Do Your Job Search on Heavy Ground

For the past several years I have been interacting with people who are looking for jobs on a daily basis. I have also been working with recruiters, who find people jobs. After many years of working with various people, it often occurs to me that those who get the best jobs do their job search in an unconventional way: The best thing is to avoid doing what everyone else is doing when it comes to looking for a job. By far, the most effective strategy for getting a job is to look where other people are simply not looking. People who do things differently from everyone else often get the best jobs. I have seen this so many times it is difficult to believe. There are many unemployed people who believe a job search should be done in a certain way. Often, the people who learn to do things in a different way get the best results. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu defines eight types of ground on which combat can occur. In terms of your job search, two of the most interesting are Deadly Ground and Heavy Ground.

• An excellent and very effective way to win any war is to go undetected into enemy territory before attacking. You use the element of surprise to win the war. This is what Sun Tzu called “Heavy Ground.” Sun Tzu believes this is the best kind of battle. This is considered a battle of “art”.
• In Deadly Ground two forces meet face to face to fight and there is no means of escape. The battle is one of brute force and there are generally going to be heavy casualties on both sides. Sun Tzu believes this is the worst kind of battle. A deadly ground battle is without “art” and allowing this to happen reflects poorly on the commander of the troops.

In a Heavy Ground battle, a weak force can paralyze a much stronger one. Most people are taught to march in “unison” and do things in the same [Read more]

Finding a Job in a Down Market

I made a video recently called “Job Search Secrets for a Recession”, which discussed the best way to locate a position during a recession.  In my experience, the best way to find a job is and always has been to approach the widest variety of employers possible. There is another aspect to finding a job in a down economy, however, which is even more important – your own psyche.  The psychological aspect of finding a job is what slows most people down in their search.  People get depressed and stop taking action.  This is [Read more]

The Job Search Market in a Bad Economy

I recently had a discussion with a manager of Legal Authority, my favorite job search company for attorneys, about exactly what happens in the market when there is a recession.  Specifically we discussed what occurs in the job market for attorneys—who gets hired and who does not get hired.  Since I have been witnessing this process take place for years, I thought learning the dynamics of it would be interesting. On its most basic level, what happens during an economic recession is that jobs in the legal community involving transactional work slow down for the most part, while jobs involving litigation speed up.  Litigation tends to increase when the economy gets bad, because people are more aware of losses in their business dealings caused by the wrongdoing of other parties, and they sue. Corporate, securities, and real estate related jobs all typically slow down dramatically during a recession.  This may also be the case for patent law, although there is typically a greater lag time.  Patent work already in the system (“in stream”) continues, but [Read more]

The Effect of a Weakening Economy on the Job Market

In the latter half of 2008 Wall Street and the banking system were undergoing major changes. I remember hearing the stress in people’s voices when I spoke to them in New York, and I believed we had reached a sea change of sorts, in the way the job market and the economy were about to shift. The economy was clearly in very serious trouble.  After 9/11, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, which stimulated many housing purchases across the land, allowed for the refinancing of homes, and put a lot of money into the economy. This was [Read more]