Week 36: Evaluating “Who Am I?” in Your Job Search - Part 2

When in a job search, we frequently feel left out, disconnected from our career, and we even start worrying about our skills getting rusty. Today's post continues the "Who Am I?" discussion I started two weeks ago with an in-depth analysis of what has been holding me back in my job search. It also explains the benefits of applying this same introspective process I used to your own job search situation.

One of the feelings that so many unemployed job seekers experience is a sense of disconnectedness — from their career, their friends, their skills and even their self-worth.  Men and women tie so much of their identity to their work — their title and accomplishments — that when our titles get stripped away, we are left wondering, Who am I?

In Part 1 of this series of blog entries I noted how I've encountered cycles of incredible focus and drive in my job search as well as periods of self-reflection.  In the former cycles, it was easy to stay excited and focused when I had very specific goals, driven by my job search project plan, and success as measured by the number of opportunities, return interviews and negotiating discussions I had. At the end of each of these cycles' high points I experienced a period of disconnect after I learned one by one that the positions I had been so excited about had evaporated for any number of reasons (for example, placing second, resume concerns, and positions put on hold). I can remember one week in particular where I really had a difficult time getting myself motivated to start over again.

I generally have no issue with confronting my own problems, and I generally value, and even request, constructive criticism.  But when you've been laid off your skin tends to be a bit thin, so you are generally not inclined to go out of your way to seek criticism. Yet you need that feedback to keep yourself honest and to stay on track.  So what do you do?  How do you get feedback if you're not getting interviews and/or if you don't experience an event that triggers self-evaluation?

For me, that’s where my own job search project plan proved a saving point. Because project planning requires metrics, triggers and goals, my job search project plan lets me know what I should be doing daily and weekly.  While I had fallen behind on formally maintaining my lists of tasks and accomplishments, when I reviewed even my general log of activities over this current third cycle, I could easily see that my “new business” efforts had fallen off significantly.  That is, I had not been completing my required tasks to keep my pipeline of new opportunities full, and I had not been applying to nearly enough new positions for the law of numbers to produce exceptional final-stage opportunities (i.e., negotiations to full-time employment).

However, there was more — I felt that something deeper was wrong with my job search.  I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but I had a gut feeling that an underlying issue was keeping me away from my normal personal high standards and potential.  So rather than just jump back into action, I approached my “Board of Directors” — my wife and my mentors.

We noted that I have been focusing too much of my time on one or two specific leads channels -- in fact, I'd been doing so

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