Some days you don’t want to even look anymore. Some days the odds seem stacked against you. Those are the days when you need to look at the work you’ve done, and all you’ve accomplished. The people at Hope Job Seekers know what it means to be out of work, and their purpose is to give you the tools to help you land a job. Classes, encouragement and accountability give you the resources you need to keep job opporunities in your ‘funnel’, and fill your mind with focus for landing that new job. The following notes are from the April 9th meeting of Hope Job Seekers.
Mary Smith: Welcome everybody. Live United through the United Way will have a behavioral interview seminar soon. Encouragement to attend Colonial Job Seekers which is the mother ship. Colonial has educational opportunities and free classes. The career lattice series at Avadon group is also free if you are unemployed: Career Transition, Find the right career for you, Interviewing in a global economy (class list). Gethope.net has a classifieds section with jobs. Make sure you check that out and keep your bio updated on the Hope Job Seekers bio listing. Companies that were unable to attend the career fair asked for the bio list to still be sent to them. Recently a job seeker attended a Raleigh chamber of commerce meeting and it was a great opportunity to meet influential people . Pharma, PRA International, Headway Corporation, JP Sakey, Linda Bater and Jeff Chambers were there.
Kerry led a devotional: I’m a trainer by training, and have had a large number of cancellations since November. It’s a common process for those self employed, and you go through stages: anger, anxiety and depression - I struggled for a few days. This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Galatians 5:22 talks about joy as a fruit of the spirit. The focus of this devotional is joy. Mike Lee gave a talk about joy vs. happiness. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are going to be happy, but we can have joy in our life. Rick Warren’s book: God’s Power to Change Your Life talks about happiness depending on happenings. Most of you probably aren’t happy in your circumstances, but you can have joy. Joy is an attitude, a choice. Joy is an inside job, not dependent on circumstances. Rejoice in the fact that God has a plan for us. A person had their ideal job at a university, but that job was ended. Next they began to work for Ken Bon [sp?] ministries, although they never would have made that choice, God knew better and made the choice for them. Joy is not the absence of suffering, but the presence of God. You gain perserverance through suffiring, it helps develop character. Joy is a choice, you can get bitter or get better. Four things you can do to devleop joy: Have an attitude of grattitude. Cultivate the inner joy of giving. Develop inner joy through service. Share your talents with other people. Serve each other. Share Christ with others. Patience and Peace – through all the struggle God wants you to learn that he is bigger than this problem. Trust in God’s purpose: Proverbs 3:5-6, and ask for God’s peace.
Skip Magnum gives a talk about keeping your pipeline full of job opportunities. How am I qualified? I’m not except that I’m equally yoked that I lost a job. I’ve been at it six months so you may want to leave. This discussion is positioned around a parallel to my career. This visual aid is a representation of the job search – have many opportunities in the funnel. We are at war with the economy, with joblessness, with emotions and with competing candidates. I never thought I would be out of it for six months. Persistence, fruits of the spirit like patience are needed in the ups and downs of the job search. Make sure you have accountability – some days I wake up and 3 hours go by and I have looked at every job board and get distracted easily. How often do I get up and ask God to be the pilot – not every day. When I don’t do it its often when I get distracted. What does accountability really mean – you are accountable to God. Joblessness is a great opportunity to have time with God/Family/Your psyche, but you must be accountable to God to make the best of that. The job you find can be a mission, a calling, a re-evaluation. You’re also accountable to your family, then accountable to yourself. Keep your minds fresh and fulfilled, think about getting an accountability partner.
God has a good sense of humor about your plans. Plans are funny, but very important. Commit to the Lord as in Proverbs 16:3. Many are the plans in a mans heart (Proverbs 19:21), but you need to couch your plans in God’s will. The goal is to find a job, you need a phased approach to fill your opportunities with the top resources. Most opportunities don’t get all the way down the funnel. How are you going about filling the funnel on a daily basis? Above your plan is God’s plan. From a spiritual health perspective you need to find a quiet time to commit to the Lord. Are you studying the word? Are you spending time in the bible? There is a template avaialable that is a guideline to provide accountability including key tasks. Establish a weekly baseline to determine what is succesful. Don’t just fill the funnel with opportunities that don’t move through. Working the funnel is important. If networking is making opportunities, you should spend more time there. If online resume submission is generating leads you should do that more and network less. You need accountability partners: Proverbs 15:22 shows how you need to share your plans with people to get encouragement and advice. We are at war, and we have to take special action to succeed. Get out of your comfort zone, get new advice. Implement the 5 p’s: Pray – daily, hourly, walk in conversation; Plan – work it, refine it; Process – understand, follow it if it works; Persist – some days you are out of sorts, some days it’s hard. You need to persist and wake up with a fresh attitude. God is in control, know you will get there in God’s time. Play too – be gratified personally. Take part in and plan things that are rewarding to you. It’s easy to get in a rut, you have to make time for play.
The remainder of the meeting was networking time amongst the job seekers.
