The Job Search Checklist: Everything You Need to Know to Get Back to Work After a Layoff

by Damian Birkel

Overview

It’s been a long time since you had to search for a new job. You may be wondering, How did I get this last one so many years ago? What has changed since I last hit the job market? Have I since gathered more knowledge and experience that qualifies me for something better this time around? Where does one get started? The Job Search Checklist is your saving grace! This indispensable guide covers everything from dealing with the emotional impact of being laid off to rebuilding your professional identity. Within these pages, you’ll find solid advice on: • Developing a career plan by taking stock of your experience, abilities, and goals • Crafting an effective résumé and building Internet-friendly documents • Creating a “personal marketing plan” to promote yourself to potential employers • Finding the hidden job market through in-person and online networking• And much more!Complete with downloadable templates, sample cover letters, a range of effective résumé formats, and helpful checklists throughout the book, this invaluable resource gets you on the right path toward your next career and keeps you there.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814432914
Publisher:	AMACOM
Publication date:	10/24/2013
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

DAMIAN BIRKEL is a certified career counselor and the founder of Professionals in Transition(R) Support Group. His job search methodology has been used by more than 5,000 out-of-work professionals to find new employment. His expertise has been featured on Fox News, CNN, NPR, and in USA Today, Fortune, Time, and The Wall Street Journal.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

Finding a job is not easy—especially when you are unemployed. I’ve been out of work several times. I know all about having to struggle with the waves of emotion, the sleepless nights, the ongoing frustration, and the feelings of being worthless—cast aside like a piece of obsolete machinery. I, too a have had to live through the humiliation of having my professional identity stripped away and my income stream disrupted. I understand what it’s like to cope with the rippling effect this crisis has on one’s loved ones.

Right now, you may be experiencing what I went through during the times I was unemployed—you’re in shock and suffering from information overload. You may be overwhelmed with job search materials, books, and internet sites; confused by conflicting expert opinions; and paralyzed by fear. During my job searches, I often thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if there was some sort of master job search checklist to make sure everything was being done in the right order, at the right time, with the right résumé? Is there anything I am missing? What other materials do I need to make my job search a success?”

"The Job Search Checklist" will help you fill that gap. It will guide you through the step-by-step process of finding a job, while providing hope and validation. If you are looking for a battle plan developed and tested in the trenches of unemployment, you have found one. In this book, you will find:
• Key strategies built around a 7-Step Job Search Plan that will guide you through the reemployment process.

• Itemized checklists in each chapter detailing the action steps needed to successfully master critical issues, both emotional and practical a and to help build a complete job search plan of action.

• Proven, viable résumé formats, cover letters, networking letters of approach, and other job search correspondence.

• Access to templates, forms, and other examples of job search correspondence to help you customize your job search.

I Can Help You Find a Job

You are not alone. I have been in your shoes because I have lost my job four times throughout my career and have felt the shock, rage, humiliation, fogginess a depression, ongoing stress, and fear.

Over twenty years ago, I founded Professionals In Transition® Support

Group Inc. (PIT®), a nationally and internationally recognized nonprofit a career support organization. (For more information on PIT®, see www

.jobsearching.org). Our weekly support group meetings (run by volunteers)

have been held every Thursday night at the American Red Cross center in

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, since 1992. What is unique to PIT® is the recognition, by the worldwide media of our state-of-the-art job search techniques a as well as our emotional and practical support provided free of charge by our all-volunteer association. More than four thousand people have been touched by PIT® and thousands more have visited online.

In addition, I have reeducated myself and am now a nationally certified career counselor running an Employability Lab at our local community college.

The road to reemployment is full of sharp curves, steep climbs, and sudden drops. This rough road is often unmarked and frequently marred by potholes of rejection. The so-called “information highway” known as the

Internet has so many branches that getting lost, confronting a detour, hitting construction, reaching dead ends, or even falling into deep, dark, black holes are not only common, but can waste a huge chunk of your valuable time. It is my hope that The Job Search Checklist will help you navigate the road to reemployment and that by following the 7-Step Job Search Plan, you will create a roadmap to personal success.

How This Book Is Organized

The Job Search Checklist begins by addressing the extremely stressful “livingin-limbo” time period before a layoff or downsizing. This section provides indicators, strategies, and checklists to help you decode and react to the signs of an impending layoff, so that you can effectively prepare in advance regardless of whether you are affected.

From there, "The Job Search Checklist" is divided into seven steps, each of which is further divided into chapters. Throughout the chapters, you will find knowledge, advice, recommendations, templates, and checklists to guide your job search process.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword v

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

Prequels: Anticipating Job Loss 8

STEP 1 The Emotional Impact of Job Loss

1 Job Loss Grieving 21

2 Secondhand Job Loss 40

STEP 2 Life After Unemployment

3 Recovery 51

4 Getting Organized 59

5 Rebuilding Your Professional Identity 66

STEP 3 Developing a Career Plan

6 Developing Your Career Plan 75

7 All-Important Research 82

8 Personality Testing 87

9 Personal Marketing Plan 94

Step 4 Crafting an Effective Résumé

10 Résumé Components 107

11 Chronological or Functional Résumé? 117

12 Keywords: The Hidden Language of the Internet 125

13 Channeling the Power of the Internet 132

14 Creating Internet-Friendly Documents 139

STEP 5 The Power of Networking

15 The Visible Job Market 145

16 In-Person Networking 150

17 Social Networking 166

STEP 6 Effective Interviewing

18 The Interview: Types and Styles 177

19 Informational Interviews 186

20 The Screening Interview 190

21 The Interview: Concerns and Questions 196

22 Strategies to Ace an Interview 207

23 The Salary Negotiation Process 218

Step 7 Reemployment: Hit the Ground Running

24 Prepared and Ready to Go 235

25 Your First Six Months 245

Conclusion 253

Endnotes 255

Index 259

Editorial Reviews

…made the entire pink-slip-to-reemployment process as painless and easy to maneuver as possible…a complete step-by-step plan for landing your next job." —New Equipment Digest

"Invaluable job search resource…Well-researched, well-organized and insightful; this is a great book as you plan your next career move. 5 out of 5 stars" —Portland Book Review

“Starts with the pre-layoff signs of a job in trouble and moves all the way through the job search process…it's hard to imagine anything he's left out.” —Atlantic Constitution

“This is a good choice if you need a complete re-boot on your search” — Pioneer Press

From the Publisher