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Thoughts on Dr. Martin Luther King’s Legacy–and Yours

“What are you doing for others?”

It strikes me that this isn’t only a central question for your life.

It’s also the central question that your resume must answer.

What are you doing for others?

What can you do for me, my team, my company, my customers?

Anyone reading your resume has this question in mind, consciously or not. Any employer is far more interested in learning what you can do for them than what you want from them.

What you do for others is the heart of your resume–and your legacy.

What’s your answer?

COVID-19 Help for California Workers and Small Businesses

COVID-19 Help for California Workers and Small Businesses

Resources for California workers

If you have lost your job or had a reduction in hours as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can apply for the State’s unemployment program. You can find more information  or apply online now.

California Employment Development Department (EDD) COVID-19 page: https://www.edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019.htm

EDD page to file an Unemployment Insurance Claim: https://www.edd.ca.gov/Unemployment/Filing_a_Claim.htm

The State has set-up a one-stop online resource to access emergency resources and connect to potential employers. Visit https://onwardca.org/ to sign-up.

Resources for California small businesses

The SBA is offering Economic Injury Disaster Loans of up to $2 million in assistance to cover a temporary loss of revenue. You can find more information or apply online now.

The SBA has launched the Paycheck Protection Program. These loans are up to $10 million and the SBA will forgive these loans if all employees are kept on payroll. The money can also be used for rent, mortgage interest, or utilities. You can find more information or apply online now.

Easter Eggs and the Job Hunt

Every year, the Easter Bunny stashes eggs throughout our home. Every year, our children wake us near dawn, straining at the leash. This means I’ve been up at dark-thirty filling and hiding eggs and want nothing more than to go back to bed. Much like Christmas as an adult, come to think of it…
 

The Easter egg hunt holds some lessons for the job hunt, too:

  1. Be enthusiastic. Expect wonderful things to appear unexpectedly. Enjoy the hunt. Have a spirit of discovery and delight.
  2. Be curious. Look in unlikely places. The legendary “hidden job market” just means “takes effort and luck to find.”
  3. Be energetic. Keep moving. Don’t linger in one spot, keep looking. Traffic is always light on the extra mile.
  4. Play nice. Share information and tips. It’s not a zero-sum game. Everyone can win. Helping others with advice may prove to be an investment, coming back to you in unforeseen ways.
  5. Starbursts might be flavored wax. The jury’s still out on that one.

What Baseball Teaches about Job Search

It’s Opening Day of the 2019 baseball season. With that, all teams are tied for the pennant race. Everyone’s got hopes. And I think there’s a lesson here for everyone engaged in a job search as well.

One way to look at baseball is as an exercise in perseverance. A great player might have a .300 batting average. Only 20 players in the history of major league baseball have achieved a .400 batting average for a season–the most recent was Ted Williams, in 1941. A .400 batting average is generally considered unattainable in the modern era.

What this means is that the greatest players succeed less than 40% of the time when they go to bat. Fail 7 of 10 times–a .300 average–and you’re a great hitter. Fail 6 of 10 times, you’re a baseball legend and the greatest hitter in 78 years.

Baseball is hard. You take your swings, you miss, you strike out, you ground out, you fly out.

You fail until you win.

Job searching is hard. You apply to a promising opening and hear nothing. You get an interview and don’t get called back. You get to a second or third interview and learn that they’ve decided to go with an internal candidate. Or they’ve decided not to fill the position after all.

Or any number of other failure points, only some of which you can control.

If you’re looking for a job, you will fail. Repeatedly. And that’s fine. It’s part of the game. It means you’re in the game.

What’s not OK is letting fear of failure keep you from stepping up to the plate every chance you get.

Fail until you win.

Timeless advice

We’re all stories…

Perspective from a Career Futurist

Warren Ellis, from a discussion on his life and career as a futurist (is “applied futurist” a thing?):

The best bit of my life is that I get to talk to everybody, about everything, and put people from a bunch of different disciplines in the same room, and I get to listen and learn and apply that to whatever I do next.

Reminds me of one of the wonderful side effects of my craft: people from all walks of life, experts in several hundred fields, explain what they do and how they make a difference. I can’t imagine a more concentrated education.

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Certified Advanced Resume Writer CARW logo. Earned advanced resume writing certification from Career Directors International.
Certified Advanced Resume Writer
Finalist for Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) Award in 2016. Global competition of resume writing held annually by Career Directors International.
2016 TORI Award Finalist

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Recent Posts

  • Thoughts on Dr. Martin Luther King’s Legacy–and Yours
  • COVID-19 Help for California Workers and Small Businesses
  • Easter Eggs and the Job Hunt
  • What Baseball Teaches about Job Search
  • Timeless advice