ask a person about their current work, you might imagine yourself in that role. You might even fantasize about being in that company. Be intensely curious. And, listen for clues. When you hear details that feel right to you, ask enough to figure out what department to approach, what job title to ask about, and what person to contact. In essence, by following clues you are creating your own job leads.

When you approach a company before a need is advertised, you are in a much stronger position. You are not just one of hundreds of applicants. You are a fellow business person with an interest in their company. You will feel more confident, AND if you follow your intuition, you just might call on THE DAY they decide to open up a job. It happens!

Follow the gentle nudges and ideas in your own head—those are called intuitive hunches. Time after time, my clients will say, “I just got the idea to call today,” or “You’ll never believe this coincidence…” Yes, I will, because the Universe is acting in your favor. There is always help, if you just follow the ideas that seem to come from thin air.

You also need unshakable optimism. This means go-power when you face lots of closed doors. There’s always a way to re-frame what you are told. If the job was filled yesterday, there’s a chance that the top candidate might not work out, OR, there’s another vacancy coming up in that department, OR, the HR person liked you so well that she will recommend you for the next vacancy.

You get the point. Keep thinking positively.

Chances are, the job you really wanted, but didn’t get, was not right for you anyway. The next one is around the corner. Just keep looking for the clues.

• The endless looking on line for new job listings.
• Paying for a networking event without knowing if there’s anyone there who can help you.
• The frustration of filling out an online application—only to have it evaporate just before you hit “send.”

If you are frustrated by these things, chances are you’re doing the wrong things! The easiest way to get traction in a job search is to focus on people. People review resumes, people conduct interviews, and people hire people.

Make your job search more effective by relying on other people to help. Your networking should start with people you know. Then, you ask your friends to refer you to friends. All along the way, you are talking to people. People just like you who probably know what it’s like to search for a job.

The unspoken secret: People enjoy helping out. Karma is real. When a new contact—a friend of a friend—is able to help you in your search, everyone feels great: the new contact, the friend who introduced you, and YOU.

Why don’t we ask for help more often? Part of it is pride. It used to be shameful to have lost your job. That thinking should be thoroughly blasted out of the American psyche by now. It is normal and actually predictable that most of us will be affected by a sudden job loss.

Get over yourself. Get over the pride. The reason you ask for help is to find information that isn’t on some website! People know things—about jobs, companies and industries. They can help you in ways that the media and internet simply can’t.

Your goal: find out about jobs while they’re still in the “Hidden Market.” That means the job is  unadvertised because a manager has just gotten approval. Could be that HR hasn’t posted it because they are backed up. And, they are hesitating to post it because that costs big bucks – as much as $600 a week.

The rest of job seeking? Hey, that’s easy. Most of us write emails every day. If you need some help with your resume, get some. But, the rest of your marketing—just standard business stuff. The hard part is picking up that 500-pound cell phone and making a few calls.

When you begin doing this in earnest, you’ll find a huge burden has been lifted off your shoulders. You have a whole community of people who are keeping an eye out for you.

Four other things you shouldn’t do:

• Don’t assume you know anything about the person.
• Don’t focus the conversation on you and your needs.
• Don’t tell your sad story.
• Don’t push your resume at them.

If you want to network your way to a job, you want to do it indirectly. Grabbing a coffee with an old friend and attacking it too hard makes you the pariah you hate being in the first place. Here’s a better way to approach it:

Ask gently to get together. You might say, “I’m in transition and I would like your advice.” Or “I’m sourcing job leads and I want to learn more about your job position.” Or, “I really admire you. I’d like to learn more about your career.” Make the conversation all about the other person. If you allow the other person to talk, you’ll win a friend and advocate.

Be ready with lots of questions. Do your homework and learn a little about the company. Ask about what’s going on in their industry segment. Ask about the person’s job: how long have they had it, how did they get the job, and what education and experience do they have. Finally, ask about their company: what’s the culture, do they like their boss, and to what department do they report.

