Referrals

The New Normal: Work/Home Challenges

by

Our new normal is taking root now that the COVID-19 pandemic is long over. However, what remains is the readjustment of our personal, social, and professional interactions. We need to rebuild the relationships which may have languished during our time of isolation, and to forge new ones.

As a job hunter, you need to get past this awkward, re-acquainting stage, and transform these relationships to referrals and information-gathering resources.

During the pandemic, job hunters discovered new tools available to close the gaps between work associates, friends, social acquaintances, referrals, and recruiters. Communication apps such as Skype, Zoom, and FaceTime have become valuable supplements, professionally and socially. While they are great tools, they lack the undefinable element that makes in-person contact particularly important to human relations – that “je ne sais quoi” – a quality or essence that cannot be adequately described.

What has returned to our interpersonal and professional inventory of communication tools is the ingredient that provides the best communication available to us: in-person contact. This has returned to its rightful place in our toolbox.

Re-discovering our reliable cell phone?
One of the best tools in our communications toolbelt is one that has been around since 1876: the telephone. Throughout history, in its many shapes, sizes, and various evolutions, the telephone has been one of the best tools available to improve our communication. Using a mobile phone continues to keep us connected, whether we use it for professional or personal contact.

I encouraged the use of the mobile phone during the pandemic to ensure connections continued to be firmed and new ones established. Now, our mobile phones are an important tool in repairing lost contacts, and seeking out new ones.

The advantages associated with the telephone may seem obvious, but it continues to be the best way to break barriers because of its flexibility. You may be in your work office or in your kitchen making a second cup of coffee. You may be on a beach in Tahiti, and yet capable of conducting a serious or humorous conversation. You are not constrained by sitting in one position staring at a camera, nor watching similar deadpan shots of the other meeting participants.

The phone creates an opportunity like a conversation that you might have had during a break from a live meeting. Often, not-yet-fully-developed ideas, comments, or questions can take shape in sidebar conversations or during breaks.

Using the phone is not the same as an in-person connection, but is not as stifling as the Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime meeting, and it lends itself to a more natural response, especially during conference calls.

We have allowed texting to speak for us. It’s time to pick up the telephone and connect in real time.

Use your phone often and with a purpose, whether it’s for sharing or requesting information. The main purpose of supplementing virtual meetings is to connect the dots; to keep connections fresh and vital. Your actions prevent relationships from souring or becoming stale.

We are seldom without our mobile phones. It’s our home, our professional office, our social calendar, our project planner, our source of research, and our database of collected information. And it’s an obvious and invaluable tool when job-hunting.

See additional blogs for further discussion of work/home challenges and creating new contacts and referrals.

Ben

Break Down Your Isolation – Engage in a Broad Communication Strategy

by

In launching a successful job hunt, you schedule meetings to introduce yourself to a new cast of individuals who are mostly people you have never met. Many of these contacts have been referred to you by a work associate, friend, social acquaintance, or family member, and will open new doors. These meetings form the heart of your job search, opening new opportunities, sorting possibilities, and narrowing your search to the job best suited to your experience and needs.

Our interpersonal skills need to be dusted off and polished. Many companies have dropped their exclusive virtual job interview approach and are returning to face-to-face meetings or using a combination of both types of meetings.

Post COVID 19 Pandemic
Now that we officially post- pandemic, and can proceed without isolation and masking, in most cases. (Some people may continue to wear masks due to individual vulnerability or preference.)

Despite dropping mandated mask wearing and isolation, I occasionally wear a mask. For example, when I visit a doctor’s office (some still require a mask), when I visit my pharmacy since most people there are unwell, and when I’m in unfamiliar and crowded situations.

During your job search you may be asked to adjust to changing conditions when conducting networking meetings, referral meetings, or during job interviews, whether virtually, by phone, face-to-face, or all three.

Discontinue Isolation
The time has come to shake off isolation and its negative effects. We have missed opportunities to mix, disagree, compliment, excite, tease, laugh, challenge, inform, learn, and surprise each other.

Use what you have learned to protect yourself and your loved ones during the pandemic but make a personal effort to break your isolation. Go about your job search with full determination and confidence. Break the log jam of isolation and take in the benefits of socializing and meeting new people.

