Job seekers: Lost your mojo and given up?

It is fair to say that things within the global oil and gas industry has changed rapidly from only a few weeks back when people celebrated the new year with fireworks, party-food and a few glasses of bubbly. Unfortunately, a significant amount of people within the industry has lost their full time jobs and become full time job seekers. Hopefully, you still have some memory of the party food and champagne.

During the last three weeks, I have been in dialogue with a high number of oil and gas professionals from all over the world. I would estimate that I have spoken to at least 500 people both through pleasant meetings here in Norway, email communication and phone calls. Yes, some people may even argue that I need one of these “fancy” on-line recruitment tools / portals in order to manage the stream of candidates coming through, but so far so good. Anyway, these recruitment tools is a conversation for another day or as such tools would say if they could talk: We may get back to you on this within the next 100 years and if you don’t hear from us then screw you and thanks for your interest.

There is no doubt that there are a high number of excellent candidates in the market right now whether this is here in Norway, UK, US, Far East or other parts of the world, and many job seekers have a certain thing in common:

Without knowing it, many of these people have given up

I am not trying to be nasty when suggesting that you may perhaps be one of them that has given up so please leave your thoughts of “Erik being an idiot and a Muppet” alone. I am actually 100% on the job seekers side and suggesting that you have given up is no criticism at all. As it happens, it is UNLIKELY TO BE YOUR FAULT and at the same time, it is SOMETHING WE WILL GET RIGHT. In doing so, I am confident that you will back in work in no time, in a position you enjoy and as an important contributor to the future success of the business.

What do I mean when I say that some people have lost their mojo and given up? To me it means many things:

If you now sit with the feeling that “Yes, this is me” then I would strongly encourage you to continue reading. If it definitely isn’t you, then stop reading and get applying. If you deny it is you even though it clearly is you, then there is unfortunately nothing I can do or say. You will probably continue to read this simply because you have nothing better to do.

Have you lost your mojo and given up? Relax, as I mentioned earlier, it isn’t your fault at all. At the end of the day, not many people can handle the mental challenge of having to deal with cowboy recruiters that don’t respond to you and whom were only interested in you during better times. Not many people can mentally handle the challenge of having to spend two hours sending a job application for then to get no feedback whatsoever and not many people can mentally handle the fact that they have to deal with inefficient and idiotic recruitment tools without ever getting anything in return. As I said, it isn’t your fault.

So what can you do?

1. First, you should remind yourself that you are good at what you do and that someone will clearly have the need for someone with your skills and experience.
2. Remind yourself that applying for jobs is like cycling up hill. You have to pedal hard
3. Don’t think about what happened yesterday or last week. Tomorrow is a new day
4. You have to work hard. Being a job seeker is a full time job + more and it is therefore no good spending the day in coffee shops with your friends or spending the whole day glued to Facebook.
5. Change your bait and strategy from time to time. If an angler don’t get any fish having casted for a while he will change bait and the strategy
6. For every application you write you should try to make the next one even better

And most importantly?

Set yourself small and realistic targets / goals. First goal must be to write a good application. Second goal can be to get a response. Third goal to secure an interview and then secure a second interview. First then can your goal be to secure the job. If you can do this, you will win more often than not, you will smile more often than not and you will remain motivated.

That is how you secure a new job

Good luck. If we can put a man on the moon than we can also secure jobs. We just need to believe and work bloody hard while remembering to NEVER GIVE UP