Job Search with LinkedIn: Stay The Course

By Larry French

How long have you been looking for work? In this economic downturn it has not been unusual for some individuals to be displaced for as long as a year or longer. I know because I was. It took me months to get over the initial shock of being laid-off.

Part of it was because I had become very accustomed to my job. After all, I’d been faithfully devoted to it for over 20-years. I was actually thinking in another 10-15 years I would be able to retire from my job and begin doing things I’d been planning to do for years. Well, the recession changed that line of thinking as I am sure it altered some of your plans. But in a sense the change was necessary. That’s the other part of why my experience took time. The loss of my job helped me to wake up.

Change Is Good

I’ve heard it said, “a bad situation can be a good one when you see it through different eyes.” It’s one thing to say that and another to actually live it. Been there, done that. I was content where I was in my former work-life, maybe too much to my detriment. For years, I had a dream of pursing my passion for writing. Several manuscripts were started but none were finished. There was always something distracting me. Being focused on the work I had so efficiently done for so long, I was narrowly focused. I concentrated on my profession so well that I kept neglecting my other aspirations. In other words, in a sense I was a workaholic. I was only looking at things in my life through a narrow perspective.

When I realized my perceived misfortune was more of an opportunity, I began to change. It was a process of re-inventing me. That’s right; I had to learn new things. I had to look at things differently, go about doing things in ways I’d never done them before. Instead of looking at myself as being unemployed and disadvantaged because of my age, I started looking at what I could do with all of my earned experience.

The re-invention of me was a required step I had to take to reach for my dreams. I’m not saying that it’s something everyone else needs to do but for me it was a no-brainer. I began looking for the kinds of employment where I could best use my skills and still do what I always wanted to do—write.

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

To pursue my dreams I needed a plan. To find work I had to have a strategy. I wanted to write and also be able to pay my bills and make a living. Maybe you’re in the same boat. If so, don’t stop paddling. There is a landing spot for you out there somewhere. You just have to be creative and patient. Give it some time and effort and you’ll develop your own job search strategy.

Making your job search strategy fit your plan is the creative part. Today, we have a host of electronic media venues available to use for serious work searching. You might as well forget about newspapers because many of them just aren’t advertising what you may be looking for. It’s the other search browsers you want take a look at, like Monster, CareerBuilder, and many others. Don’t forget the municipal, state, and Federal job search browsers. You want to have an assortment of ways to be looking—and advertising—yourself.

Become LinkedIn

One of the best professional networking tools out there is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional network that provides you opportunities to make connections with other people, like yourself. You can exchange knowledge and ideas while establishing a network to assist you in your job search. LinkedIn has become the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 150 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

You should seriously consider LinkedIn for the ways that its use can get you presence out there on the www. The Profile, Contacts, Groups, Companies and other features can maximize the effectiveness of your job search strategy. It can work, it did for me. I became introduced to LinkedIn almost a year ago. As part of my Deland PRO-NET professionals group, I shared what I was learning about LinkedIn use. It helped me and others. In talking and sharing, I gained more confidence in myself and my ability to make my job search strategy work. It encouraged others in the networking group and it also got me blogging.

For the past couple of months, I have been writing articles for the CBE Blog, http://cbeworkforce.blogspot.com/ about using LinkedIn. It’s been a great experience and I hope it’s been a help to others. Now, I have steady work as a result of my LinkedIn efforts. My personal writing is picking up and I’ve launched my own website as a platform for my writing, LARRYFRENCHHISTORICALNOVELIST.COM . I think I’ve done about all I can and it’s time for me to step aside and allow someone else the opportunity I had to share. This is my last post here on the CBE Blog. If you’re looking for me, you can find me via my own blog and website accessible through, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/larry-french/12/213/534 . 

Stay The Course

I encourage you all to stay the course. If you haven’t yet found your way don’t give up. There is hope and there is a way. Keep at it and know that you are not alone. Get yourself out there and use the resources that places like the Deland and Daytona One-Stop, http://www.onestops.com/newindex.asp have to offer in your search. Attend the workshops and learn to network. PRO-NET and the CBE Workforce staff can help. If you arrived late in this series of articles go to the CBE Blog link above for the archive.

Larry French is a novelist and writer. He is now seeking a publisher for his first novel, Time Will Tell, The Awakening which blends his love of history and science and is set during the American Civil War. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/larry-french/12/213/534 Read about his work at, LARRYFRENCHHISTORICALNOVELIST.COM .