Spring Forward 2010

By Alicia Pozsony


As we set our clocks ahead and await warmer, sun-filled days, it’s time to recognize the season of spring. New life and bright colors of nature—it’s as if Earth is taking new breaths. Take this opportunity, as nature flourishes, to start anew in your job search journey. Whether you’re new to being unemployed or you’ve been unemployed for a longer while, I hope you will find my story uplifting.


Can you think of another time in your life when you were down on your luck? Maybe it was when you were younger in age and less informed about the ways of the world, as was true for me. I recall the very first time I was asked to walk to the corner store to get milk and bread for my mother. This was a challenge I gladly welcomed and proudly accepted. It came with age and she felt I was ready. “Come right home and bring me all the change” I heard my mother call as I walked away from our front door.

It was a warm, sunny day, and I had the confidence of ten thousand men. Repeating the items with each step, my stance was straighter, my attitude was positive, and I had the whole world in front of me with this one simple challenge. Okay, so I had only the second block in front of me where the store was located. It felt like the world. It was a new situation, a new challenge and something I had heard about but never done before. For me, this was a new opportunity for greatness and a chance to prove myself.

With any new experience, the situation can suddenly turn, making one suddenly unsure. In my milk-and-bread situation as a child, I was ultimately forced to have to return home and face the disappointment of my mother. What 9 year old cannot resist the candy conveniently placed at the register? Maybe you recall a time when you spent change on a Popsicle or candy. Maybe it was the local bully spotting you and taking your parents money for lunch that week. Maybe the bag broke and you dropped it causing the bread to quickly lose its shape. I had to return home that day knowing my mother would know some of her change was missing, there’d be no special treatment that day for a job well-done, and worse, I might not get the chance again to prove myself.


To me, being unemployed feels much like I felt that day so many years ago. I recall spending the whole begrudging walk home trying to find a way to come up with found money to replace the missing grocery change. And I tried to come up with a worthy explanation for my mother recounting what had "happened". I thought about how I could do better next time if given the chance.

The element of loss of control is the same during unemployment as it was on that day. Only difference being as a 9-year-old having not made many mistakes in judgment, the choice to spend the change was mine and I caused the situation. On that day there was no found money once it was spent, and today there’s no found job.

But something did happen that day that stuck with me:
My mother instilled in me the confidence to not be afraid,
to not give up,
to be honest about who I am and to know good things will come.

No matter how severe the situation seemed to me that day or how severe the situation seems today, two things hold true:

The situation that day was temporary and inevitably did change; I learned from it and was able to grow, knowing it was a valuable lesson learned.

So, if you’ve already gotten all the enjoyment you can out of your unexpected time off and are now feeling down on your luck, as I did on that warm and sunny milk-and-bread day, remember that your situation is temporary and you will eventually overcome being all the wiser!

Stay positive, reach out to other Professional Service Group Members, and be well as you become renewed this spring.

...You know, my mother DID eventually let me go to the corner store again, and I proved I was able to produce a better outcome than the first outing. Let’s hope these employers will soon see that each of us can do the same and prove a better outcome than our last employer!

Remember the Five Keys to Success

By Alicia Pozsony

Recently, I found an old classifieds section of a local newspaper lying around in an outdated job-search folder. Instead of just tossing it, I revisited it to try to figure out why I’d kept it. I looked it over but noticed nothing exceptionally special about the date. Plus, no jobs were highlighted or circled. And there were no articles of use. So I continued scanning it this first time for companies that had been hiring for information technology positions that August of 2008 and found none. I scanned it again, this time for other positions I might now settle for, and I even circled a few that were advertising part-time work back then, hoping they might be solid leads to some work for me now.

How funny that a newspaper would make me think about all the time that had passed since then, and how quickly the time had gone by. I reflected on who I’ve become, ways I’ve changed, things I’ve done—all of it to try to see how much more accomplished I’ve become or perhaps how much more removed I’ve become from the motivated, confident, and go-getting employed Alicia I’d once been. Surprisingly, my conclusion lay in the middle—and on the fence. I have not been employed over most of that time but have demonstrated my extraordinary abilities—such as to be patient and flexible, to handle pressure in situations I’m not in control of, and to demonstrate volunteerism and show exactly how good a leader I am despite the ways that events of the recent past have affected my situation—as well as other qualities that set me apart from everyone else who’s out of work.

