It's September. Why haven't I found a job?

Every August, new faculty and staff arrive on campus, to begin their new jobs. The month is packed full of meetings and preparations, and soon enough fades into memory, as freshman orientation passes, classes begin, and at some schools, football and tailgating roll into town. For new staff and faculty, the excitement soon gives way to routines and normalcy, and eventually, a feeling of being at home.

But what should you do if September rolls around, and despite all your best efforts, you still don’t have a job?

First, don’t give up. Even though academia has a built-in job cycle, people do come and go year-round, and vacancies come up at unexpected times.  The beginning of the school year will likely signal some slowdown in hiring, as colleges do their best to have new employees in place before residence halls open and classes start. August and September are times when searches are often back-burnered until people get into a groove and things settle down.

So, here you are, wondering how you found yourself without a job. It’s an understandable response, but don’t spend too much time picking over the finer details of your situation. Now is the time to evaluate your strategy, make a new plan, and put it into action. Thinking about what went wrong won’t get you a job.  Only a good plan and a personal commitment to action will get you that.

Some practical action steps you can take to re-start your job search:

Take a good hard look at your resume, and compare the content on it to the jobs you’ve been seeking. Then ask yourself if the highlights of your resume clearly reflect the skill sets being sought. A good way to do this is to print out a few job postings and highlight key skills and job tasks listed. Then look for at your resume and see if how closely your resume highlights reflect those on the posting.

• If your skills match, but your descriptions don’t, change your descriptions. Maybe you aren’t talking the same language as those on the hiring side of the table. If you have the right skills and experiences, make sure you are describing them in ways that will stand out for the employer. After all, they said what they were looking for in the ad. If your descriptions match, then you may well be a good fit.

• If your skills and experiences don’t match, then it’s time for some introspection, as well as some feedback. Are you barking up the wrong tree? Are your expectations (for salary, level of responsibility, rank in an organization) unrealistic, given your current skills? If the answer is “yes,” then you need to right-size your expectations. You may be smart enough to be a director, vice president, etc., but if you don’t have the skills or experience an employer is seeking, they aren’t going to interview you, much less give you a job.  Talking to a mentor or friend who works in the same type of position can be a great opportunity to get good feedback about how you can build your skills and experience to eventually land the jobs you are seeking.

• If you have some skills and experiences, but not at the level sought for certain positions, you have a choice to make. Is it time to take a career detour and get appropriate training? Or are you willing to roll the dice, get a job you may not be exactly qualified for, and hope that you can think on your feet well enough to get by? I strongly recommend the former. Careers are not sprints. Slow and steady wins the race. Everyone knows someone who got a job he or she wasn’t ready for, and rarely are the stories their colleagues and co-workers tell happy ones. It’s not where you are next that matters most; it’s where you eventually end up. Make sure you finish the race.

Get resume advice from at least two other people in your field, and at least one person who is just good at spelling, grammar and/or design. Your colleagues can offer insight on what has worked for them, and what they look for in hiring candidates for positions in the field. A person with good grammar, spelling or design skills can tell you if your resume is readable, whether it flows logically from one idea to another, and most importantly, can help you find and correct the spelling and grammar mistakes that might result in your skills and experience being ignored, because they aren’t well-presented.

Keep visiting job sites for higher education, including individual college and university websites. If the site has a personalized “job agent” that returns results of a customized search, set one up. This will keep you connected to opportunities without as much legwork.

Call your friends and colleagues and let them know you are available. It’s true that networking can get you jobs, and this holds even truer during “down times” in the academic job search cycle. In my experience, once the pool of candidates starts to dwindle, or when unexpected and poorly-timed openings appear, employers are far more open to this. This is also a great time for candidates that might be less experienced to leverage qualities like drive, interest in a specific institution, being a known quantity to someone in an organization, and immediate availability to their advantage. If an employer desperately needs to fill a slot, they are likely to be more open to taking a risk on a candidate who has potential but lacks specific experience.

Seek out part-time or temporary assignments. This may not be the most appealing option, but in many cases it’s better than doing nothing. And if you have bills, you really should try to pay them.  With the current economic situation, some schools are having to hold off on full-time hiring but are still able to fill part-time and temporary positions, especially if a position is “essential” to the operation, as many direct-service-to-students positions are. The caveat here is that you cannot reasonably expect that every position will result in an eventual full-time offer. But this type of work can help you build new skills and fill gaps in experience, and to network, and these are the things most likely to help you get a job in the future.

These are only a few ways to consider re-starting your job search and refining your strategy. The most important thing is that you don’t give up. Keep exploring, stay connected to your search and your professional network, and keep looking forward. Your next position is out there, waiting for you. You just have some work to do before you find it. Good luck!