You are looking for insider information. You want to find out the names of job titles that might be suitable for you. You want to know how the company is structured and how large your future department might be. You want to know who the hiring managers are, and whether they are great to work for. In short, you are looking for everything the job description doesn’t tell you.

Focus the conversation on the other person. As you do, imagine yourself in their role, in their company, in their industry. When you do occasionally turn the conversation back to you, ask: “Do you think my background might fit?” Listen carefully and ask: “What do you think is the best way to apply to your company?”

At the end of the conversation, tell the person clearly and simply what you are looking for – in 30 seconds or less. Answer their questions—if they are interested. Ask if you can send your resume by email. (Be ready to hand over one ONLY if they ask for it.)

Follow up with a thank-you email the same day. If there is a hot job in their company, send a second email with your resume. Make your cover message friendly, short and refer to your relationship. If you are lucky, this will be forwarded by your friend to HR or the hiring manager. When they do, it’s an implied endorsement.

Done right, you’ve gotten savvy about a job position, about a company, about a market segment. Even if it’s not the perfect fit for you. You got smarter.

And you got a clue.

You don’t want to approach this too directly. People really want to help, but they don’t believe they can. So, when you reach out to people it’s to “catch up,” “reconnect,” and “ask for advice.” Literally anyone can be the key resource in your job hunt. In my job hunt, it took just 2 coffees and 3 lunches to find the perfect job lead.

The point of this reaching out is to get friends, family and new acquaintances thinking about you and watching for signs in the marketplace that jobs are about to open up. The goal is to apply for an unadvertised job—a job in the so-called Hidden Market. Why?

Because employers, like everyone else, want to do things the easy way. If they have a handful of candidates referred by employees and friends of the company, that’s way easier than advertising a job and having to deal with hundreds—and  sometimes thousands—of job applicants.

Your chances of getting an interview are 10 to 100 times higher if your resume is hand carried or forwarded by email with even the slightest recommendation. The person delivering the resume need only say, “Here’s a sharp guy I met at a party Saturday night.” Suddenly, you’re in. You are being considered for a position because you were recommended to someone you don’t know by someone you just met. Crazy.  And crazy effective.

Where do you start to network? If you’re like most American workers, you’ve been keeping your head down, working like a dog the last few years. You haven’t made time to go to association meetings. Your LinkedIn profile is lame. You have had no contact with former coworkers and supervisors. Heck, you don’t even have time for relatives!

Here’s how you start. Make a list of five people you know quite well—one from high school, one former coworker, one fellow soccer or PTA parent, one neighbor, and one cousin. No kidding. All these people know that you are a person of your word, that you keep promises and don’t have two heads. That’s all it takes to start.

Invite each one to lunch or coffee. While you are talking, each of these people is going to give you ideas and names of other people to talk to. If each one only mentions three ideas (and they will likely give you 7-10) you will now have 15 more people to contact! That’s how easy networking is!

The huge side benefit: all this socializing is fun. You are meeting new people, sharing ideas and helping others.  You’re rekindling old friendships and enjoying yourself. Isn’t that more appealing than staring at a computer screen with the same old job offerings day after day?

You might say, “How do I know which leads to follow?” That’s the magic. You have no idea where these conversations will lead, but each one takes you closer to a job that’s right for you. Of course, if you go into these conversations with purpose, you’re going to get to the goal faster.  More about that later.

Try out your first few coffees and lunches on people you know best. After you get the process down, go for people who are well-connected and who are even more likely to help you. But do it.

My clients resist this idea like crazy. I beg them to get out and talk to people. When they do, they always get fired up. Try it this week. Meet with just two people you know and see how it lifts your spirits. So, what’s the most powerful question you can ask yourself to get motivated?

Who do I know who might help me?

After telling my story to five or six close friends over the next week, I realized that the themes in my story were becoming more apparent:

• I was angry that I had no chance to improve or change the situation.
• I felt wrongly accused and judged.
• I felt less-than, because I was singled out.
• I was angry with myself because I had become so dependent on this   job for both my financial and emotional pay.

