AT WORK
Pressing flesh, thinking positive are powerful keys to landing a job

By Andrea Kay
Gannett News Service

Just because the Labor Department reported that more than 300,000 new jobs were created last month, don't get lazy about your job search.

There are still hordes of people looking for jobs, and you need to be smarter and more strategic than the 8.3 million others job hunting with you. Here are two things that smart and strategic job hunters do.

• They go beyond the help-wanted postings online and in the paper.

The first places you probably think to go to are company Web sites and spots like Monster.com. That's fine — but not strategic, for two reasons: One, everyone else is doing that; and two, many, if not most, jobs are never posted in these places.

According to a recent New York Times article, Monster's new employment index of online demand for workers "detected strong demand for workers in smaller and medium-size companies — those with 1,000-2,500 employees."

In my book, that's not exactly small. What about those truly small companies — ones with a couple of hundred or fewer than 50 employees — where many of the jobs are waiting for the right person to come along but you'll never find posted online? (Trust me, there are plenty.)

Their index also showed that the most sought-after workers are in sales, business and financial occupations, computer and information-technology support and administrative functions. What if you're not in those fields?

I talk with hundreds of people and I've still only met a handful who ever found a job through an online ad. Most jobs are still found through talking with people.

A recent Execunet survey of 952 executives said networking with personal and business contacts was the most helpful strategy in their job search. More than 40 percent said they secured their current or most recent job through their personal or business network, compared with 26 percent who were recruited by a search firm. Twenty percent said they got interviews from Internet job postings, but only 9 percent of their jobs came from Internet postings.

This approach doesn't apply just to executives. I've met administrative assistants, writers, accountants and marketing professionals who found jobs by talking to people who referred them to people they knew.

• Practice learned optimism.

There has been a lot of talk recently about how many people have simply stopped looking for a job. Yet I don't know anyone who has actually stopped looking.

But I have met hundreds of people who send out letters in dribs and drabs and wait for responses. And when they don't hear back, they get deflated and don't follow up or send out any more letters for a week or two.

You can be either an optimist or a pessimist in this process. In his book "Eliminate Stress From Your Life Forever," William Atkinson refers to Martin Seligman's book "Learned Optimism," which talks about what determines how you see things.

One of those factors is "permanence." When something bad happens — like getting rejected — the pessimist assumes the situation will remain permanent. The optimist, on the other hand, assumes it's temporary.

Another factor that affects how you see things is "pervasiveness." When something bad happens, the pessimist assumes everything else will go bad. The optimist figures the negative experience is an isolated thing.

The learned optimist explains good events as permanent, and pervasive, Atkinson sums up. Bad events are explained as temporary and limited in scope.

Since there are plenty of highly qualified people out there, employers have the advantage. Create your advantage with a strategy based on the power of human relations and the power of positive thinking.