Before you press send on an email to a decision maker you are hoping to connect with, ask yourself a few questions.

1. Does your email address look like it’s coming from a credible sender? Imagine the person on the other end of that email making a decision whether or not to risk opening an email based on your handle. Is it professional? Does it look like a legitimate account?
2. How aggressive is the spam filter on your own email? Some email account providers such as AT&T and SBC Global have very sensitive filters. How do I know? Because I couldn’t get my emails to go through to account holders I was attempting to contact. The aggressive filters are great for avoiding spam and viruses so long as potential employers aren’t inadvertently screened out too. I got around the problem by contacting the companies and asking them to allow my emails through to users. Will all employers do that? It would be wise to set up something like a Google Mail account to use exclusively for your job search to avoid this problem and still have a professional account source.
3. What would it be like to read your email on a phone screen? There is no way around it, many of the emails we send these days are now read from hand held devices. Guess what that means. The shorter the better.
4. How effectively have you used your subject line? The subject line helps decision makers with two things. First, it helps them to know if the email might be spam. Blank subject lines and those with titles like “Greetings,” “For Your Review,” “Awaiting Your Reply,” and “Thanks” have a tendency to smell of junk mail if the sender isn’t well known to the recipient. Consider how you scroll through your own email and identify spam and make sure your subject line looks nothing like those. Second, the subject line gives the recipient an idea of what’s there so they can better decide when to open it and enjoy an easier time finding it later. Some job seekers have said to me they want contacts to open their emails immediately so they want to build urgency around them and not give the decision maker the temptation to postpone reading their email. As a person who receives tons of emails a day, let me tell you the worst thing that can happen is me opening an email that is lower on the priority scale at a busy time. I’m much more likely to forget about it and never revisit the email. If I can tell what it is, I can make the decision to leave it unread until I have more time to deal with it appropriately. That’s a win for both parties.

- Lisa W-P, CADL Guest Blogger

While staring at my blank screen a comment came in on a blog post I wrote ages ago. Okay, not really ages, but it seems like it to me. Unlike the growing number of spam comments I get about male appendages, this one was legit. See for yourself here!

Scot popped by, read a blog post and offered up a thank you. He felt the blog helped him. Honestly, that’s all it took to get me going again. My whole reason for writing this blog is to be helpful. There is no money in it for me. The sole reward is the satisfaction I get from knowing I helped someone get one step closer to that next job. Without reinforcement that my blogs are helping people, my focus shifts to other things where the results are more evident.

I’m not sharing this here to drum up comments, but to make a broader point. What if the people in your life who could be helpful to your job search aren’t motivated to do so because you’re not giving them incentive to do so? Incentive doesn’t have to be in the form of money or a trinket. There are likely a lot of people in your inner circle who would gladly scout for leads and secure connections for you in return for a smile and a thank you.

Speaking from the position of someone who voluntarily helps people on a daily basis, it is more common than you might think for job seekers to take referrals and suggestions and never offer up any progress reports, thank yous or positive feedback on what was offered. That’s a problem. It takes the wind right out of the sails of those in a position to give your search some momentum.

The goal is to keep those you find helpful engaged in your search. Remember, we all have a never ending list of choices to make in terms of how to spend our time and who to focus our efforts on in life. Most have a desire to do things that are worthwhile, that matter, in the grand scheme of things. If someone does something that matters to you, that helps you get closer to your goal of finding employment, let them know. In all likelihood they’ll be inspired to do even more. How handy is that?

- Lisa W-P, CADL Guest Blogger

If you had the challenge to list all of the professions/job titles you could think of, how many do you think that would be? Hard to say. I’m guessing all of us would fall far short of the actual number of job variations that exist in our community, let alone society as a whole. In many ways our scope of what there is in this world to do is somewhat narrow.

This point became clear to me when talking with my four year old daughter in the car this morning. She’s already starting to think about what she wants to be when she grows up. So far cashier, ballerina, rock star and zoo keeper are high on her list. When I was young I wanted to be a lawyer, cruise director, actress or doctor. All of the above are professions the general population recognize and are somewhat familiar with. What about other jobs though? How many times have you heard a child say, “I want to be a citrus fruit colorer?” I’m guessing never. Yet somebody has that job. Considering how many fruits in our stores have had their color enhanced, the profession is likely a busy one.

Since a child’s understanding of the world and all it has to offer is largely modeled after our own, is it possible as adults we have a narrow view of all the potential opportunities we could chase? Consider the fact, aside from natural occurrences, everything that happens around us has a person connected to the process, many times in the form of a job. Turn your eyes on and allow yourself to wonder what happens behind the scenes of the events, products, services and objects you encounter. You may be surprised what ideas you come up with and the awareness of options you achieve.

Though the dozen or so jobs we are all more familiar with may seem like they are in short supply these days, or even non existent, the same may not be true of jobs we’ve never really paid attention to. Because we’ve been oblivious, we’ve completely compromised our ability to find them and consider how our backgrounds and interests might make them a good option. You can’t find what you aren’t looking for. There will be needs and jobs in society so long as mankind exists. Rest assured of that.