Each person I talked to brought me closer to the truth and to healing. Each person had a different perspective that made it all easier to understand. Here are some of the ideas they brought to me that helped:

“Everything happens for a reason.” Hearing this isn’t a lot of comfort. Weeks later, however, I realized that this job loss freed my time and schedule to take on some new exciting things. These volunteer activities are beginning to create some business opportunities. A job loss does open up time and energy.

“If you don’t get fired once in a while, you’re probably not doing a great job.” – Perhaps it’s OK to bring new ideas into the organization and occasionally push the organization in a little different direction. Perhaps your style or ideas just didn’t fit their model.

“You are the same person you were before this. They haven’t taken anything away from you.” Now, that was something to contemplate. Why did I feel so bereft when I had all my experience, talent and abilities, just as before? Probably because I was counting on that income, in the future. The job loss forced me to change and change quickly. It’s uncomfortable to be forced into a change.

“It’s not about talent or performance or effort, it’s about alignment.” I realized that I was a little “off” in my attitude and speech. I realized I really wanted to be in a place where I would be appreciated. A cactus can’t thrive in a swamp. It’s about finding the place that is a better match for you, your skills, your values, and your experience.

So, during the first few weeks after a job loss, I invite you to talk, talk, talk. As you bring your pain into dialogue, you are going to find friends and family who not only support you, but who can help you interpret what has happened and give you the keys to move forward.

Journaling is powerful, too. Give yourself permission to wallow a bit in your loss and grief. Write furiously about your loss. Write the thoughts you are afraid to say out loud. When you see the ideas on paper, you will likely see that you are dramatizing a bit. Then, print them out and burn them.

Wallow a bit in order to get over it all. When you are tired of your own story of woe, you know you are ready to put that energy into job seeking.

Hard driving, competitive, competent people like you and me always take it personally. Because we are pouring our hearts and souls and every ounce of energy we have into our jobs. In essence we have given our “person” to the work, and now we are being rejected, dismissed, and disrespected when we are fired. Of course we feel misunderstood and hurt.

“We did a talent review” is another difficult one. You want to scream, “And you found I have no talent?” Yikes! This one can burn you for weeks. Months.

Here’s an idea that I found very helpful. I was telling my sad story for the 12th time to a friend. She admitted that she’s been fired several times. She told me the secret to understanding this tough, tough event:

“It’s not about talent, effort or performance. It’s about alignment.”

While that may sound like another load of cr*p, stop for a minute and think about the word alignment. It means:

Harmony between employees and business decision-makers within the organization.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to be in harmony with decision makers who are unable to articulate their vision and values. It’s nearly impossible to fall into step with corporate objectives that are conflicting and unclear. It’s hard to fit in with coworkers, clients or audiences who hold a different world view than you do. Do any of these describe your last situation? Probably.

So, you were caught in the cross-fire. Collateral damage.

There’s nothing wrong with YOU. You were simply in the wrong place. Someone figured it out and asked you to leave.

How do you heal? Well, here’s a deceptively simple exercise that completely changed my perspective. I was riding to one of my 3 lunches and heard it on the radio—from a counselor. I call it the Job Search Energizer:

1. Each day, for a week, write two sets of statements:

   I accept that…(I have been dismissed, I lost my job, I wasn’t right for the position, I made some political errors, etc.)And

   I am now willing to…(look into new opportunities, reconnect with old friends in the business, update my resume, look into a sales position, etc.)

2. During week two, write only the “I am now willing to…” statements.

3. For a solid month, continue writing “I am now willing to…” statements each morning. Use these as your goals or “to do” list for the day.
4. Follow your instincts and take the actions that come up in your writing.

Write on the computer if you are a good typist. Write by hand if that suits you. The important thing is to write, write, write. When you read what you have written, you will internalize it and stop worrying about what steps to take.

