Think Positive Thoughts

Sounds trite, doesn’t it?

For all the advice given by job search “experts”
(myself included), one might wonder what are actually true or just subjective
thoughts. A new article by Liz
Wolgemuth at US News suggests there is something to such things as actually
developing and following a plan for your job search. A recent study at the University of Missouri after having
followed 327 job seekers aged 20 to 40 found two things:

1. Make a Plan: Having and following a plan in your job
search pays dividends, possibly because these were the job hunters who tended
to be more conscientious. This directly
affected the number of job offers they received. As Liz noted, having qualities such as “self-discipline and dependability seemed to affect a job seekers tendencies to set goals and develop a plan.”

2. Stay Positive:
They also found that having positive emotions seemed to help those job hunters
behave more confidently or cope better with the stress of unemployment. The researchers also noted that this helped
those job hunters respond more skillfully during their interviews. An important point.

While they admit that job hunters may not be able to change their
personalities, they CAN change their behaviors and how they display their
emotions.

Although this is not ground shaking news here, it is good to
get confirmation on the attitude as well as the planning concepts. In my “Over 50″ teleseminars, one
of the ten points I stress is to avoid negativity and check your attitude. While it might be easy to talk about, it’s admittedly
much harder to do in this age of divisiveness and cynicism. It’s good to know that research actually
validates positive results from those who actually are able to do so.