We value your privacy

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies.

Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Skip to content

College, Career, Life

Career and life planning resources for college students, recent grads, and career-changers.

Menu
  • Home
  • Jobs for Your Major
  • About
  • Legal
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Resources
Menu

The Most Important Thing To Do Before Starting Your Job Search

Posted on November 13, 2013June 1, 2017 by Andrea

Business man Simplificamos Su Trabajo via Compfight


The first and most important thing you must do before your search is to get in the right state of mind. If you believe you can get a job, that belief will change the nature of your interactions. You will be infused with a level of confidence that will make you much more desirable to prospective employers. Of course the converse is also true: desperation and negativity can often repel situations or people that could help us. As Henry Ford said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

So I encourage you to start your job search with a sales job. I want you to become an expert at selling yourself on the idea that you are marketable. You are sellable. You have so much to offer. It’s only a matter of time before an employer will be able to recognize that. By the end of this section, you will have a clear idea on precisely how to accomplish this.

The battle with ourselves starts with the limiting beliefs we have about ourselves. All of us carry limiting beliefs. They act as filters for how we perceive our reality. They exist because the human mind likes to form them to simplify our lives. The brain is hard-wired to be pain avoidant, and these limiting beliefs have actually been created to spare us pain or embarrassment. They allow us to make sense of complex and especially disappointing situations.

For example, a limiting belief that almost every person I’ve talked to has is “finding a job is _____.” You can fill in the blank with any number of negative adjectives: difficult, draining, impossible, exhausting, and on and on. The other especially toxic mantra (or anti-mantra) I hear so often is “There are no jobs out there.”

Of course, your restless mind isn’t content to just make statements about the external world. It knows where you’re most vulnerable and makes the limiting beliefs specifically about you. “I can’t get a job because ________.” I’ve heard just about every reason in that blank. It’s where job hunters’ creativity, pessimism and sense of total uniqueness seem to collide. The most common responses are that I’m too young, too old, not qualified, not educated, or my race or religion would make people hire someone else.

Another commonly held limiting belief is “I can’t succeed in getting a job until I have _______.” Generally this branches off into people feeling they don’t have enough time, experience, or education.

The most crippling belief is “That’s just the way things are.” This has its many variations but it always boils down to “I can’t get a job and that’s just the way things are.” I say that this belief is the most formidable foe because it presents the strongest barrier to get into the right state of mind. It reveals a point of view that the world is fixed in a very rigid way and that there is no possibility beyond the setbacks and disappointments you’ve grown accustomed to.

So where do our limiting beliefs come from? They build up in our consciousness from interactions and events in our past. We identify with them, we agree with them, and we are afraid to argue with them because it feels like we are arguing with ourselves. They’ve been ingrained into us and we turn to them reflexively whenever we go through something that challenges us, like being jobless. But you must get rid of your limiting beliefs before you begin looking for a job. You can do so by simply believing that getting a job is for you too and that you deserve it.

Author Bio: George Egbuonu (MBA) is the best selling author of the book – How To Get A Job In 30 Days Or Less! (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009BA0X70)
He has been studying how people get jobs for the last 20 years and loves to impact his knowledge to transform people’s lives.

Signed up today to attend a FREE online Webinar on How To Get A Job In 30 Days Or Less – http://helpingfeet.com/webinar

Related posts:

  1. Getting the Most out of a College Job Fair
  2. How to Overcome a Terrible Job Interview Experience
  3. Advice for Recent Graduates from HowStuffWorks.com Founder Marshall Brain
  4. Top 10 Job Hunting Sites for Recent Graduates
Category: advice, Blog, employment, guest post, job search, motivation

Follow

Recent Posts

  • Pressure Is Not a Strategy: The Hidden Cost of Control Culture
  • Summer Work Wardrobe Essentials for Women
  • Qualities of a Great Manager
  • 10 Great Summer Jobs for Students
  • DEI: What is it and why does it matter?

Pages

  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Jobs for Your Major
  • Legal
    • Disclosure Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Resources

© 2025 College, Career, Life | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme
Menu
  • Home
  • Jobs for Your Major
  • About
  • Legal
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Resources