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CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY: BEST WAYS 71–80 71. When it comes to ensuring your family’s financial well-being, and securing a meaningful and rewarding job, you need to create a written action plan or a MAP (Meticulous Action Plan). 72. When you create a MAP, you are actually programming your own “employment GPS” so you can go from where you are to where you want to be. 73. When you’re done developing your action plan, you’ll have a highly structured schedule of activities for each day of the week. This includes your job transition campaign as well as your personal, social, and fitness activities. 74. If you are unemployed, you should invest 50, 60, or 70 hours a week on your job campaign. If you have a full-time job, you need to set aside a defined number of hours every week as your investment in your future. 75. Whether you are employed and looking for a better job or out of work seeking a new one, you must hold yourself fully accountable for putting in as many hours as possible and getting the most out of every hour you put in. 76. The first question you will need to address is, how many hours a week will you commit to your job transition campaign? Then, based on the number of weekly hours you’ll invest in getting a new job, your next step is to break weekly hours down into daily hours. 77. There are 13 primary job transition strategies for landing a job in troubled economic times. Your job is to determine which 4 to 6 strategies will be most effective for you. a. Networking and contact development b. Target marketing (identifying companies you want to work for) c. Internet searches and postings d. Federal jobs e. Search firms and employment agencies f. Blogs with job listings g. Classified advertisements in newspapers and trade journals h. Job fairs i. College placement departments and alumni associations j. Workforce System and One-Stops k. Volunteer work l. Job transition strategists m. Creative self-marketing 78. Once you have identified which job transition strategies will work best for your campaign, determine when, during the week, you will work on each. You want to create a structured weekly schedule. When you create a structured weekly schedule, you will have a detailed plan with specific daily tasks both for your job campaign and for personal and social activities. 79. Once you have a structured weekly schedule, you must set goals that you want to achieve from your weekly activities. A MAP without specific goals is not an effective plan. You will want to set specific goals for each strategy so you can track your success or modify the MAP if you are not achieving your weekly goals. 80. Prepare for the worst-case scenario. It is vitally important to remain in a positive, optimistic, and enthusiastic state of mind. But sometimes your plan won’t come to fruition as quickly as you’d like. So expect the best, but plan for the worst. This would include looking at your long- and short-term finances and health and other issues that need to be addressed to free you up to concentrate on getting your next job.
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Jay A. Block (101 Best Ways to Land a Job in Troubled Times)