Job Hunting Tips #4 Accepting JudgmentWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
Applying for work is stressful, no matter circumstances. Even if you are already working, and merely looking to see what else is out there, you still want to be offered position. If you realize, half way through an interview, that you would be miserable working for this company and you wouldn't let your dog take job, you still want it to be offered. If hours are unsuitable, job duties demeaning, and salary a joke, you still want to be made an offer.Why is it so important to us to have an offer made which we already know we will reject? It is important because we are aware that we are being judged. We talk about skills and experience and prior accomplishments but that has already been outlined in a resume. A face-to-face interview is for purpose of judging you as a person: Will you fit in? How do you express yourself? How do you look? Are you pleasant to have around? Are you likable? If a job offer is made, we feel validated and worthwhile - they liked us. We never think "He really didn't like me but my skills are so great." We want to be liked, we want to be wanted, we want to be appreciated for what we are. If no job offer is forthcoming, we take it personally: "I guess they didn't like me." Regardless of our whether our skills were a fit, our salary in ballpark, or our experience applicable, we feel a personal failure. The negative messages of a lifetime, stored in our brain, start playing: "I'm just not good enough. I'm worthless. People don't like me. Why do I always mess up? I'm such a failure. Why can't I be more like . . . "
| | Unemployment Blues: Downward MobilityWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
All indicators show an improving economy and, finally, start of job growth. More than eight million unemployed workers see hope around corner and re-enter nightmare of job search with increased enthusiasm and positive outlook they lost six months ago when they virtually gave up on ever finding a good position.What do they find? Service jobs: customer service, hospitality, tourism, food, travel, entry-level healthcare, retail. What are these jobs offering? 30%, 50%, 75% less income than old manufacturing jobs which have moved to foreign countries. Where are benefits, insurance, paid holidays, retirement plans? Where have stability, seniority system and regular raises gone? It is a new world, an evolving economy, a changed future. Everything will work out, government forecasters confidently predict. With tax reductions continuing, economy will expand and thousands of high-tech, highly compensated positions will be created. Keep faith, job seekers are advised -- this is United States where innovation and entrepreneurship always prevail and life gets better and better. Keep mouthing platitudes and perhaps 50 year-old former auto worker with an eleventh grade education or 60 year-old dislocated engineer with outdated job skills and high blood pressure will actually start to believe it. At least until they return to active job search and encounter real, not hypothetical/political, labor market. That is when true economic progression of twenty-first Century America emerges: an increasing number of millionaires, an increasing number of entry-level, low paid workers, and a great middle class vacuum.
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