Gerbil Job Search

It has been a long time since I took a vacation where I could unhook from work and the Internet for a long period. I’ve just gotten back from two weeks’ vacation in Alaska (cruising in Inside Passage with Lindblad/National Geographic and then traveling with my family at Denali – wonderful throughout), during which my team handled all the day-to-day operations and I had little access to the Web.

So I’m returning to work with renewed energy and a broader perspective – everything one could want from a good vacation.

My vacation-rested brain gives me better discernment of busy work and critical work. I can see what parts of my day are activity without results, and I’m in a better and more critical frame of mind to evaluate all parts of our business.

I’ve said before that running a small business is a lot like a job search. There is a lot of marketing to be done. Few things are pre-established so we have to figure everything out as we go. If we are not successful, we don’t get paid and our careers suffer. There is too much to do and it’s easy to get overwhelmed with minutiae and the stress of the big picture.

So what does that have to do with gerbils?

Gerbil Wheels

When I had gerbils they spent a good deal of time running on the wheel we had set up in their cage. Hour after hour, usually late at night, they would scamper and the wheel would squeak as it came around. Lots and lots of energy went into that wheel as they continued to run. And if they stopped, they got swept backward, turned upside down, and dropped. So they had to keep running harder.

But they never got anywhere.

Only from our perspective outside the wheel can we see that it wasn’t producing any results. Instead of being miles down the road, the gerbils were still where they started.

Effective Job Search

Effective job seekers keep evaluating their progress. They keep stepping outside the wheel to make sure that they’ve moved forward. The best organization tools help them stay on track, working on the things that matter to progress instead of the unimportant. Good job search software shows you what is working in your job search so you are more effective. So companies are calling you. So you are setting up interviews instead of throwing another round of resumes into the gerbil wheel.

Effective job search makes the time you spend on your seach productive, so you can have a life as well as a triumphant job search. Try PerfectJob when you’re ready to step off the wheel.