Finding Employment when Jobs Are Scarce

If you are unemployed and currently searching for full-time employment while living in a town where jobs are more scarce then seeing wandering polar bears in your neighborhood, then you might find yourself in a highly stressful and frightening situation where you might panic and make irrational decisions that might make your situation a lot worse.

In order to avoid panicking and keep yourself calm and thinking rationally while searching for a full-time paying job, it is very important to keep a positive mental attitude. Try and relax by going outside for long walks or talk with a friend or neighbor who understands your current situation and what you are experiencing.

Also, it would be helpful whenever looking for employment in a town where jobs are scarce, to try and seek out other means of alternative employment, like self-employment, or doing temporary jobs for somebody else who could use your unique skills, hobbies or talents at doing something.

Self-employment alone is pretty hard to accomplish if you are unemployed, can't find a paying job, and you don't have the personal finances to make self-employment become a reality for you.

However, I can tell you from my own personal experience that self-employment can be achieved if you have a skill, a hobby, or a talent that somebody else can use that can help them with solving an immediate problem.

There is an old saying that in order to be successful in this world, you first have to help other people with becoming successful. This means you must have some kind of skill, hobby or talent that other people can benefit from in order for you to earn their money as a customer or client.

Do you have a special talent, hobby or skill in bookkeeping, accounting, mechanics, writing, editing or manual labor? If so, you could use any of these skills to help other individual people or employers with solving an immediate problem. It is just a matter of hitting the streets in your town and going door-to-door to every business and asking its owner if they have a need for one of your skills, hobbies or talents.

If you are looking for a full-time paying job with a regular employer, instead of trying to search for self-employment, and jobs are very scarce where you live, then here are some techniques you can use to help increase your chances of locating a paying job.

Decide what your favorite interests are in life and on a job right now. If you can't think of any favorite interests, ask yourself: "If I could talk about something with someone all day long, day after day, what subject or field of interest would I talk about right now?"

What are your favorite subjects that you are drawn to in magazines, libraries, bookstores, trade expos and so forth? It doesn't have to be a subject you studied in school. It can be a field that you just picked up along the way in your life.

What are your favorite words? Every field has its own peculiar language, vocabulary or jargon. What words or jargon do you enjoy using or listening to the most?

Once you know what subjects, fields, interests and vocabulary fascinates you the most, look back at your answers to what skills you most enjoy and see if you can put skills and subjects together in terms of a particular job.

Once you have some idea of what jobs interest you, go visit places where those jobs are and talk to people doing those jobs to see if this job or career really interests you or not. This is called informational interviewing.

If you have decided to try a new career or go into a new field for you, and you are dismayed at how much preparation it looks as though it would take, go talk to people who do that type of work.

If you have already decided to try and stay with a previous old career path then you need to find valuable "leads". You find them by asking yourself the question: "Who might be interested in the skills and problem-solving that I learned at my last job?"

Always keep in mind that nobody owes you a job in the real working world. If you want a job, you are going to have to go out and hunt for it really super hard.

Job hunting success is in direct proportion to job hunting effort. The more you try, the more hours you put into the job hunt, the more likely you will find the perfect job you are searching for.

Successful job hunting requires a willingness to charge your job hunting tactics. If you try something, and it does not work out, then move on to another strategy.

Go talk to successful job hunters among your family, friends and acquaintances. People who were out of work and since then have found a job they really love and learn what they did. Then go imitate it.

You must think of yourself as having already found a job. Your job in this case is that of hunting super hard for work.

You must always be mentally and financially prepared for your job hunt to last a lot longer then you think it will at the beginning. Always keep going forward until you find a job. Persistence is the name of the game.

Do not expect that you will necessarily be able to find exactly the same kind of work you used to do before you started your job hunting search.

Always forget about what's currently available out there in the real job working environment right now in your town or city where you live. Go after the job you really want the most right now at this exact moment in time.

Once you know what kind of work you are looking for, tell everyone what it is and have as many other eyes and ears out there looking on your behalf as possible. If you own an answering machine or have voicemail service for your home telephone or cellular telephone, you might want to consider putting the kind of work you are looking for on your answering machine or voicemail service in your opening greeting message.

Always find some kind of support group for your job hunt so you don't have to face the job hunting process all by yourself. Always go after as many different job organizations or employers as you can every single day instead of just going after only one or two job organizations or employers.

Always be determined to go after any job organization or employer that greatly interests you. Never pay any attention to whether or not there is a known vacancy at a job organization or with an employer that greatly interests you. Always concentrate your job hunting on job organizations or employers who have twenty or less employees.

Always go face-to-face with at least 4 new employers every single day. If contacting employers by telephone, contact at least 40 of them every single day at a minimum. If you are contacting employers over the Internet, there is no limit to how many you should contact in a single day.

Always use the telephone during your job hunting process. Take the Yellow Pages of the phone book and call up every single company or organization in the Yellow Pages that looks interesting to you. Ask them if they might be hiring for the kind of work you do.

Before you get on the phone, write out what you plan to say. Set down a complete outline of the objective of the call and the key points you want to make during the conversation.

Stand up when you make your phone calls so your voice sounds more forceful. Have a mirror in front of you, on the wall at eye level, so you can watch yourself in it. Be sure you are smiling as you talk.

Call managers and/or employers before 8 Am., shortly before noon, or after 5 pm. When you are connected to a job organization, ask to speak with the manager. Briefly say to the manager or employer in one sentence your greatest personal strength or top skill, a brief description of your experience and then ask if there is a job opening for someone with your skills and background.

If you have done something in your community, written articles for the local newspaper, or served on a volunteer committee, then work that conversation if it goes on for more then one minute. Always thank an employer before ending your conversation with him or her on the telephone, whether they gave you a job lead or not.

Always go knocking on the doors of job organizations and employers whenever you hate using the telephone to try and contact them.

Always be willing to look at different kinds of jobs, including full time, part time, unlimited contract jobs, short term contract jobs, temporary jobs, working for others or working for yourself.

Never be worried by rejection from potential employers. Even if you get rejected at a lot of places, the more NO's you get out of the way, the closer you are to that YES.

Every evening after an interview, sit down and write or email a thank you note to each person you saw that day. This means not only employers, but also their secretaries, receptionists, or anyone else who gave you a friendly helping hand in any way. Make it personal. Mention something individual about the way they treated you or what you liked about them. Use the thank you note to underline anything that was discussed during the interview or to add anything you left out that was important.

Treat every employer with courtesy, even if it seems certain they can not offer you a job with their company. They might be able to refer you to someone else next week if you made a really good impression with them.

Hopefully, by using the techniques that I have mentioned above, you will soon be able to go forward and locate the right job for you, even if you live in a town where jobs are often very scarce and difficult to locate. Remember that persistence is the key factor of locating a paying job and you will be successful if you keep moving forward every day with a healthy and positive mental attitude.