Go Out and Get a Job!
 Besides
answering a classified ad, there are other methods (surprisingly!) that can lead to
employment.
Pre-Reading Activities
1. Have you ever looked for a job?
2. Do you have your own strategy for finding a job?
3. Which method in your opinion is more effective when finding a job – through your
relatives and friends or through job ads?
Proactive Job Hunting
You have to admit, sometimes being without a job can feel like having
your face pressed against the glass of a candy store: You are about 10-years-old and you
only have 10 cents in your pocket. Inside, people are scooping into jars of colorful
candies, while you stand outside watching. Looking at job postings can feel the same way
– you know you are competent, smart, and skilled, and yet all the good jobs seem out of
reach, elusive behind all the flashy job websites and classified ads.
Looking at job listings is the number one way to start feeling the
waves of despair, demoralization and deprivation that can accompany a job search. Combing
through job listings actually makes some people feel drained of energy, overwhelmed, and
bummed out. And then there’s all the resume sending – hundreds of letters and resumes
to anonymous job posters, who are being inundated with hundreds of responses.
I would like to suggest the way out of this scenario which is not to
use job listings at all.
That’s right, you heard me correctly. Take a proactive approach to
your job search. I know we have all heard this before, but thinking through what you want
to be doing, and where you want to be doing it is the best way to circumvent the
endless cycle of anonymous resume sending. It’s kind of like walking into the candy
store, deciding what you want, and then figuring out how to get it. It beats standing
outside, and to be honest, is far more effective.
Being proactive involves taking the initiative to research
organizations, note which ones you find particularly cool or enticing, and honoring your
response. Pay attention to what makes you excited, and then decide to take action.
You can do lots of “cold calling” on your own behalf in
several months, and of course it isn’t easy. But it is very rewarding as well, for these
reasons:
1. Taking the Initiative
First, when you research an organization and take the initiative to
contact them, you are demonstrating initiative. It demonstrates you can take
charge, are independent, and a creative thinker. You’re not just following the pack and
doing the standard job search, you are taking it one step further. (And yes, you may still
be checking ads, but they don’t need to know that.) It’s important to do your homework
and make sure you really understand what the company or organization does, and why they do
it – and then communicate that to them in your initial contact.
2. Build Relationships
Second, it’s about building relationships. When you make that
cold call, and then, ideally, find yourself face to face with someone in the organization,
you are creating a relationship that can lead to either something there, or elsewhere.
More often than not, people are genuinely receptive when you approach them about their
work.
Proactively contacting organizations can result in what may appear as
serendipitous timing. You never know when the person on the other end may say, “Funny
you should call now. We were just talking about our need for a new communications
specialist.” Or, “We are about to launch a new project and actually have not posted
the job yet.” If you can get in before the onslaught of respondents to an ad, you have
all the more advantage. You also have the edge of having chosen them based on their
work, rather than anonymously responding to an ad.
3. Get in the driver’s seat
And finally, being proactive can help you feel more in control over
your own life. Gazing at job listings, and competing with hundreds of other applicants can
be very demoralizing. But more importantly, you can lose sight of your real gifts and
offerings when you are just one of many applicants. Psychologically, playing the job
listing game is taxing on self-esteem and morale. Deciding what organizations you would
love to work for, investigating who would be best to contact, and presenting yourself, can
do wonders to remind you of what you want to be doing.
“cold-calling”: phoning someone without an introduction
Post-Reading Activities
Questions to the text:
1. Why do most people feel depressed combing through job listings?
2. Why can the resume sending sometimes be very ineffective?
3. What does a proactive job search mean?
4. What steps does the proactive job search include?
5. What does “cold call” mean?
6. What is it necessary to do before doing your first cold call?
Points for a discussion
1. Do you think the strategy described in this text is an effective
one? Why? Why not?
2. According to your opinion, can it be used in our country / in your
city?
3. Does this strategy have any disadvantages?
Enrich your vocabulary
1. Find the words in the text that mean the following.
a. to pick something up with a scoop, a spoon, or with your curved hand
______________
b. something which is difficult to achieve ______________
c. too big, bright, or expensive in a way that other people disapprove
of ______________
d. something you need or usually have that you are prevented from
having ______________
e. very tired and without any energy ______________
f. to receive so much of something that you cannot easily deal with it
all ______________
g. to avoid a problem or rule that restricts you ______________
h. interesting or valuable ______________
i. a very strong attack against someone or something ______________
2. Connect the expressions with their definitions.
1. take a job
2. part-time/full-time job
3. apply for a job
4. job satisfaction
5. change jobs
6. hold down a job
7. job security
8. Saturday/summer/
9. steady job
10. be out of a job
11. know your job
12. I’m only doing my job
13. fall down on the job |
a. how permanent your job is likely to be
b. be very experienced at the work you do
c. try to get a job
d. keep a job
e. not have a job
f. a job that is likely to continue
g. accept a job that is offered to you
h. used to say that it is not holiday job your fault if you have to do something in your
work that other people do not like
i. get a different job
j. a job that you only do on Saturdays etc
k. a job you do for only part of the day or week, or all of the day or week
l. to fail to do something you were supposed to do
m. the enjoyment that you get from doing your job |
3. Complete these sentences using one of the words listed below
in each space.
1) After the broadcast, we were __________ with requests for more
information.
2) Marc always drove large ___________ cars.
3) She could not withstand such a sudden _________.
4) Steve felt so _______ he could hardly make it to the car.
5) People suffered terrible __________ during the war.
WORD CHOICE: job, work, post, position, line of work/business, do,
occupation, trade, profession, vocation, career
What you do to earn your living is your job, especially if you
work for someone else: I need a part-time job.
Work is something you are paid for doing,
especially regularly – She wants to return to work after having the baby – but
it can also be used where there is no payment or you are not working for someone else: voluntary
work | housework | her work as a self-employed trainer
Post and position are more formal words for a particular
job in a company etc: He was appointed to the post/position of professor of English at
Stanford University.
In spoken English, the kind of work or job someone does may be called
their line of work/business, or the verb do is often used, especially in questions:
What do you do? | I’d like to get into that line of work!
More formally, your kind of work or job is your occupation On a
form you might see: Please state your name and occupation.
A trade is a skilled kind of work in which you make or do things
with your hands: She’s an electrician by trade.
A profession is a kind of work such as that of a doctor or
lawyer, for which you need special training and a good education. Some professions, such
as teaching and nursing, are also called vocations, which suggests that people do
them in order to help others rather that to earn a lot of money. A career is a type
of work that you do or hope to do for most of your life: Her political career began 20
years ago. |
Vocabulary Keys:
1. a. scoop; b. elusive; c. flashy; d. deprivation; e. drained;
f. be inundated; g. circumvent; h. serendipitous; i. onslaught
2. 1. g; 2. k; 3. c; 4. m; 5. i; 6. d; 7. a; 8. j; 9. f; 10. e;
11. b; 12. h; 13. l
3. 1. inundated; 2. flashy: 3. onslaught; 4. drained; 5.
deprivation
By Natalya Plyugina,
School No. 44, Kaliningrad
|