Scheduling your time while unemployed isn’t as easy as you might first think. You’ll quickly burn out if you attempt to make the nuts and bolts of your job search a full-time obsession. Penelope Trunk wrote an excellent post yesterday about expanding how you should look at your search. As an avid reader of Penelope’s Brazen Careerist blog, this may well be one of my favorite posts. (Here’s another good one.)
Take advantage of the time to learn and grow, she says. Her advice hits the nail on the head for unemployed (and even underemployed) professionals. The only things I might add to her list – to volunteer or consider accepting a temporary assignment – were mentioned in other readers’ comments. As a former recruiter, I know from speaking to a multitude of candidates how important it is to maintain a positive outlook while job hunting, especially as the weeks turn into months, but this is naturally very difficult to do if you spend entire days pouring over the help wanted section, sending out resumes, and surfing job boards and social networking sites. Take the time to strategically invest in your personal and professional development. How you’re passing the time during an extended job search is just as telling to a hiring manager as what you achieved in your last position.