There were two separate periods in 2013, when I found myself looking for contracts and or a new full time job. During those periods, I found that my personality made me treat looking for a job as a full time job. I would get up at the usual time everyday and retreat to may home office, where I would work until my wife came home from her job at 5PM. I found that my usual long list of distractions took a back seat to being employed and I could not enjoy myself until the primary goal was accomplished.
Each day I would review job boards, contact recruiters, work my LinkedIn contacts, polish my resume and meet with colleagues. I wrote a large number of BLOG posts describing the process that lead me to custom resumes for different types of positions, but in the end the best approach for me was to have a firm in the USA write a resume for me.
The irony is that I had secured a full time position just a couple of days before the final draft was delivered.
There were definitely different forces at work during my searches. Some of the forces worked in my favor and others worked against me. My age was a factor at 55 and the various positions I had held were another. Over the course of the year I managed to improve my resume and approach to finding work, but I did have two four week periods where my full time job was finding a job.
A couple of things that were really important to both me and my efforts were getting out of the house and interacting with people. If you can’t secure a list of interviews, secure regular meetings with people for coffee, drinks, or meals. The world has to know that you are available and you need fresh ideas for how to find and approach opportunities.
Plan for 4 – 8 weeks of time between the start of your search and starting to get real interviews. Times vary, but if you treat your search like a full time job, this is what I observed.