- Lisa W-P, CADL Guest Blogger

Today I thought I’d take a moment to make another point on the importance of having the right mindset in your job search. Job seekers who are out there networking and making their efforts known are on on the receiving end of a lot of advice and leads. The quality of this information is often prematurely judged by the job seeker. In basic terms, the individual has a punctuation malfunction. Let me show you.What do they know. They’re telling me ABC Company is hiring, but I applied there several months ago and never heard back.

What do they know. I search internet job boards for my field and there is nothing.

What do they know. I tried that approach and it bombed.

Notice above how I ended “what do they know” with a period. It’s so easy for a job seeker to do this. You hear information that sounds hollow or like something you already knew or tried and immediately mentally discount it as useless. What’s worse is when that judgment doesn’t remain in your mind, but is actually shared with the person attempting to pass on a valuable connection or nugget to you. It’s like there is a driving need to make it clear to that enthusiastic sharer of solutions they are wrong, two steps behind you or not really in a position to understand your situation.

With the period at the end of the sentence, conversation breaks down. By assuming the contact has nothing new or valuable to share, there is nothing to move the discussion forward in a positive way. Correct this punctuation malfunction and see where it takes you. Let me show you.

What do they know? They’re telling me ABC Company is hiring, but I  applied there several months ago and never heard back. Do they have a contact on the inside? Do they have more information on what the company is looking for? Have they seen a recent posting or been asked to help refer people to the job?

What do  they know? I search internet job boards for my field and there is  nothing. Where are they seeing jobs? What resources do they know of that I may not? Who are they talking to giving them information jobs exist I haven’t seen?

What do they know? I tried that approach and it bombed. What did I do wrong? What contributed to others having success with that strategy? Did this person manage to make it work for him?

Can you see the difference a simple question mark can make in terms of mindset? Imagine the wealth of information you’ll have the potential to grab when your mind is tuned into wondering what that person knows you may not.

Friends and family are often dumbfounded I don’t have band-aids in my house. With a 2 and 4 year old, you’d think I’d have a healthy supply. It’s not that my kids are aces at self-preservation. They scrape their knees and cut fingers like the best of them. They just don’t get a band-aid when it happens. We treat the wound, allow time for nature to do her thing and then move on.

So what’s my issue with band-aids? I hate the obsession some kids develop over band-aids. I’ve seen it many times. Well, it’s not just band-aid obsession. It morphs into wound obsession. “See this band-aid? This is the papercut I got while working on my crafts. And this band-aid is from falling down on the driveway. This one here is where Tommy whacked me with his truck. The one on my shoulder is from a bug biting me.” They are an adhesive patchwork quilt of misfortune.

Early on I made a promise to myself to do what I could to steer my kids away from focusing on the injuries and hurts in life.  I wanted them to acknowledge their pain, but move on to more positive experiences. I wanted to minimize reminders of what didn’t go so well. As a result, my kids are much more likely to reminisce about the leaps they took than the falls they experienced. They have yet to consider taking inventory of bruises, bumps and scrapes. We do count freckles. That’s just fun though.

I have to be honest and say some job seekers I meet are sporting too many band-aids. They’ve surrounded themselves with constant mental and physical reminders of frustrations and upsets. With a long list of professional and personal wounds, they are quick to make those wounds the focus of conversations with people. Rehashing all that hasn’t gone well, all of the times they’ve fallen or been pushed to the ground, is the order of the day. “This person was unfair…this person didn’t give me a chance…this person was rude…this person never called me back…this person didn’t like me.” What is this rehashing doing for them? Nothing. To an extent it might garner some sympathy, but it’s more often the person is viewed as a liability to be around. When someone appears to be easily hurt and slow to heal, who wants to risk being the next person to injure them? Not me. Not an employer. Not a networking contact.

My heart is in my stomach. Reading through some articles on the unemployed, there are regular mentions of those seeking to make ends meet turning to the likes of medical study programs and blood product donation to earn money. They are selling platelets and participating in clinical studies and health trials in order to feed their families. Though I love science and appreciate the value of having increased involvement in these types of things, it’s hard to be excited when that involvement is coming from desperation.

Don’t get me wrong. If I was in the position of needing to provide for my family and not being able to find a job to do so, I’d turn to that option in a heartbeat. I’d be glad the option was there. I’m not condemning the medical community. Thank goodness this net is there for some.  It’s very telling of where we are at right now, however.

Why am I writing this? I guess it’s just one more piece of information to try to dilute the belief by some that all unemployed persons are unmotivated and not willing to do what it takes to get a job. It’s a generalization I hear all too often. Think about it. Most of us, unless moved to do so by our own personal experiences, would not go the route of selling blood products and participating in health trials. These are desperate people willing to look at any and all options to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

From what I’ve seen, participating in studies pays less collectively than the lower wage jobs many employed persons keep demanding unemployed professionals take. The income is sporadic. What does that tell you? The lower paying jobs society keeps suggesting the unemployed find to be below them simply aren’t there for the taking. Either that or they are there and the companies aren’t interested in hiring an Engineer to work the drive-thru window. Gee, I wonder why?