Your Life Dictates Your Job Search, Not the Reverse

If you’ve picked up this book, you are looking for a job. You might be launching a job search at this exact moment for many reasons:

You are a student:

• You are a student who is graduating into the workforce full time.
• You are a student looking for an internship for next semester or the summer.

You have experience:

• You lost your job or took time off and are looking to reenter the workforce.You have a job but want to move into a different industry or have a different role.
• You want to relocate, and your current employer doesn’t have an office where you will be moving.

The reason you are looking for a job is important because it changes what you need to find in your next job

Why you look for a job also influences the constraints you face when you look: Timing and deadlines. On one extreme, you have the internship search with a tight, inflexible time frame. If you need an internship for credit next semester, you either get the job by the time of registration or do not. You may need to relocate by a certain date. Your savings may be running out, so you may need to return to the workforce within a definite timetable. On the other hand, you may have a job that is secure, so you can take your time with your search. You may be an ambitious freshman or sophomore with several years before you graduate and need that full-time job.

Access to resources. When you are in school, you most likely have a dedicated career services office. If you have graduated and have been out of the workforce for some time, you may have little contact with a professional network or support system. You can join an industry association, participate in networking groups, or hire a career coach to help you create that professional network and support system. Your options for job search support will be different depending on where you live and how much you can invest in your search. People in busy urban areas can more easily find a chapter of a professional organization that matches their interests, like-minded people with whom to network, and career coaches and other professional support resources for hire. In a less-populated geography, you may have to rely on virtual access to professional organizations, networks, and resources. Similarly, your level of financial investment dictates which and how many organizations and networks you can join and what outside resources you can hire. Free or low-cost guidance is available from alumni associations, government agencies focused on workforce issues, and online job boards or career sites that offer guidance and expertise.

Emotional constraints. Certain industries, such as banking and consulting, have very regimented and competitive campus recruiting seasons. Pressure is high as soon as you hit the campus. Someone returning to the workforce after a gap may feel more anxiety or fear than a job seeker with continuous employment. A career changer may feel frustrated at having to break through to a new industry or function. Table 1.2 “Job Search Considerations” summarizes each of these considerations as it applies both to students and experienced candidates.