Your new-found “I am now willing to…” statements, coming from your heart, become your bold, decisive action steps. Follow the ideas that come to mind. By speed writing, you are allowing your Higher Self to begin to guide you. You are engaging both creativity and intuition. You are feeling your way out of the dark place.

If this is a little vague for you, send me an email and I will send you my own Job Search Energizer. You will see how quickly you can transform your thoughts to more positive ones. If you are willing to share, send your own thoughts on this exercise. I would love to hear how it works for you.

Well, you might not call it fired, but I would. I lost a major client relationship that had lasted for six years. I had become complacent. Then, with one phone call, I lost 60% of my income for 2012.

My business is helping people overcome the pain of job loss. But now that I’ve felt it personally, it was much harder than I expected. It hurt more. It immobilized me.

I was so hurt and distraught that it took me more than a week just to get the courage to go out to lunch with an old friend.

But get out I did. And, I’m happy to say that I am starting a new relationship, with a new client, today. It took about 5 networking events, 2 coffees, 3 lunches, 1 resume update, 2 interviews, and several sleepless nights.

I believe this happened for a reason and I would like to tell you about it.

In the coming weeks, I will detail how people I know helped me get some visibility and gave me the lead that turned into a new contract. All in 40 days. I am hoping that this experience will help those of you who are now suffering from a job loss. And those of you who feel stuck—stuck in a job you no longer like, but are afraid to leave. Both places are painful.

The way out is strategic, bold action. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back next week with specifics.

Well, it’s actually very simple. It’s a matter of campaigning for a job, creating momentum, and then bringing it all to a crescendo at the end—a beautiful finale that gives you choices and leverage to negotiate your best deal.

Here are some tips to make this happen in your job search:

1. Heal from your job loss or from the pain you experienced in your last position. Because of financial pressures, most of us jump into a job search too soon. While you don’t want to waste six months watching daytime TV, do take a few weeks to relax, enjoy your family, and heal. When you are ready, hit the job search hard.
2. Treat your search as a job. Have a special desk or area where you keep all your records and supplies. Create a professional-sounding voice mail message. Set up a fax account. Print business cards. Have regular business hours. These actions will also allow you to maintain balance in your life. When you are working on your search, really work. Take breaks and enjoy your week-ends.
3. Have a clear focus. Make sure you know what job position(s) you are seeking by name. Customize your resume and cover letters so that everything proves you are a perfect match.
4. Start with people you know and build your network outward. The best job leads come from friends of friends. Start by having coffee or lunch with friends, former coworkers, clients, vendors and other business contacts. Focus on the other person. Ask about their careers, and they will return the favor. You will get lots of job ideas. Follow up consistently on each one, and report back to the person who provided the lead.
5. Apply freely for jobs that are right for you. Don’t be too concerned about whether you would like a specific company. You can determine that in the interview process. Be open to surprises. The company you were avoiding just might have a great new division that is heaven to work for. By applying freely, you might just get opportunities to interview. Worst case, you’ve won a chance to practice your skills. Best case, you’ve stumbled on a job that you really want.
6. Don’t wait, keep moving forward. If you have a great interview, go back to your office and apply for more positions. Don’t get too focused on one job. And, please don’t wait around for the offer. Companies are taking much longer—sometimes up to six weeks between a successful interview and the offer. If you don’t get the offer, you have other options. If you do, you have other opportunities you can use for leverage in your negotiations.
7. Tell everyone “I’m getting lots of interviews.” This statement is a bit of attraction theory—when you speak it, your subconscious begins to believe it and your behaviors start to cause it. The statement also puts subtle pressure on HR managers to get you in for an interview fast. If you say it in an interview, it makes the future employer think, “We better make an offer soon.” It’s all good.

When you are in momentum, you feel more confident and upbeat. So, get out there and take lots of little steps that rev up your job search. Wouldn’t it be great to get 2, 3, or even 4 offers at the same time?

“I’ll Take Anything”: Three Words That Will Kill Your Job Search,

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2720-Job-Search-Ill-take-anything-Three-words-that-will-kill-your-job-search/?pf=true