Most people make job or career transitions by accident. They do little other than take advantage of opportunities that may arise unexpectedly. While chance and luck do play important roles in finding employment, we recommend that you plan for future job and career changes so that you will experience even greater degrees of chance and luck!
Finding a job or changing a career in a systematic and well-planned manner is hard yet rewarding work. The task should first be based upon a clear understanding of the key ingredients that define jobs and careers. Starting with this understanding, you should next convert key concepts into action steps for implementing your job search.
A career is a series of related jobs which have common skill, interest, and motivational bases. You may change jobs several times without changing careers. But once you change skills, interests, and motivations, you change careers.
If s not easy to find a job given the present structure of the job market. You will find the job market to be relatively disorganized, although it projects an outward appearance of coherence. If you seek comprehensive, accurate/ and timely job information, the job market will frustrate you with its poor communication. While you will find many employment ser-vices ready to assist you, such services tend to be fragmented and their performance is often disappointing. Job search methods are controversial and many are ineffective.
No system is organized to give people jobs. At best you will encounter a decentralized and fragmented system consisting of job listings in newspapers, trade journals, employment offices, or computerized job data banks - all designed to link potential candidates with available job openings. Many people will try to sell you job information as well as questionable job search services. While efforts are underway to create a nationwide computerized job bank that would list available job vacancies on a daily basis, don't expect such data to become available soon nor to be very useful. Many of the listed jobs may be nonexistent, at a low skill and salary level, or represent only a few employers. In the end, most of the systems organized to help you find a job do not provide you with the information you need in order to land a job that is most related to your skills and interests. When looking for employment, your best friend will be you. Hopefully you will have organized a coherent job search campaign centered around networking strategies for penetrating the hidden job market
What exactly are networks and the process of networking, and how do they affect you as an individual? These questions are central to any discussion of finding jobs and advancing careers in today's job market. Clear and practical answers to these questions provide the basic foundation from which you can develop your own successful networking activities.
NETWORKS
There are as many different definitions of networks as there are examples of networks. For our purposes we define and illustrate networks at three important levels in the job search and advancement processes: the individual, organizational, and community. If you want to be successful in your job search, you must we aware of all three levels of networks as well as know how each level is linked to the other. Distinctions among these levels are necessary simply because individuals function at these three levels. You are, for example, an individual when you deal with other individuals. However, you also deal with organizations, and individuals and organizations are the building blocks of communities which, in turn, make up societies. If you wish to move from one community to another - conduct a "long-distance" job search - you should be aware that the networks of individuals must be linked to networks of organizations that define opportunities in communities. These distinctions and linkages will become clearer as we further define networks through several illustrations and examples.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL NETWORKS
At the individual level, your network is your interpersonal environment consisting of individuals you know, who are important to you, and whom you interact with at different times and occasions. Many of the people you interact with most frequently have a major influence on your behavior. Other individuals may also influence your behavior, but you interact with them less frequently. While you may know and interact with hundreds of people, on a day-to-day basis you probably encounter no more than 20 people.
WE can outline a hypothetical network which we will again refer to in Chapter Five when we begin identifying your own network. For now, this network consists of people with whom you have frequent contact in face-to-face situations. Within your network, some people are more important to you than others. You like some more than others. And some will be more helpful to you in your job search and advancement than others. Your basic network will most likely encompass the following individuals and groups: friends, acquaintances, immediate family, distant relatives, professional colleagues, spouse, supervisor, fellow workers, close friends, mentor, and local business people and professionals, such as your banker, lawyer, doctor, minister, and insurance agent These individuals will play a central role in your networking activities, the process by which you activate your network for specific job and career purposes.