Then it hit me: there was an advertisement in that paper for a small-business seminar. At that time I’d been thinking about what it would take to open my own business. I kept the paper because I’d wanted to attend that seminar. It turned out that I didn’t have all of what it took to become an entrepreneur back then, but I believe that those of us out of work have to have the very same qualities it takes to become our own boss, because we are our own boss in the business of networking, job searching, and selling ourselves.

Imagine yourself an entrepreneur. What do you need to succeed? According to a recent article on Web site —there are five qualities that all entrepreneurs share that are the keys to their business success. See how they apply to your own job search:

1. Desire You must have a desire to break into the workforce or out of the average nine-to-five in an economy as tough as today’s and to put your ideas, ideals, and beliefs into action. Desire is the one key strength that forces entrepreneurs to stay ahead of competitors.

2. Positivity Like an entrepreneur, the job seeker of today must have a positive mental attitude toward life, business goals, and oneself. Job seekers must not be restricted by setbacks, delays, or disappointments. A naturally positive person continues to see opportunities where others see obstacles.

3. Commitment To succeed, you have to be committed to putting in the time and hard work necessary to sell yourself and reach your goals. You must commit to your beliefs and desires. Commitment brings efforts, efforts bring results, and results bring successes.

4. Patience Patience and commitment go hand in hand, and patient people who dedicate themselves to working away at their goals day after day will reap the rewards when the focused hard work pays off in the form of positive and successful results.

5. Persistence Usually, nothing is straightforward or without change, and the future is also usually unknown. These factors mean that the final key attribute of persistence is critical to success. When obstacles appear, when the goalposts get moved, and when tribulations get in the way, you have to persist with your ideas, persist with your hard work, and persist in keeping focused on success. With patient and committed persistence, the desired results will ensue.

Remember: a naturally positive person frees the mind from negativity and disappointment so as to be free to dream, imagine, develop, and expand.

Best of luck in your job search. Stay positive, and keep networking!

This month, Don’t hold back!

By Alicia Pozsony

If you followed my January advice, by now you should be feeling fresh, alert and on track. You should have made yourself once again acquainted with more people through your holiday greetings, feeling good about your timetable and goals and feeling stronger than ever in the self-worth department. If so, good for you! If not, it’s not the end of the world. No time like the present.

This month, I challenge you to stand up and speak up!

• Start talking on Blogs popular within your profession; start your own blog if you have not yet done it.
• Use Twitter actively to make the most of your connections online.
• Go the extra mile to assert yourself.
• Start conversations on Linkedin.
• Start conversations in the office supply store.
• Comment people positively at happy hour.
• Exchange business cards.

Get out there! Your efforts must be as far reaching as possible so Don’t hold back!

When I am on a path with an ending in mind, I start with zero, so I can accurately measure my standing at any given point. Recalculate every week with your goal toward the finish line. If after three weeks, you are no further than the week before, change your strategy. Try a different person or group of people to use as your mentor. Don’t be afraid to take a step back and be open to change. None of us are perfect, so don’t be afraid to change your course of action. Don’t hold back!

The economy is proving slight improvement so far this year from where I stand; more contract opportunities in more skill sets are rearing their heads, a first quarter for profit and sales growth is returning according to marketwatch.com. Things are slowly, yes, painfully slowly starting to get better. US Census is recruiting for more temporary jobs according to nwitimes.com. You can Google or bing ‘more jobs in 2010’ to see where the experts think the increase in jobs will be in your sector. Keep that in mind and Don’t hold back!

Remember to use Professional groups to network, make professional contacts in person and through email, share goals, help others in finding their next job.

Don’t hold back!

Good things will follow!

Align with your Peers and Collaborate!

