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Hey Job Seeker, Do You Feel Lucky?

July 8, 2009 RSS Feed Print

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Karen Burns

If you’re looking for a job and reading books and blogs about “How to Job Hunt,” you undoubtedly know about compelling cover letters, snazzy resumes, knock ‘em dead interviews, and the all-important thank-you note.

If you’ve been looking for a while now, you may be starting to suspect there’s another, less talked-about, element to the successful job search:

Luck

You would be right. Even in fat times, luck plays a major role in getting hired. In lean times, it’s correspondingly more important.

Now, this may sound depressing, if you believe that people are either naturally lucky or naturally unlucky. But guess what—people can learn to be lucky. How? It’s not easy, but it’s simple.

10 Steps to Getting Lucky

Be good at what you do
Work like mad
Put yourself out there
Be willing to shift directions
Listen to your intuition
Be open to suggestions
Don’t freak out when you fail
Expect to be lucky
Be grateful when it comes
When it goes, let it go

Do most of these, most of the time, and good fortune will start coming your way.

P.S. Take another look at no. 7. Your job search will inevitably involve setbacks. Please don’t let failure make you feel like a failure. Remember that lucky people fail more often than unlucky people because trying many things ups their odds of succeeding. You can do this, too.

Failure is an essential part of success!

Karen Burns, Working Girl, is the author of The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use, to be released by Running Press in April 2009. She blogs at karenburnsworkinggirl.com.

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Good article.
These days, job seekers need all the help they can get to rise above the crowd and get noticed first by prospective employers.
Toward this end, I thought I’d share with you a new, free tool I’ve created and launched to help job seekers: www.preverify.com
PreVerify is a free tool with which job seekers can conduct their own accurate and professional employment verifications. Following the quick and simple registration process, simply send your PreVerify request to your former and current employers to complete online at a time that is convenient for them to do so. No more interruptive phone calls, just an employment verification that can be used over and over again, forever.
Rather than crowd this email with a bunch of words, attached are two recent articles that talk about PreVerify:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/08/prweb2645354.htm
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/preverify-com-preverifying-employment-histories
Please feel free to View My PreVerify Profile: http://www.preverify.com/profile/michael-levine/1

Michael Levine of CA 3:29PM October 18, 2009

I agree with what you have to say here. I have been looking for a job for a few months, and just recently I have come around on #3 and 4.
At first I was being very quiet about my layoff and was looking for a job in the very traditional way. While I have gotten some interest, I am still searching. So, I decided to switch directions and put myself out there by creating a blog about my job search and using social networking tools like Twitter and LinkedIn. It will be interesting to see what happens now that I am putting myself out there.

Rodney Cooley of WI 11:44PM July 20, 2009

Karen - as always great post.
Don't forget building a solid network. The more good people you have in your life, the more connections you make and the more apt you are to hear of, be recommended for, or land that dream job.
Lois Frankel has a great line about networking, "The minute you need a network, it's too late to build one."
Meet as many people as you can and add value to their lives. It's an investment that can be repaid in spades.

shari storm of WA 7:52PM July 12, 2009