Drive Your Job-Search with Confident Composure Maintain momentum until you find work. Published on August 1, 2011 by Dr. Bill Knaus, Ed.D. in Science and Sensibility

In today's challenging job market
you can have the right education,
work experience, and talent and
still not get on the short list of
finalists. Present yourself with
confident composure and you can
tip the balance in your favor.
Confident composure is an attitude
of mind where you recognize that
you can directly command only
yourself, and you choose to do so.
You don't demand that the world
change for you, and you don't need
it to. Your productive actions are
driven by positive emotions. With
this softer but stronger view, you
can better influence the
controllable events that take place
around you. Your psychological
resources are available to
empathize, socialize, and act
effectively. You'll normally come
across to employers as friendly,
unpressured, and natural. This type
of favorable impression can give
you a winning edge. The good
news is that you can learn
confident composure. You can bolster your confident
composure with cognitive, emotive,
behavioral techniques. By taking
extra psychological steps you can
give yourself a big advantage over
those who take a business as usual
approach, track want ads, submit
resumes, and anxiously wait for a
call.
Correct Negative Thinking
Shakespeare wrote, ". . . there is
nothing either good or bad but
thinking makes it so."
Unemployment is a stress trigger.
A job loss may be stressful, but
doesn't have to be distressing.
Unemployment is going to
influence your thinking, but how
you think makes a difference. If
you see getting a job as
threatening, you'll feel and act
differently than if you view the
search as a challenge.
What you expect makes a
difference. Tell yourself that
because this is a tough economy
you can't find a job, and you've set
the stage for resignation. Think
probabilistically, and this broader
perspective can anchor confident
composure and turn a job search
into a challenge.
1. A job search is a numbers game.
The more opportunities you create,
the better your chances of landing
a job. When it comes to unearthing
both advertised and hidden job
opportunities, think of the adage,
"leave no stone unturned."
2. Setbacks and disappointments
are part of a job-search. In tough
economic times you'll have far
fewer interviews. You may not
hear back from many employers.
Expect this and you'll have fewer
disappointments.
Build Emotional Resilience
Emotional resilience is your ability
to bounce back from adversity,
such as financial losses and job-
search disappointments. With high
emotional resilience you'll tend to
roll with the punches and come
back faster from the inevitable
disappointments that are like
potholes on the road to a job.
Resilience is an emotional anchor
for confident composure.
You earn emotional resilience by
the actions that you take to fortify
yourself:
1. Set aside an hour a day for
moderate aerobic or anaerobic
exercise. Exercise moderately and
you can increase your energy,
boost your immune system,
improve your mood, and activate
brain regions associated with
executive functioning and memory.
Beside all that, you'll look better.
2. Watch what you eat. Gobble
down cakes and other high caloric
foods and you can experience a
serotonin surge that may
temporarily feel good. This comfort
food fix rewards eating and has
weighty consequences. It does
nothing to help you get a job.
Instead, eat healthily. (See a
powerful no-diet plan at: http://
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/
science-and-sensibility/201101/no-
diet-weight-loss
3. Get adequate sleep. An average
adult requires about 7-8 hours of
sleep. Sleep loss often precedes
depression. Adequate sleep is a
buffer against stress and a
prescription for health. Cognitive
and behavioral methods work for
insomnia. Learn to clear your mind
of worries and troubles. Learn
muscular relaxation methods to
ease muscular tensions, etc.
4. Attend to your relationships.
People who create or maintain
close family and community ties
are likely to be more productive in
their job searches. Work at it!
Activity Scheduling for Success
Activity scheduling is an evidence-
based behavioral method that boils
down to setting up a reasonable
schedule of job-search activities
followed by giving yourself
rewards for finishing. This method
also is as effective as anything you
can do to reverse a lingering down
mood from being out of work for
an extended time. Activity
scheduling is a behavioral anchor
for confident composure.
This method is a surprisingly simple
way to build and maintain
momentum during your job-hunt.
You schedule time to research
organizations, make networking
contacts, physically exercise, etc.
After finishing a task (or a pre-
arranged time-on-task) you give
yourself a scheduled reward. One
type of reward is to do something
you'd ordinarily do because it feels
good: read your favorite news
columnist, have a cup of your
favorite coffee, watch your tropical
fish swim, or look at a picture of an
appealing face. The key is to follow
the activity with the reward.
You are more likely to stimulate
your brain-reward circuitry with
short-term rewards, such as the
above. Some of these rewards will
stimulate dopamine production in
the brain. This stimulation
contributes to an improved mood.
Here are some more confident
composure boosting experiences
that you can accomplish through
activity scheduling:
Limit unproductive job-hunt
activities. If you spend most of your
time reading and re-reading want
ads, this is a form of
procrastination. Networking yields
an overwhelmingly higher success
rate than searching want ads.
Self-efficacy is your belief in your
ability to organize and regulate
your thoughts, emotions, and
actions to reach desired goals. You
set meaningful goals, create
workable action plans, and
persistently execute them. (To
boost self-efficacy, set time aside at
the end of the day for planning the
next.)
Communications are a pivotal part
of a successful job-search. By
listening reflectively,asking
clarifying questions, and expressing
your views effectively, you open
opportunities for establishing
rapport with potential networking
contacts and job interviewers. An
interviewer with whom you have
rapport is likely to remember you
for making a good emotional
impression. That gives you a
psychological advantage. Build
activities to practice
communicating with positive
impact into your search schedule.