quest for employment

Why I Wrote It: Quest for Employment

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

So let’s take a break from my attempts to blog regularly during the Dumb Apocalypse of the coronavirus, and get back to my Why I wrote It’s.

Let’s talk Quest for Employment, a book I’m actually kinda proud of and have done a second edition of.

The idea of this book came about from looking at job search advice. A lot of job search advice was 101-type stuff about resumes, etc. In fact, a lot of the advice felt cut and pasted over and over again, and there wasn’t a lot of “next step stuff.”

At the same time, not everyone was interested in manic personal branding and other advice that was basically “career all the time no life” type stuff.

Finally, I also had been through a lot of annoying job searches – layoffs, contracts ending, etc. I had gotten good at the job search purely from a need to survive, at times from my unwise choice to try and keep up a contracting and freelance life. I had a lot of lessons that weren’t 101, but also weren’t about dedicating your life to your career.

These were advanced job search lessons that were about leveraging the system to do better and I had used them.

For instance, I had learned that when you need a job or are close to the end of a contract, you needed a shameless blitz of resumes, and I had a system for it. This was like an investment, where you spammed the heck out of any relevant, and reaped benefits days, weeks, or months later.

Or another example was to empathize with recruiters. After all, you talked to them once, but they talked to a hundred of you. Empathy made you memorable, helped you understand the market, and was the right thing to do.

So I pretty much wrote up all my tips after a job search and made a book. Then I rewrote it. Strike while the iron is hot, but form it a bit better with greater knowledge.

Sometimes, I think it bears a third rewrite but I’m not sure what’s relevant these days, irrelevant, etc. Maybe I’ll review it with a co-author to bring new insights.

But it all came out of me wanting to do better, and having plenty of hard-earned lessons.

Steven Savage

My Kraken-Con Promotional Sale!

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Hello everyone, I’ll be speaking at Kraken-con on April 23rd – I’ll be doing a geek networking event, and speaking on the Sailor Moon book!

To celebrate I’m putting three of my career e-books on sale!  From Friday morning before the con to the evening of the Monday after, these books will be on sale for 99 cents:

So if you’ve wanted to get your hands on my career books and money was tight, or if you’re curious, or if you enjoyed seeing me – you get a discount!  Enjoy, and see you at the con!

– Steve

Steve’s Update 12/14/2014

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No, I didn’t vanish – but work and the holidays are keeping me real busy.  So what’s going on?

At Muse Hack I did two columns on the question “is there a gap in hiring in IT” – if you work in IT you’ve heard the claim it’s hard to hire people.  In part one I examined the basic numbers and what they tell us, but then dived deeper into specifics and reached some surprising conclusions.  Short form, there’s probably a gap for senior people, it’s concealed due to certain factors – and we’re making it worse.  If you work in IT check it out – it’s very educational

Muse Hack is going to be, as noted, more personal, so I’m still getting it quite right.  I’ve got some more intense, deeper pieces, weekly links, and Way With Worlds as my focus.  Let’s see how it goes.

Another update to the Civic Geek Catalog today – after taking a break.  The more I do this the more I find I like resource gathering, so I may always have one of these “resource” projects in mind for cultivated geek stuff.

Starting to form my next book plans or two.  I’m debating geek citizenship, but i’m also thinking I should bundle up Epic Resume Go! and Quest For Employment with my other job advice columns for a definitive “Steve Talks Careers” book.

Otherwise, some new generator work at the Sanctum planned, you can read more at The Codex.

Thanks everyone, and if I don’t post before Christmas, Happy Holidays!

 

 

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.