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Unemployment rate hits 8.3 pct. after hiring burst

This headline from Yahoo! Finance is great news for people who’ve been on the job hunt for a while.  Gains were especially high in professional services (+ 70,000 jobs),  manufacturing (+ 50,000), retail (+ 10,000 jobs), and the leisure and hospitality industry – including restaurants and hotels (+ 44,000).

So now is the right time to:

• Get your resume in shape so you’re ready to leap on any opportunity.  Make sure it highlights your best skills and shows your impact.
• Finish your LinkedIn profile, making sure it contains all the keywords for the positions and industries you most want. Recruiters use LinkedIn more and more to find active and passive candidates.
• Post your new resume on job sites like Monster and CareerBuilder – a keyword-rich resume based on measurable impact could attract recruiter interest.
• Add to your LinkedIn network, so when you find positions you want, you can network your way into getting your resume seen by the right people: the hiring manager for the job, someone in HR, or someone in a leadership spot at the company
• Refresh your networking list, and send out your revised resume to remind them that you exist. Ask them for their “advice and guidance on your job search” – not for a job. Tell them what you are looking for (see below).
• Polish up your “30 second speech” or what I call your “intention statement” – the answer to the question “what do you want to do next? what are you looking for?”
• NETWORK! Talk to people in person.  Tell people you are looking.  Go to events where you might meet people who could help you. Ask people for 20 minutes of their time for advice and guidance.
• If you’re currently unemployed, do volunteer work that you can put on your resume to show you’re out there and keeping your skills up. Or take a class. Get certified in something; in many states, the Unemployment Office has funds for you to get training at a local college.  Or pick up a consulting gig – paid or unpaid – that uses your skills. I’ll bet there are solo-preneurs in your community who could use your help.

You may be doing all of these things already – congratulations! Keep it up, because as long as you are taking the right actions, the end result is assured. It’s a question of WHEN, not if.