The Benefits of Keeping Cool While Searching for a Job

As I looked for a job, I found that a penny of patience is worth a pound of push. The more that I stayed cool, the better I did in the job interview process. I also learned some interesting things about how some employers find the personalities that they want to work with.

My name is Omarion, and I am a civil engineer with the firm JM Garet & Son. This firm deals mostly with government contracts, which has done surprisingly well even though the government is seen to have cut back on infrastructure deals in the wake of the current recession. As a civil engineer I am constantly designing new ways to build highways, dams and buildings around the local area. I have a responsibility to locate inefficiencies in civil structures and environmental landscapes and make them better for the surrounding community.

The field of civil engineering is its own industry, as there are very few other types of engineering disciplines which combine its singular focus on infrastructure with the contracting being done through mostly one entity, state and local governments.

I was looking for this particular job for seven months. I found it through a job board that was focused on the industry of civil engineering specifically. I found this board through connections that I had made online in various message boards and through social media hubs.

I think that the single most important thing that I have learned about the professional job search process is that you must, absolutely, stay on the cutting edge of your industry to get a job these days. It is also absolutely certain that you must always keep a happy attitude, no matter how desperate the job search may seem. No one likes to hire someone who seems desperate, at least I found that in my unique cases.

The situations that led up to these revelations were a string of bad job interviews in which I could not figure out exactly what I had done wrong. I then went to a trusted agent of mine, a person who worked at the temp agency that had supplied me with work during my period of unemployment, to ask her advice. We conducted a mock job interview and she told me that I was acting way too desperate. My body language was off: I was leaning forward, speaking too fast and trying to bowl over the interviewer with my accomplishments, which were already listed on my resume. In addition, after she asked me a few questions, I found that I was also acting desperate after the interview had taken place. I did not wait long enough to call back to see about progress with my resume and interview. Sometimes I called back the next day, which is an instant killer.

The reason that I know that her advice worked was because I was invited back to second interviews immediately upon implementing her techniques.

Three pieces of advice that I have found to be completely true in the job search process are these:

1. The proper education and experience is key, and so is the presentation of such experience.

What I have found, especially working for a company that does a great deal of government contracts, is that all of your I's must be dotted and T's crossed in order to get your foot in the door. This does not mean that you need to have an Ivy League degree; the proper education, however, is still important if looking for a professional job. The proper experience is even more important, and the right presentation of that experience is essential. I found this out firsthand when I changed my resume around to include more action verbs and statistical figures on the advice of my trusted agent from the temp agency.

2. Always act as if you are negotiating, even if you are desperate for a job.

What I found in the job search process is that people love to hire people that they will have a good time with. When I was showing desperation, as in the stories above, no one wanted to work with me, and looking back on the various job interviews that I attended, this was obvious through their body language. They were very uncomfortable and eager to see me out the door as soon as they possibly could. There is definitely something to be said for coming in as if you are in a strong position. Another piece of advice that I got which worked wonders was to replace the empty places in my resume with educational experiences. I started listing the books I had read, and this allowed me to further connect with job interviewers.

3. Correspondence after the initial job interview is just as important as the job interview itself.

The job interview is only the first step in the process. What I found from my friends at the temp agency and through first-hand experience is that people in a position to wait will do so, just to see how you react over the coming days or weeks. In effect, this waiting period is part of the job interview as well. I probably did not get a few jobs that I was well qualified for because I acted far too desperate after the initial job interview. I would sometimes call in less than 24 hours.

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