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A lot of jobseekers get caught up following one lead at a time.  Then, if that lead doesn’t work out, their job search starts from the very beginning all over again.  For employed professionals, this same phenomenon is present with people who focus solely on their current role without maintaining ties to other departments, to colleagues outside the company or to colleagues in different industries.  Then, if something happens to that current job, the once gainfully employed person is caught unawares.  Or, she wakes up several years later and realizes she doesn’t want her current role but is limited in what else she can do.  In both cases, there is a loss of momentum that negatively impacts the job search and career.  How do you maintain career momentum?

Manage multiple leads simultaneously. Even if you have a job, be aware of opportunities outside your department, outside the company and outside the industry.  Read trade publications.  Join professional groups.  For jobseekers, always have several leads in the works, even if you’re confident your current search is going well.  Make the number of leads you are juggling an important metric in gauging the health of your career and job search.  Quantity matters here.

Schedule time to regularly grow and maintain your network. You can’t cram networking, like you can cram a Powerpoint or a proposal.  By the time you realize you need a strong network it is too late to cultivate it.  Instead, build networking deliberately into your calendar.  Take your lunch break and actually have lunch with people.  Block out one hour per week to grow your network by sending out follow up emails to new contacts you have met in the last few weeks.  Block out one hour per week to maintain your network by emailing friends and colleagues that you are not in contact with on a daily basis.

Make change in itself a goal. If you are happily employed, update your resume every few months anyway to see what is new.  If you don’t have anything new to report, this is a red flag that you are stagnating.  You don’t need a title change or new responsibilities but you should have new projects and accomplishments.  For the jobseeker, your search may take several months (or sometimes years if it’s an elaborate career change).  You need to show growth and progress along the way – new learning, new ideas.   You should not be doing the same thing now that you were doing six months ago.  Having multiple leads and a growing network will help because these naturally infuse change.  But proactively learn new skills and attempt new projects as well.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CareerOneStop , sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, offers resources for unemployed or those looking for a career change. You can explore careers, research salary information, revise your resume and more. While, this may sound like many other sites out there today, one cool feature of the site is mySkills myFuture. Just simply type in your current or recent job title. It will provide a list of jobs that require similar skills, training offered, and local job postings (if you enter your zip code). It’s quick and simple; it does not require you to register or provide much information for the list.

Most of us know that online dating profiles are written in a special language that if you take the time to decipher it tells you a little more about the person posting it than they may have intended. The same holds true for some job descriptions. Decoding some of the language you encounter as you search for the right position may help you get a better idea about what you really might be in for. A basic primer:

“Great growth opportunities” – This line comes most often from smaller and startup companies whose dreams tend to be a little larger than their budgets. Roughly translated this phrase often means “if you work for us for 60 hours a week, for less than you were looking for, you may get to exercise some stock options when we go public.”

Before you consider a job like this think carefully. If it is in a field you truly love and your lifestyle can accommodate a little belt tightening it may very well be worth going for. If you need a little more stability though, growth opportunities don’t mean a lot if the company goes belly up in a year.

“Ability to Work Independently Essential “– Sometimes this phrase can be an indication that there is a lack of actual leadership at the company and that new employees have to be able to fend for themselves. For some people this might be a dream come true, no boss breathing down your neck every five minutes. If you snag an interview try to glean from your interviewer what the real day to day responsibilities of the position are. If she doesn’t seem to know (generate media coverage is not a good answer for instance) that’s a sure sign that you’d have to figure out most of it yourself.

“Flexible on Work Hours” – Although it is not always the case this line often means that the prospective employer wants you to be flexible, not the company. And by flexible they mean the willingness to come in on a Sunday afternoon on two hours’ notice or work long into the night to get a project finished. In other words they want you to accommodate them, not the other way around.

So, you have been in your new position for a while now, you are settling in nicely but it seems that you are handling duties that go well above and beyond your original job description. The problem is that nobody – especially your boss- has seemed to notice or acknowledge all this extra effort. You are now simmering with resentment and you are determined to gain some of the recognition you deserve, preferably with a new title and a raise. But what is the best way to go about doing so? Some advice:

Make a List – Before you do anything else make a list of all the extra responsibilities you have taken on and all the time that you are putting in on these new projects. Perhaps you have begun orientating new employees and that is taking up a certain amount of your time every week now. Calculate how much time that is exactly and note it down. You should also get down on paper the amount of time you spend performing the tasks you were originally hired to do.

Invent Your New title – Have a second look at your list of extra responsibilities. Does it look similar to that of a fellow employee who has a “higher” title than the one you have? If so, you should note that down too. If you do not see anybody else with remotely the same responsibilities as you currently have invent a title that you think might be appropriate to more accurately describe your real roll in the company.

A Word about Money – A new title is great, but with it should come a new salary structure as well. Have a look at a few job classifieds or salary comparison websites . How much more does your desired new title make you worth?

Taking it to the Top – Once all of this preparation is complete the time has to come to request a formal meeting with your boss to discuss it all. Let her know in advance what you propose to discuss so that she can allot you a reasonable amount of her time instead of fitting you in between phone calls.

In the end it is up to you, and you alone to look out for yourself at work and take the initiative to ask for the recognition you deserve. Chances are that your boss may be so busy herself she has barely had time to notice how far your job duties have expanded. Present your case in a clear, calm manner and you should stand a great chance of getting what you want.

Do you remember when you were a kid how you felt when report card time came around? If it was good you could possibly look forward to praise from your parents and possibly a little treat. A bad one however probably meant more than a little trouble so there were butterflies in your stomach as you handed that envelope over to Mom and Dad.

A performance review at work can bring all of those memories and feelings flooding back. A good review could set your career on fire, a bad one who knows? So it’s just like being back in high school all over again.

In the case of performance reviews though there are certain things you can do to make sure that you are prepared for your workplace review and you are ready to handle whatever comes of it.

Self-evaluation is a good tool. Critique your recent job performance as honestly as you can. Are you really putting in 100% or have you been slacking off recently? If you are honest with yourself about the way you have been working then you will probably be better equipped to handle any criticism your boss might throw your way during the review.

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With unemployment still high, probationary periods – short-term periods employers use to try out job candidates before rewarding them with full-time status and associated benefits – are becoming increasingly common. Those workers who agree to being hired on this basis are often recent college grads or people who have been out of work for a while and are simply desperate to get back into the world of work.

This is a great scenario for the employer as they get to “test out” an employee before having to commit to investing in them, but often not so good for the employees involved. Before you agree to take a job on a “trial basis” there are some things you should consider:

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By now most job seekers have heard the advice that they should be cautious about what their personal Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or other social networking pages contain as inappropriate content may kill a candidates chances of obtaining their dream job should a potential employer decide to include browsing the Internet for a candidates online history.

Many jobseekers shrug off this wisdom believing it to be media hype rather than reality. Why would a hiring manager waste their time on MySpace?  However according to a recent CareerBuilder survey more of them are indeed including social media site activity as a part of their pre-employment background checks.

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