The Secret Algorithm of Job Hunting

At my last job, I kept an anxious eye on my former colleagues who were previously laid off, to see how long it took them to land a new position.  If and when I found myself in their shoes, as has since happened, I thought I might be able to get a clue about what the job market had in store for me.

I applauded when a dear friend landed a good job in only four months, with a healthy salary hike.

After this week's session at the Career Solutions Workshop, I think my talented friend, who worked extraordinarily hard at her job search, is also darn lucky.

The Career Solutions Workshop is a 12-week course that is offered in continual rotation at a number of churches throughout the Metroplex. They're all on the same schedule, so if you miss your usual class, you can pick it up that same week at an alternate location.

This week's session focused on the finances of unemployment, and how to stretch those scarcer dollars for the duration of our unemployment. And to start out, our volunteer speaker, a banker from Wells Fargo, helped us figure out the likely length of our job hunt.

Using a algorithm that takes into account such factors as expected annual salary, your personal demographics, self-promotion ability, health and appearance and a number of others, including a mysterious "Market Agitation Factor," each of us came up with our own personal magic number.

 Mine was 13 months. Yikes.

Some of those factors are out of our control, but the good news is that there are things a person can do to shorten their job search.

Being an active volunteer in your community can slice a couple of months off your search time, we were told, because it'll get you out of the house and into positions where you will casually network with potential employers. Two groups that have been recommended to me are Habitat for Humanity and Tarrant Area Food Bank.

Also recommended: narrowing and focusing your search, concentrating on specific job titles and selected target companies.  Telling your contacts that you'll "take anything" won't be productive, because in order to help you, people need to understand and remember what it is that you really do.

Job seekers can jump into a Career Solutions Workshop at any point, as each lesson is self-contained. For more information, visit www.careersolutionsworkshop.org.