Managing Emotions During Career Change and Job Search, Part One
How can you manage your emotions during your career change or job search? To answer this practical and wise question, let's first define what emotions are. Emotions, also commonly referred to as feelings, are energy released in your body in response to perceived events, that is, to data received via your five senses.
To build your skill in managing your emotions during your current or next career transition:
1.) Practice Naming Your Emotions. There's great power in simply naming your emotions as you experience them. Check in with yourself several times a day and name your emotions in a journal or log. Learn to identify the nuances of difference between emotions that are similar. Choose carefully how you name what you're feeling: word choice creates reality!
2.) Allow Yourself to Feel What You Feel. Resisting emotions keeps you stuck in them. Why not do something radical like feeling them? Let the emotion wash over you and it will pass through you infinitely more gently. Feeling your feelings is always easier than resisting them, because emotions grow in proportion to our resistance to them.
3.) Express What You Feel. Unexpressed emotions are like poison trapped in the body. You don't really want to do that to yourself, do you? Let them out! The key here is safety and appropriateness. Find ways to express your emotions that are safe and mature for you and those around you.
4.) Act on Your Emotions. Again, safety and appropriateness are key. Emotions are messengers from your internal reality prompting you to take some action. Discover what each emotion wants you to do, then do it, safely. Don't delay, or your emotions will act on you.
5.) Journal. Journal thoughts, emotions, dreams and dialogues. Write letters you won't send. Mine your innards to find the truth within.
6.) Exercise. Physical activity is a great stress reducer and safe way to channel your emotions into action. Whether it's a walk or a swim, a bike ride or run, or aerobics or muscle building, it will help you constructively channel your stress into a healthy mind and body. Start slow; be consistent!
7.) Talk to a Safe Someone. Call a friend or family member; find a counselor; try a coach or spiritual director; meet with a priest, pastor or rabbi ? but call someone! You don't have to bear your burdens alone unless you choose to ? and why would you choose to?
8.) Use Art to Express Yourself. Paint your panic. Draw your dreams. Write poetry to express the inexpressible within you. Both verbal and nonverbal art forms can help you release what should not be trapped within you.
9.) Use Music to Match Your Mood. You can use music to match your mood and thereby express it, or you can use music to alter your mood when it's critical to do so. So, if you're down and need to pump it up, try some rousing rock or Latin music. If you're hyper and need to calm down and center, try baroque, New Age or soft jazz selections. Music can be a particularly powerful way to help yourself relax into sleep or get revved up for your day.
10.) Pray or Meditate Through Your Feelings. Both prayer and meditation are powerful ways to feel and express your emotions. Practice one or the other or both daily. Cheryl Lynch Simpson is a Spiritual Director and Solutions Coach who helps women discover and create the life they've always wanted to live. Cheryl is the author of over 30 print/Internet articles and the founder of Coaching Solutions For Women, a coaching website that produces and showcases career, business, and life solutions that improve the life balance of today's busy women. For a complimentary copy of her latest e-book, Ten-Minute Stress Zappers for Women Service Business Owners, visit http://www.coachingsolutionsforwomen.com.
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The thought of writing a resume intimidates almost anyone. It's difficult to know where to start or what to include. It can seem like an insurmountable task. Here are 15 tips to help you not only tackle the task, but also write a winning resume.
1. Determine your job search objective prior to writing the resume. Once you have determined your objective, you can structure the content of your resume around that objective. Think of your objective as the bull's-eye to focus your resume on hitting. If you write your resume without having a clear objective in mind, it will likely come across as unfocused to those that read it. Take the time before you start your resume to form a clear objective.
2. Think of your resume as a marketing tool. Think of yourself as a product, potential employers as your customers, and your resume as a brochure about you. Market yourself through your resume. What are your features and benefits? What makes you unique? Make sure to convey this information in your resume.
3. Use your resume to obtain an interview, not a job. You don't need to go into detail about every accomplishment. Strive to be clear and concise. The purpose of your resume is to generate enough interest in you to have an employer contact you for an interview. Use the interview to provide a more detailed explanation of your accomplishments and to land a job offer.
4. Use bulleted sentences. In the body of your resume, use bullets with short sentences rather than lengthy paragraphs. Resumes are read quickly. This bulleted sentence format makes it easier for someone to quickly scan your resume and still absorb it.
5. Use action words. Action words cause your resume to pop. To add life to your resume, use bulleted sentences that begin with action words like prepared, developed, monitored, and presented.
6. Use #'s, $'s and %'s. Numbers, dollars, and percentages stand out in the body of a resume. Use them. Here are two examples:
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7. Lead with your strengths. Since resumes are typically reviewed in 30 seconds, take the time to determine which bullets most strongly support your job search objective. Put those strong points first where they are more apt to be read.
8. Play Match Game. Review want ads for positions that interest you. Use the key words listed in these ads to match them to bullets in your resume. If you have missed any key words, add them to your resume.
9. Use buzzwords. If there are terms that show your competence in a particular field, use them in your resume. For marketing people, use "competitive analysis." For accounting types, use "reconciled accounts."
10. Accent the positive. Leave off negatives and irrelevant points. If you feel your date of graduation will subject you to age discrimination, leave the date off your resume. If you do some duties in your current job that don't support your job search objective, leave them off your resume. Focus on the duties that do support your objective. Leave off irrelevant personal information like your height and weight.
11. Show what you know. Rather than going into depth in one area, use your resume to highlight your breadth of knowledge. Use an interview to provide more detail.
12. Show who you know. If you have reported to someone important such as a vice president or department manager, say so in your resume. Having reported to someone important causes the reader to infer that you are important.
13. Construct your resume to read easily. Leave white space. Use a font size no smaller than 10 point. Limit the length of your resume to 1-2 pages. Remember, resumes are reviewed quickly. Help the reader to scan your resume efficiently and effectively.
14. Have someone else review your resume. Since you are so close to your situation, it can be difficult for you to hit all your high points and clearly convey all your accomplishments. Have someone review your job search objective, your resume, and listings of positions that interest you. Encourage them to ask questions. Their questions can help you to discover items you inadvertently left off your resume. Revise your resume to include these items. Their questions can also point to items on your resume that are confusing to the reader. Clarify your resume based on this input.
15. Submit your resume to potential employers. Have the courage to submit your resume. Think of it as a game where your odds of winning increase with every resume you submit. You really do increase your odds with every resume you submit. Use a three-tiered approach. Apply for some jobs that appear to be beneath you. Perhaps they will turn out to be more than they appeared to be once you interview for them. Or perhaps once you have your foot in the door you can learn of other opportunities. Apply for jobs that seem to be just at your level. You will get interviews for some of those jobs. See how each job stacks up. Try for some jobs that seem like a stretch. That's how you grow -- by taking risks. Don't rule yourself out. Trust the process. Good luck in your job search!
Copyright 1999 - 2004 Quest Career Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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