By Alicia Pozsony

If you want to know if the economy is picking up for 2010, turn on any news channel. If you want to know recent labor statistics, go to http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm. On the other hand, if you don’t want to read the numbers, because you are one of the unemployed, then perhaps think for a moment of all those of us still hanging in there trying to find a position, wait it out, or even deciding to move on.
A friend recently told me of her weighing the options she had, and she was right in finally deciding to get out and try all over again in a different place. It’s not always as simple of just a choice for those of us, with family and friends nearby, kids in school, lack of money to get out, stuck in a mortgage (or two or three) that we can’t pay off. So what then? I’ve written in past months about the importance of updating your resume, focusing your time and energy on staying motivated, not giving up, and considering your back-up careers and back up plans for different kind of work. “Now what?”, you ask.
Now I say the time is right to align with your peers and collaborate, commiserate if you must. Get together more often for coffee, lunch or dinner, or even a jog; exercise is great to lift depression and fight fatigue. Others at PSG are in the same boat as you are (believe it or not) and can shed light on your situation, not to mention, share contacts or make other connections to people that might open doors for you. And do it more than once or twice. With our busy stressful lives, it’s important to make more than a first impression.
If you are like me, I have made real friends at PSG and they have been invaluable to me. Not just for a smile, and “Hello; How’s it going?” but as a pick me up and a sounding board. They know where you are coming from and they can help. They know of events that might be beneficial to you, websites you have not yet visited, ways to improve your resume (yes, AGAIN!), and act as a sounding board for those times when you have nothing but time on your hands.
One day, you will be able to look back at this time together and recall how short it seemed!
Until then, may employment find you!

Becoming Aware of December’s Challenges

By Alicia Pozsony

According to Amy Lundgren of Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, “December is perhaps the most challenging and the oddest of all months for job seekers. Not only do you deal with the distractions in your own life, including holiday preparations on an ever-shrinking budget, but you have to deal with the distractions in the lives of employers as well.

“You really shouldn’t drop your job search just because you think it won’t be fruitful. You can’t afford to lose that much time. In a search that lasts four or five months, skipping December is like adding 20 percent to your period of unemployment.” Therefore, remember the motivation strategies Lundgren offers: “People still need to get hired in December. Some companies would like to start the new year with their new employees in place, while others can’t wait until after the holidays to hire; and yet other companies are always hiring.

“To keep your momentum going and stick to your job search routine, you should be aware of your challenges for the month ahead. Your recruiting and hiring personnel will have either relaxed or hectic schedules depending on the product or service your company provides. Routine meetings are sometimes replaced with holiday events, and some companies are even closed, while others give employees unpaid time off.” Therefore, being able to adapt is your number one guideline this month.

Lundgren’s tips include the following, which I hope you find helpful.

* Attend parties and networking events, including bank open houses, association meetings, and friends’ office parties. Take advantage of opportunities for such business socializing.
* Greet contacts with a holiday card by licking envelopes that enclose actual paper cards. An e-mail greeting will not suffice, because in this case, you’re trying to make a lasting impression.
* Send out résumés until the 15th; then take a two-week break if you think your materials might get lost in the holiday shuffle.
* Ask a trusted adviser to review your job search. Look for weak areas to strengthen, and create new ideas to try out in the coming year.
* Catch up on research in your industry, and plan ways to use the new data.
* Fill your schedule for January with meetings and with connecting with networking contacts.
* Plan something for every weekday for the first two weeks of the year, to hit the ground running.

Lundgren says, “The most important thing you can do in December is to review your job search timeline. Don’t go into the new year wondering when you’ll be reemployed. Instead, set a date and work backward from it to develop your schedule of steps. The earlier the date you set, the more aggressive your job search will have to be, so use these December weeks to set the stage.”

So, take a deep breath, and while enjoying your eggnog or hot cocoa, reflect on what a great job you’ve been doing and the good things that are around the corner in the coming year 2010!

Don’t take it personal.

This month I found myself asking myself “What do jobseekers need?” Allright ... A job. Okay, okay, we all know that all too well! So what kind of things can you do to stand out? Use a landline, make sure your resume matches the job description, make sure you are using the right keywords, demonstrate how you can make them more profitable, follow up without a typo, all the usual things that can be found on any google search, bing result, or career coach list.

