How to Use Newspaper Classified Ads and Newspaper Help Wanted Ads to Look for Jobs

Historically, the best place to look for jobs was in the newspaper help wanted ads. In fact, newspapers were largely supported by revenue from help wanted ads  until recently. The stories you have likely heard about various newspapers closing down and/or experiencing severe financial problems have been caused not only by declining circulation but also by a massive exodus of employers posting jobs online instead of in the newspaper. Up until around 2000, the only place that it really made sense to look for jobs was in newspaper classified ads. If you were living in Dallas and wanted [Read more]

10 Powerful Lessons from a Turkish Rug Trader

Several years ago I was staying at a beautiful hotel on the beach on a small Greek island.  The hotel was full of young people in their mid-20′s who appeared to be having the time of their lives.  I had chatted with the receptionist several times during that week when I was at the hotel.  The receptionist was my age and very attractive.  She had a boyfriend who would sit in the lobby and chat with her at night. I think she was very surprised by the fact that I kept coming home alone each evening.  When I would walk through the lobby each [Read more]

The Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Your Job Search

When I was in my final year of high school, I remember that in English class one day the teacher handed me back a paper I had written and it had a B+ on it.  While there were a lot of classes that I would have been incredibly happy if I received this grade in, English was not one of them.  In fact, with the exception of a horrible play I had written for one English class, I had not received a grade of less than an A- in any English class for years.  I decided that I needed to meet with the English teacher and go over this.  After all, I figured that something must be seriously wrong. The teacher asked me to meet him for lunch, and so a few days later, I was sitting there with the teacher having lunch.  We spoke for some time before the grade came up and when it did I said, “Listen, I have not received a grade this bad on any paper I have ever written in any English class.  There has to be some mistake.” I then proceeded to list [Read more]

Socrates and Your Job Search

Several years ago, we were launching a newsletter for law schools. One of our employees who was working on the project decided that the title of the newsletter should be “The Signal” and he was very enthusiastic about this particular title. In fact, I had never seen him so enthusiastic about anything. The problem with this name was that the domain name for it had been taken long ago and I seem to remember that the person who owned the domain name had no interest in selling it. Without a domain name, it did not seem like it made sense to have an important newsletter going out to law schools with this particular name. The newsletter was supposed to be electronic, and due to it being electronic, people would start associating the name “The Signal” with the newsletter and looking for it under this URL when they did searches online. I explained this to my employee but he was having none of it. He did not care what the URL was. He was convinced the newsletter needed to be called “The Signal,” and when I would not agree to this he became extremely irate. He stomped out of work. He stopped working on the project and refused to work on the newsletter the next day. What had happened to this particular employee is that he had decided that things just needed to be a certain way and he did not want to hear anything that was different from this certain way at all. He had made up his mind that only one name was appropriate and had thrown all of his thinking, energy, and spirit behind something that was really unnecessary. However, this is something that many of us do in one form or another, and we do it with numerous, numerous things. One of the biggest challenges for me in working with people looking for jobs, is that most people seem to believe that their search needs to work in a certain way. They believe that there is one way of looking for a job and that way is the only way. People are extremely attached to doing things a certain way. For someone who is in their mid 50s, they may believe they should never go online and that the best sources of jobs are always in the newspaper. Other people may believe that networking is the only approach to getting a job. Still, other people may believe they will only be able to ever get a job with a certain type of employer. People are very stubborn and this obstinance is something that really holds them back. The guy who worked for me was so frustrated by the title of the newsletter, he ended up not coming into work regularly and turned from a very dependable employee to one who was completely unreliable. This was a huge mistake and he ended up losing his job. He was pigheaded about something that did not really matter. Many of us are pigheaded [Read more]

Can You Be Trusted?

Can you be trusted? This is more important than any other single question. Regardless of how motivated you are, regardless of where you went to school, regardless of your work history, if you slip up in this area, you might as well forget about a good career in any profession. Certainly, there are many people who rise quickly by playing fast and loose with the rules. I’ve seen this more times than I can count during my career. Nevertheless, when all is said and done, no matter how far an individual gets, they almost always come [Read more]

The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon and Your Job Search

One of the most powerful and important things you can do in order to get a job and achieve anything in life is learn how to just get your foot in the door. Once you are able to get your foot in the door, everything really changes. My entire life, I have seen firsthand the power of people getting their foot in the door. A large part of the battle for success in your career revolves around your ability to do this, because once you get your foot in the door incredible things can happen to you. [Read more]

The Danger of Driving Sharp Bargains

Every time I have ever seen someone drive a sharp bargain it has ended up coming back at the person in some negative way. People who get paid more than they are worth, or who receive more benefit than they provide, always run into problems, and have difficulty achieving success. The most successful people in the world are, for the most part, the ones who give more value than they receive. They contribute so much value that people want to do business with them, and to buy their products and services over and over again. When I [Read more]

46 Actions You Can Take to Optimize Your Job Search and Career Today

When I used to apply for jobs myself, I would always go to the office supply store and purchase the absolute most expensive paper and envelopes I could. I remember, the paper I used to purchase was so expensive that you could only purchase 50 sheets of it at a time.  The paper was so heavy that it was almost like cardboard and difficult to fit in the equally expensive envelopes that I purchased with the paper.  This may seem like something that is ridiculous and far more over the top than necessary.  However, starting from a young age, I have [Read more]