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Career Resolutions: Ring in the New!

by Annette Clemens, Assistant Director

Any professional who has spent time conducting a job search will tell you, if they’re being honest, that they’ve made their fair share of mistakes along the way.  A colleague of mine recently confided to me that he had circulated his resume for three months before noticing two misspelled words on his document.  A friend of mine said she couldn’t understand why dressing professionally for an interview was so important when it was just so doggone uncomfortable.  And yet another person I know stated on his cover letter that he wanted to make a contribution to a different company! (Lesson learned here: proofreading is a must!)

Were all of these either dumb mistakes or errors in judgment?  Yes.  Have we all done something like this from time to time?  Yes.  The good news is that you can (and should) pick yourself up, dust yourself up, and keep going.  Make learning from your mistakes a priority.

Maybe you’ve done something similar.  Maybe you wish you would’ve negotiated an internship salary more assertively.  Maybe you wish you would’ve accepted an offer from a different company.  Maybe, maybe, maybe…  Anyone can waste an enormous amount of time agonizing over past mistakes, but the key to a successful job search is to put the past behind you and to keep trying.

This principle can definitely be applied to the anemic job market of the past few years.  If your field has been stagnant or slow-moving for awhile, the key to success is not to get hung up on blaming the industry, the economy, politicians, etc.  Again, pick yourself up, dust off your resume, and keep moving in the right direction.  You won’t get anywhere by playing the blame game.

Look at it this way—the job market is similar to the economy.  Both have their up’s and down’s.  You must be prepared for periods of fluctuation between recession and boom (and sometimes even unprecedented growth).  The way to survive the job market, no matter what “mood” it is in, comes down to simple things like keeping your resume current, keeping a vibrant network of contacts that you can plug into, writing thank you notes after interviews of any kind, etc. 

So if you’ve had recent bad luck with the job market, or have made mistakes you wish you could change, do what the successful person does and put all of that to rest.  Set new career goals, perhaps by making a list or designing a spreadsheet for the things you want to attain.  Just be sure to write off the mistakes of the past and keep your momentum moving forward!