Day 10 Learn from the local experts

If you are going to be successful at fishing at an unfamiliar lake its helpful to get advice from the local fishing shop. The locals know the area lakes. They know what's biting. But most importantly they know where to fish and what kind of bait or technique to use.

I considered myself pretty knowledgeable and skilled at hooking and landing a new job even if it was in an unfamiliar industry. How hard can it be to prepare a good resume and present myself well in an interview?
A lot harder than I thought as it turns out. I made the mistake of relying too much and too long on my own skills in job searching before I sought out the help of local experts.

Spending several fruitless weeks (months?) sending out resumes in response to Internet job board postings made me realize maybe I am going about my job search wrong. I was getting virtually no worthwhile strikes for all the time and effort I was putting into scanning job postings.

After a month and a half of fairly unproductive effort I finally went to the local Oregon Worksource job office and began taking advantage of their free services. It was humbling to go in for help but well worth the effort. I couldn't believe the range of free workshops they offered and the free resources they had available for me to use. They offered 15 or 20 workshops every month on all aspects of job searching. They had postings of jobs. They offered weekly support groups for high tech professionals. I found the career counselor to be very busy but very caring and skilled at what they do. I also discovered that there were plenty of other mid-aged professionals like myself seeking out their help.

If you have some time to look and holding down career search expenses is very important to you, check out this service. Visit a local Worksource Oregon center to gain valuable knowledge and skills to improve your chances of finding and landing the kind of job you are looking for. Check them out at http://www.worksourceoregon.org/ If you live in another state, no problem. Just type in Worksource and your state name in Google and find a listing of a center near you.