Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/595215
November 2 - November 23, 2015 12 Working World l WorkingWorld.com FEATURE ARTICLE by Julie Austin A ccording to motivational guru Zig Ziglar "Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will". That includes your job search. You already know the bad news. For anyone clawing their way through the job search jungle right now, things are brutal, and there's really nothing you can do to change it. But you can change your attitude towards it, and that will make all the difference in whether you get a job or not. An optimist will always find a silver lining in anything. So, let's take a few job search negatives and find the silver lining in them. 1. Lower salary – It's hard to imagine that there could be any silver lining to taking a lower salary. Once you get used to a certain lifestyle, being demoted is a big blow to your wallet and your ego. Starting over is an enormous amount of work. But entrepreneurs do it all the time. Most entrepreneurs I know have been through extreme highs and lows. Eating lobster one day and sweeping floors the next. But a true entrepreneur knows that it's only temporary, and you should know that too. There's one thing that will make it a lot easier. When all salaries are low you'll be more likely to pick something that will make you happy rather than being stuck in a job that pays well, but makes you miserable and has longer hours. A good way to get over your old job is to remember what you hated about it. Maybe you were an accountant who really wanted to be a rock star. If money isn't the driving force in your decision you might take a job as a roadie. That alone won't make you a rock star, but you will at least have a front row seat, and it would be a lot more adventurous than sitting in a cubicle crunching numbers. 2. Fewer job openings – That means you are going to have to step up your game and start networking like crazy. The good thing is that that will force you to reconnect with all of the people you have lost touch with over the years. When times are good we tend to become focused in our own little world. Networking means getting out of the house and actually having contact with the human race. A decade long study conducted by the Center for Aging Studies at Flinders University in Australia found that people who have a large network of friends live an average of 22% longer. The larger your network of friends, the better your chances of getting a job AND the longer you'll live. 3. No Jobs in Your Chosen Field – Imagine working your whole life in an industry and waking up one day to find that it had completely disappeared. That's what happened to blacksmiths when the automobile was invented. There might not be any jobs in your chosen field because no one is hiring or it might be a red flag that you are in a dying industry and those jobs won't be coming back. Jobs like postal service mail sorter and The Silver Lining of a Tough Job Search How to Turn a Negative Job Search Into a Positive Search "Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will". That includes your job search.