Job Search advice so far....

Let me know what you think of these job tips. I'm hoping that when people ask me how I got a job, that I have something to tell them. I am not an expert, and a lot of my success is attributed to things out of my control, but I did pick up some wisdom along the way.

• Use the time to be emotional. Buy a journal. Go to a park, and write down whatever thoughts come to your head. After losing your job there is a time of grieving. Reconnect with nature and with God. Reconnect with whatever you like to do (if that’s not your job), for me it was playing music.
• Try to see where God has led you in your career so far, and how he has been there for you in the past. For me it gave me reassurance about the career path that I was on.
• Have an accountability group, preferably with seasoned career experts. They taught me to write thank you notes, to look at interviewers in the eye, how to network.
• Initiate informational interviews with business friends in the city. If you meet with business owners or workers, you will gain a lot of insight into your career. And you will get practice for real interviews.
• Get professional resume help. As a technical person, I failed to see how my sentences were worded awkwardly. I wasn’t selling my skills in a grammatically convincing way. I also needed major help on the formatting and outline.
  
• Have people praying for you. I didn’t have to ask, because I’m part of a tight knit community, and the word spread around.
• Listen to the concerns of the interviewers. Address their concerns directly, and explain why you are a good fit for the job. I’m not sure that I’m a great interviewer, but I did my best to prove that I was a good fit, and it worked. Let friends know the time of the interview so that they can pray.
• Write personal handwritten thank you notes to every person you interview with, instead of stuffy formal ones that you can find online or in books. A personal letter can address the concerns or needs that you just learned about in the interview. It’s risky because you are putting your true vulnerable self out there without many guard rails, but I have a feeling that this worked in my favor.
• If you are currently working, work hard. Because I worked well in my previous job, my former coworker wanted to help me by referring me to this company. And I got a good reference letter from a previous supervisor.