Don't give up in a tough job market

If you are unemployed I have a question for you: How are your chances of getting a job?
Second question: How do you know?
A couple of years ago, when the news was full of employers offering hiring bonuses to college kids, some job seekers assumed they could pick up a job whenever they wanted one. It was a rude awakening when they started sending r & eacute;sum & eacute;s at the last minute and didn't always get bites.
The key word? Assumed. Hearing about a generally good market for job seekers, they decided, without evidence, that their own job searches would be easy.
These days, the market is quite a bit different. Employers are laying off staff while sidelining new products and capital improvements. We get these reports with depressing frequency, along with deficit projections and proposed cuts in government budgets.
The new assumption? A job seeker would have a better chance of being hit by a meteor than getting re-employed. In January, a national employment agency even ran a survey asking job seekers if they thought the job market would be favorable to them. Overwhelmingly, they answered no.
Respectfully, I have to ask: What do job seekers know? If the people surveyed were at all like the job seekers I speak with every week, they get their information from the news, which is currently dour, or from their own experience, which is often unhappily influenced by the bad news they keep hearing.
Here's what I mean.
More effort
Suppose you've been hearing that the market is terrible for job seekers. Does this mean that no one is getting hired? No. It means fewer people are getting hired. Does it mean you won't get hired? No. It is not a predictor for any one person.
Suppose that you respond to the bad news with extra effort. Instead of e-mailing 20 r & eacute;sum & eacute;s every week, you e-mail 100. Three weeks and 300 r & eacute;sum & eacute;s later, no one has responded with an offer for an interview.
Now you have personal experience: This is a terrible job market. I might agree with you if your job search was well-strategized. But since e-mailing hundreds of r & eacute;sum & eacute;s is a bad idea in any economy, your experience tells me nothing of the market for your skills.
What's really happening here is a replay of an old concept: You're psyching yourself out.
That's not to say it isn't a tough market. It is. But that doesn't mean that the market is the reason you don't have a job.
Bad behavior
Here are some self-defeating things I have observed job seekers doing, in good times and bad. Put a check next to anything you've caught yourself doing and resolve to improve.
UFocusing on one job opportunity to the exclusion of others. Don't wait for a final answer after an interview before you turn up the heat elsewhere.
UOverusing one method, including e-mail, despite the fact that no one is responding. Mix it up.
UAssuming that an employer isn't responding because you're overqualified. If you honestly believe that, ask yourself how the employer got that impression. It could only have come from you: Why are you sending a r & eacute;sum & eacute; with too much experience on it?
UBelieving that calling or dropping in is pestering the employer. It's not. Watch your manners, be brief and move on.
UOveranalyzing your follow-up calls. Some people believe that Mondays and Fridays are bad days to call an employer, and that early mornings and late afternoons are inconvenient. At the end of all this "strategizing," the job seeker is left with about 45 minutes to make calls. Don't be silly -- make as many calls as you can each day.
UHolding back enthusiasm in an interview, to keep from being disappointed later. It's a classic "chicken and egg" scenario: Did you lose the offer because you were restrained, or did your restraint help you bear the loss of the offer? Don't hold back. Find some way to deal with disappointment if you are rejected, but go into the next interview as if that were the furthest thing from your mind.
Listen, I know it's a tough market. But did you ever play sports? If so, you know the coach would never let you get away with these behaviors. When the other team is tough, you play smarter and you block your ears to their taunts. But you never let them psych you out and you certainly don't do it to yourself.
XAmy Lindgren, the owner of a career-consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn., can be reached at alindgren@pioneerpress.com.