Light at the End of the Tunnel...it's HERE!

I wrote this in March of 2009 but wanted to re-post for those of you who may have missed it:

So if you're one of the recently unemployed, are you out there pounding the pavement, scouring the job boards, maybe spending way too much time on Facebook and at pity-party lunches while simultaneously trying to figure out where your next mortgage payment will come from? Give yourself permission to...STOP! Having been both a Corporate and Agency recruiter for a dozen years and having prepped, coached and counseled hundreds of job seekers through the dot-carnage, I believe good will ultimately come from this mess too. Companies doing business will continue to hire new employees, just maybe not at the rate to which we grew accustomed, and the World probably isn't coming to an end any day soon...if it is, unemployment should be the least of your worries. Leverage your network of personal and professional contacts, put pride aside and let everyone you know that you're actively looking for your next engagement. Try not to look or sound desperate, regardless of how you may actually be feeling because, well, because you know how that will be received. Chances are good that you were good at what you were doing, else you wouldn't have been hired in the first place, so keep your optimism alive and open your eyes wide to what may be around you. (oh, but if you weren't good at your last job, start thinking about why that was and then take steps to either make changes or choose a different path!) Ask people close to you what they see as being your strengths and I repeat, keep your optimism alive! The hardest question for most people to answer (in any economy) is, "what do I want to do?" You might start by listing things you have a passion for doing and then listing the the things you're good at doing (e.g. listening, writing, building, coaching, training, working with children, writing software applications, etc.). Can you connect the dots? When you're passionate about what you do, you simply do it better, regardless of how difficult or easy it may be. People will frequently confuse what they've done for years with what they're "good at doing", and that may not actually be the case. Find your passion and pull out all the stops to see where that may take you. Clearly there's never been a better time than now to do this exercise and understand that you have all of the power necessary to change your own life. There is no "silver bullet" solution to the problems we face and neither magic nor the government is likely to deliver us from where we are, but know that YOU can be the "silver bullet" as well as the magician capable of delivering yourself from where you are to the where you want to be...vinny