Well, maybe, just maybe, instead you need to fit in to land a job. But don’t take it personal. How many of us are professionals who have a good bit of experience under our belts? We have degrees, certificates, recent education, and experience in a specialized skill set, or two. We have 10 years, 20 years, 30 years experience. We are dependable professional and dedicated. We made our last employer more profitable. We added productivity. We did all that. Stand out if you must, but I am thinking another approach might work.

If scaling yourself down to fit in doesn’t quite work for you, then keep prodding ahead at the goal in your sights! Sometimes you need to take a step back, and see yourself in a new light. Make a paper list written in blue or black ink of your accomplishments, take the phone off the hook, power off your mp3 player, PDA, home phone, cell phone, fax machine, unplug your doorbell (if you can), and take some time to revel in your own goodness. Above it all, don’t take it personal.
Four short years ago we were all in a different place, maybe one much better than we are facing now. We may have never thought we’d be facing this crushing economic time. I drove past a billboard that said “Bill Gates started his business during a recession,” and it made me wonder how many others were started during a recession. So I looked and behold! The research was already done. Thanks to Inc.com and AOL Small Business online, we learn that Coors, Wrigley, IBM, UPS, General Motors, Herman Miller, Walt Disney, Zippo, HP, Toys”R”US, Domino’s Pizza, Super 8, Microsoft, Symantec, Wikipedia, Nantucket Allserve and newegg were all started during a recession. I am sure their founders did not take it personal. So when you are waiting for that next job to call and give you your start date, keep in mind all these success stories and think about an idea you have for a business you want to start!

Wanting to just hold on to everything I have and wait ‘til this storm blows over… but I might check out this interesting site instead: http://www.inc.com/multimedia/slideshows/content/10-businesses-you-can-start-in-your-pajamas-in-2008_pagen_1.html

Be well!

Your Editor,
Alicia Pozsony

CHALLENGE YOURSELF!

By Alicia Pozsony, Editor in Chief, Mercer County PSG Monthly Newsletter

I recently picked up a printout of The Seven Phases of Job Loss, which I found in the PSG room. I recall liking that chart ever since I first entered the room and thought about becoming a member. When I first saw the chart, I thought I’d experience all of the phases once and eventually get hired. I never imagined I’d be out of work as long as I have been. As some of you may know, I’m still unemployed. I seem to be taking a different course from the one I originally planned--five years married and 20 years as a professional; it shouldn't be too hard to take the usual A-to-B route of landing a job. And for someone who’s been a professional for 20 years, it wasn’t easy to change my course of action. Maybe this is something you can relate to.

Shock. Denial. Anger. Depression. Acceptance. Explore options. Develop plans. I never thought I’d be going through these phases multiple times during my unemployment period. Nor did I imagine I’d be dragging my family and friends through them too.

During my job search, I first lowered my salary expectation and then widened my willingness to commute a distance. I then reached out to those I hadn’t connected with in a long while to network even further. Still, no results. No tangible results anyway: no direct matches or near hires. Just a lot of churning and no closer to getting a new job.

I began questioning myself, as we all do, so I revisited the chart and found there had to be other things I could do. I explored freelance work, temporary jobs, and contract assignments. Was there some grave error or misspelling on my resume? No, but I figured anything was possible, after six or seven revisions. So, where did this leave me? I needed to do something more than I had been. Luckily, I qualified for a tuition waiver through the state and am now continuing my studies and aiming higher. I have goals I hope will put me in a better position after completing my course work.

Challenge yourself to reach higher goals: this is something I hope to convey to you! My article is not an uplifting, feel-good piece this month—or wait, maybe it is. My point is that we should never box ourselves in by thinking we can do only the same job we were doing before. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to the notion that getting hired under the same title as before is our only option. In these challenging turbulent times, we should, rather, focus on how a situation can allow us to change for the better and see what new challenges life throws at us! We just may surprise ourselves.

In the meantime, let me know if I can help you network. Visit me on LinkedIn!