unable to find a job

I Am Stagnating in My Job But Can’t Find a Better One Should I Take a Career Break? (VIDEO)

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvFmVPSOOQc[/svp]
Someone asked me this question recently. If you been watching my videos or listened to any of my podcasts, you know, I give no BS advice.

giving-up

[spp-transcript]

The question for today is:

“I Am Stagnating in My Job But Can’t Find a Better One  Should I Take a Career Break?”

I’m going to give you the short answer and then the long one.

NO!

What it tells me is that you don’t know how to find a job, not that you should take a break. You probably haven’t worked hard enough to take a break yet.

I have no idea whether you are 22 or 62. People of all ages running to stagnation in their work. If you are 22 and working in this job, your 1st learning how to master this role. Taking a break shouldn’t be your goal.

Taking a break is a reflection that suggests you feel defeated. It’s like going back to the cocoon and looking for sustenance there. All that happens is that you create a gap in your background that becomes difficult to explain. As time progresses. Here’s what you need to do instead.

Let me just start with my own abilities. I teach job hunters how to find work. Join me at JobSearchCoachingHQ.com and learned some of the things you need to learn in order to find work.

For example, your resume probably stinks. You are submitting it for jobs that you are interested in but not qualified for. How can you tell your resume so that you get better results in more interviews?

If you’re getting the interviews and not being invited back, you’re not interviewing effectively. We can help you with that.

Things are breaking down for you not, probably because you don’t have the skills but because you don’t have the experience marketing yourself as a job hunter.  That could be true whether you are a beginner or more experienced person with 40 years of experience because Lord knows I talk to a lot of people with a lot of experience who do a terrible job of presenting themselves.

This is not the time for a break. That’s not the issue.  The issue is that you don’t know how to find a job and their avenues out there that will help you.  What is my own, JobSearchCoachingHQ.com, or hiring me as a career coach directly.There are other people who can provide help as well.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you really think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com changes that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

You can order a copy of “Diagnosing Your Job Search Problems” for Kindle for $.99 and receive free Kindle versions of “No BS Resume Advice” and “Interview Preparation.”

Stagnant Career But Can’t Find a Job

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnJ8vu0XdVY[/svp]
“I hate stagnating in my job, but can’t find a better one. Should I take a career break? I grew rapidly in my company but got stuck in middle management (“Head of…”), mainly due to hard politics. The worst thing is that other companies don’t seem to hire at my level.

I made huge sacrifices to get here and burnt out, so I would only be satisfied with higher pay and/or level of responsibility.”

 

[spp-transcript]

I received a good question from someone that I thought was worthwhile to choose for a variety of reasons.

Let me just read it to you.

“I hate stagnating in my job, but can’t find a better one. Should I take a career break? I grew rapidly in my company but got stuck in middle management (“Head of…”), mainly due to hard politics. The worst thing is that other companies don’t seem to hire at my level.

I made huge sacrifices to get here and burnt out, so I would only be satisfied with higher pay and/or level of responsibility.”

I want to expand the question a little bit to address less experienced workers and then come back to deal with this specific scenario.

For the younger workers finding it difficult to find something, maybe you don’t like your job and are not getting job offers, often the issue is that your interview skills need to improve. Thus, I encourage people to learn and practice and become better a job hunting. After all, the skills needed to find a job are different than those needed to do a job.

However, this is a scenario where we are dealing with a middle management professional who feels stuck. There are two ways of addressing this.

The first is to get “unstuck.” Start defeating the politics and learn where you been typecast in the wrong way and adapt. You to find your problem is being with your current firm and you are stagnating because people see you in one way and value something else.

Thus, the idea is to find what they value and start playing to it. This doesn’t mean you have to change jobs but it also doesn’t mean that you have to quit, go home and watch TV all the time.

That should probably be your first choice.

The second may be similar to the advice that I gave to the young professional but I’m going to emphasize something a little bit different.

For the inexperienced one, I spoke about getting better at job hunting. For you, I want to encourage you to get better at networking, Often, for people who are stuck in middle management, they worked so hard for so long, keeping their heads down to do a great job that networks outside their current firm are next to nonexistent.

You need to build the network seeking question and build the validity of the statement that you made that “other companies don’t seem to hire at your level.”

Often they don’t have an opening right now but (1) they may create one for the right person, and (2) the opening may come later on as corporate “musical chairs” starts to occur and people move from one vacancy to another.

What I’m getting at is that you are obviously frustrated with your current job but also frustrated with job hunting so you’re looking for permission to give up.

I don’t buy that. For the person who’s worked hard their entire career and for the first time have run into a career obstacle, quitting should not be your choice. Taking a break should not be your choice.

Finding the path to the right situation should be your choice and practicing patience should become part of your repertoire, rather than giving up.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

You can order a copy of “Diagnosing Your Job Search Problems” for Kindle for $.99 and receive free Kindle versions of “No BS Resume Advice” and “Interview Preparation.”