Are You in Transition?

I know a bunch of people in "transition" at this time. In other words, they're out of a job.
In all cases, it's not due to their lack of productivity, but due to so many companies cutting costs in this economy.

Today I talked with someone and gave him some thoughts about some ideas for job searching. He asked me to send him an email about it. So, I've put my thoughts here so that other can take advantage of these ideas too.


Networking:

Networking is the number one way that people find jobs. Here are some ideas of how to get started.

• International Networking group: Empowering Todays Professionals: etpnetwork.com - Rod Colon, a good friend, mentor, and past career coach founded this group. Look for great articles and if you join the ETP network (nominal fee) you gain access to great networking meetings, newsletter, phone calls, and more!
  
• Jibberjobber.com - Jason Alba (his website has great info too) created this jibberjobber.com website to track your career. In addition to the tracking tool, it has lots of free information in the blog, library and more. Here's a recent article on his blog titled "Where to Find Network Contacts" - he also hosts free

Places to Look for Jobs:

• Follow Job Angels on Twitter
• Build a network for yourself in linkedin.com
  

Books I suggest you read right away:

• "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi - this will teach you how to network with ease. I hear his new book "Who's Got Your Back" is also very good.
  
• "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - This book will teach you principles on how to win a job, win a career, and more than that, how to be a great friend to people. Written by Dale Carnegie decades ago, you can pick the book up for very little money, but you'll find great value in it.
• "Rites of Passage" by John Lucht - This book has great information for the job search, including one great lesson I learned about interviewing: Whenever asked a question, only speak for two minutes.
• Vega Consulting - Kim Shand and Maggie DaRonco have been great help to me personally and others in our PMlessonsLearned.com group. They will be especially helpful to you if you're in I.T., but if you want any general job search or career information they are there to help. They believe, like Zig Ziglar says, that if they keep giving to others it will come back to them.
  

If you're in New Jersey, you can also take advantage of these opportunities:

• The Breakfast Club of New Jersey: I've not been to this group, but have heard great reviews of it.
  
• Dover Professional Services Group (PSG: doverpsg.com): This group is open to all professionals who are in the NJ Unemployment system. I am a past member and found the group very helpful. I highly recommend it.

I hope to add more information in this post soon, so keep stopping back!