It’s 8:00 a.m. Monday morning.  You’re usually picking up your blueberry bagel and latte on the way to work.  But today is different.  There’s no place to go.  You don’t have a job.  You are unemployed.

The good news? Millions of people are having the same experience.  The bad news? Millions of people are having the same experience.  (I wonder if the bagel bakers have noticed a decrease in sales.)

When I wrote these words in the Introduction of Find a Job: The Little Book for Big Success, I knew that job seekers would be dealing with a lot more than finding a new place to get their morning pick-me-up.  Job seekers want and need to know the basics.  Where do I start? How do I do this?

We all know that a resume and interview are usually part of finding a job, right? So we tend to get very focused on making sure we have a “good” resume and then just hope for the best when it comes to the interview.

Side note: no one is going to create a really great resume or shine in an interview if they haven’t done it for awhile or frequently. Why? It’s not something that typically comes naturally.  You haven’t practiced or taken lessons on this stuff. And there are few rights and wrongs—so many “it depends.”

So here’s the deal. If you focus on what goes into a best-seller resume or awe-inspiring interview, you’ll find things are a little easier.  Here are my three tips to setting yourself up for a successful job search:

1. Know yourself. Employers want to know about you, your experience, your work habits, your skills.  And who’s the subject matter expert on you?  You!  Take the time to get very clear on your accomplishments and your experience. What made you good on your job? What improved or changed because of your work? What do you do well? Your background is more than a list of job responsibilities. It’s how you showed up every day, what you got done, and how well you did your work.  Employers want to know about you. Be prepared to tell them.

2. Be yourself. Yes, there are helpful guidelines on how to dress for an interview (professional and neat), what to say and not to say (mind your manners and leave the grumbling at home), and how to connect with the interviewer (look in their eyes without creating a stare-down).  Common sense rules.  And you want your personality to come through.  Smile, laugh, use your (respectful) wit, and speak naturally. The interviewer knows you’re probably a little nervous, and the good ones will look through the anxiety and try and find you.  Someone who is smart, experienced, and ready to work.

3. Sell yourself.  That’s right.  The resume and interview are all about selling you, your experience, skills, attitude, etc., in order to get to the next step in the process.  Your resume is your most important marketing piece.  Make sure it sells you and is more than a list of job description responsibilities. You’re the only person in that interview who is going to toot your horn.  So do it!  If you’ve taken the time to get clear on what you have to offer the employer (Step #1), it’s much easier to sell yourself.

Know yourself. Be yourself. Sell yourself.  Since the job search process is about making a connection between what they need and what you’ve got, these three tips make good sense.

A job search is a process and a journey.  There are things you’ll need to do along the way to get you to your destination—a new job.  And remember that there will be speed bumps, stop signs, and forks in the road.  It’s a journey, not a sprint.

Perhaps we’ll meet somewhere along the way! Consider me part of your job search team.

Oh, one last reminder:

Your employment does not define you. Your unemployment does not define you. You have skills and abilities the world needs. Your life matters.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Find a Job, Job Search Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.