Some luck is beyond your ability to influence it. You have no influence, for example over the wealth, power and influence of the family into which you were born. You also do not have any influence over the health of the job market into which you enter when you graduate from high school or college, or when you lose or resign from a job. Unfortunately, you cannot stop a sudden job hiring freeze that is imposed just before you are scheduled to be hired for a job. If you understand that some bad luck is out of your control, you should be more able to avoid many feelings of guilt, frustration, and depression.
You do, however, have an ability to influence many other aspects of your career luck. You can, for example, take the time and effort to choose a career that is the most compatible with your interests, aptitudes, personality, and values, and which has a reasonable number of job openings. Then, you can maximize your qualifications for this job and keep your resume updated. Such actions will maximize your luck in not only finding a job, but also in keeping it.
In a bad job market you probably will have to endure more fruitless job interviews than you would have to endure in a good job market. To maximize your interviewing luck, you should choose to see the many fruitless job interviews as interviewing practice, rather than as failures. If you consistently maintain an optimistic mood that is evident during interviews, you can maximize your chances of encountering good luck during those interviews.
If you have enough job interviews, you eventually may have good luck. The candidate who was the first choice might refuse the offer to take another job. If you were the second choice, you would be hired. Also, the company where you interview might want to hire multiple candidates. Thus, even if you were not the top candidate, you could be hired.
Keep an informed, high profile so that eventually you will have more chances to be at the right place, with the right person, at the right time. Use Linkedin and help others in your network so that they will help you. Stay informed about economic, industry and company trends. Conduct “information interviews” and ”elevator interviews,” hand out your business cards, and follow up on job applications and interviews.
How have you influenced your luck during your job searches?
