J.T. AND DALE: Temping ideal way to re-enter workforce
It will hasten your job search
- Marian
DALE: First, let me say something about companies making changes in benefits. We are in a rocky transition period. I suspect that in 20 years, very few organizations will still be providers of employee health-care benefits. With the cost of health care rising and with so many of our corporations being in competition with products from other countries that have socialized medicine, or in competition with those that provide few or any benefits, it's no wonder that U.S. corporations are eager to separate themselves from health care.And when better options are available for individuals - whether through private systems or government ones - we'll eventually reach a point when everyone will look back and wonder why it was that corporations were ever expected to be responsible for health care.
J.T.: As for the job search, Marian, temping is a great way to get to know your new hometown and see what's out there in the workplace. I know you want to be free to look for a job full time, but the reality is that a good job search shouldn't take more than two hours of your day. It's better to work and get experience that could lead to a full-time opportunity than to sit home, unemployed. Besides the paycheck and the feeling of accomplishment, it will also speed up your search.
DALE: I flinch at that mention of two hours a day, because so many career counselors automatically push the notion that "looking for a job is a full-time job." And there is truth to the cliche - it's possible to spend hours a day on background research alone. However, the right temping position is a great way to research and network, and often leads to a permanent position.
When it doesn't yield a position directly, you can seek out new job contacts without worrying about offending your current employer. And then you go into those conversations with the advantage of approaching others in the field as a fellow working professional, rather than as a job hunter. The upshot is that J.T.'s right: You'll have bought yourself more time and are likely to need less of it.
BEST OF THE MONTH
DALE: It's time for our monthly recommendations of career resources. Recently, I have been taken with a book called "The Back of the Napkin," by Dan Roam. It's about communicating ideas visually, particularly with drawings, as if jotting ideas on the back of a napkin. If you're like me, you'll start the book thinking of those UPS commercials with the guy at the white board, but then as you move past that, you'll start to think more deeply about the visual side of communication.
Although I personally have no talent for drawing, I have found that simply laying out words and ideas on a pad and using arrows to connect them can let me see new connections. In fact, instead of using conventional legal pads, I've started using double-size drawing pads to let my thinking expand. (They sell such pads at Levenger.com.)
J.T.: A lot of job-search advice boils down to more and better networking. That assertion always frustrates people who aren't naturally outgoing. Those who think of networking as mere "schmoozing" will always struggle. Networking is about sharing information, about being genuinely interested in what you might learn from others and what others might learn from you.
You don't need to be a smooth talker or the life of the party to network properly. There's a great discussion of this in a blog written by a fellow career coach, Miriam Salpeter. Find it at www.KeppieCareers.com. I particularly like this quote: "I try to think of networking as a way of BEING instead of something to DO."
Jeanine "J.T." Tanner O'Donnell is a professional development specialist and founder of the consulting firm jtodonnell.com. Dale Dauten's latest book is "(Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success" (John Wiley & Sons). Please visit them at jtanddale.com, where you can send questions via e-mail, or write to them in care of King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10019.
(c) 2008 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
