How many books or web sites or white papers or articles or posts have you read in the hope of learning how to get a job? A dozen? A hundred? More?
Are you waiting for that one idea, fact, question or info-tidbit to change it around?
Stop waiting. It's time to just doing.
Go make a resume and a cover letter and a blog post and a business card and anything else, and start pushing them out NOW.
Getting a job isn't about a perfect resume, it's about always enhancing everything you are doing. Today, don't spend your time thinking about doing that perfect thing, just do something (anything) that moves you ahead.
If you are waiting for perfection, you are paralyzed. Paralisis by analysis. The only way you learn (and get better at what you are trying to do) is to do and to see what works and do it even better the next time.
So stop waiting for perfection. Stop "learning" by reading. Stop not doing anything and do something right now. It's how you get better and how you get the job you want.
Did you go watch fireworks this weekend? Or maybe set off some of your own?
Yes, we're all celebrating our first statement to the world (and Britain, which some percentage of American's don't know, according to well-quoted numbers) that we were going to do it our own way.
You know that July 4th was just the day we signed the Declaration of Independence, right? It isn't the anniversary or a battle or war won, or the day King George relented in his desire to keep us his sovereign subjects. It's just the day we loudly and publicly said "Thank but no thanks. We're going to be our own country and govern ourselves rightly or wrongly."
Saying we were independent didn't make us free. We still had years of bloody fighting with the Red Coats before they would leave and just send us good comedians and Star Trek captains. Saying you are free doesn't make it so. Choosing your own path is always the hardest path. There are no trails to go by. You have to make your own decisions and pay the price for them.
Yes, you get the fruits of that work, but it's all on you. There's no one who will do the work for you.
Does this sound like a job search? It should.
Think of all the work you have to do to write the resumes and cover letters, the work of finding openings and building up your network, the stress of waiting for the phone to ring, and the discipline to keep at it even when it seems like nothing is working.
You have to pay the price because you will be the one to will the victory when you get a job. No one can get a job for you, and crossing your fingers won't get you a job offer.
If you look at our history, there are a number of times when it looked like we might fail as a country (I mean, in essence we erased everything in the 1780's to write a constitution after that whole "Articles of Confederation" thing blew up). And yet, we did the work to create a country that is fairly strong and open. We are reaping the victory now.
Think like a revolutionary! Think about what you want and how to get it. Don't wait for someone to give it to you, go do the work and make it happen.
Celebrate your own independence.