As you conduct your job hunt and add new contacts to your personal and professional sphere, you have an opportunity to hone your interpersonal skills, which ensures you are at the top of your game when you meet for a job interview or networking meeting.

Expanding and exercising your networking skills provides the practice you need, and more importantly, provides specific referral channels for meeting individuals who will help you find your next job.

Our interpersonal skills may have grown rusty because of personal isolation, and recommitting to practicing them by networking will yield important new contacts and referrals, and ensure we participate in every job interview with full confidence.

See additional blogs for further discussion of networking and creating new contacts and referrals.

Ben

Social Isolation and Inhibition

by

From its inception, one of the greatest strengths and successes behind the experiment known as the United States of America is the mixing and assimilation of diverse cultures, including a wide range of social and political ideologies. A major building block of our country is the belief that we have a foundation that supports our diversity without losing individual liberty and identity. We live and work under the assumption that we are all created equal and are protected by the principle of equality under the law.

Ideally, we have been able to express and maintain our individuality while supporting one another as a community, providing a wide range of cooperation and support for the general good across our differences. We have learned we are stronger when we work together for the benefit of the whole, and we thrive and function smoothly despite our many differences.

COVID-19 Limited Our Social Contacts
Personal Isolation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted and limited our individual and collective interactions. We are reminded that our individual, professional, and social interactions are invaluable in promoting the sharing and the assimilation of our differences through collaboration, argument, and compromise leading to their resolution.

This assimilation process has formed the social fabric that makes us a unique and successful model of democratic principles. We are a collection of diverse people from all over the world who continue to find ways to live and work together while supporting a wide range of individual dreams and destinies without exclusion, at least in principle. We have learned and thrived from our differences. This has been reinforced by the legal precedent of equality under the law, which has tempered and strengthened our unity.

Recently, Personal Isolation has presented a major obstacle in our ability to continually merge and temper our diversity. Isolation can promote self-interest and self- righteousness which fosters inflexibility, solidifying our differences rather than promoting understanding, tolerance, compromise, and unity.

Lack of Context
During COVID-19 induced personal isolation, we missed out on the opportunity to hear competing thoughts, ideas, and feedback. We missed opportunities to add our thoughts to an argument which might improve an idea, or to present a key reason the idea might fail.

Limited Analytical Process
Besides limiting the amount and quality of incoming information during personal isolation, we lost our ability to discuss, analyze, and vet that incoming information. We lost feedback to our ideas, and with it, we also lost the opportunities to develop communication and collaboration skills that promote interaction and compromise.

Overcoming the Effects of Isolation During Your Job Hunt
When combined, these interactive losses are incalculable. Being shut off from direct contact with others limits our range for absorbing new information and continued growth. That’s why I emphasize networking and creating a new chain of contacts and referrals in my book, Job Hunting – Launching to Landing. Opening new channels of communication is vital to the successful implementation of a job-hunting marketing plan and to landing the job you want.

The process for a thorough job search includes re-visiting former contacts, developing new ones, and building a referral contact list. Creating this list provides the practice you need to strengthen your confidence and credibility while sharpening the social skills which may have lost a step or two during the isolation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Refer to other blogs for all the tools you need to conduct an effective Job Hunting campaign.

Ben

Collateral Damage From the COVID-19 Pandemic

by

Personal Isolation was an invaluable tool in the fight against COVID-19. But that’s not the whole story.

Pharmaceutical companies developed several vaccines which have been vital in preventing the spread of the disease and have saved countless lives. Other tools such as mask wearing, washing hands and work surfaces, and the development of new medications to treat COVID-19 infections have been effective, to varying degrees.

It is, however, personal isolation that has been, and remains, the most effective tool we have against the spread of disease.

In addition to isolating ourselves when we became infected, we reduced personal, social, and professional contact with each other as a preventive measure. We avoided crowds, public transportation, schoolmates, playmates, work associates, friends, neighbors, and even family members.

To support and preserve our social, professional, and personal contacts, we adopted the use of various tools to communicate, visually and digitally, avoiding in-person contact. While effective, these adaptations are not a substitute for direct contact, and in many ways, have become a subtle form of avoidance and isolation.

We cannot sustain and grow a vital economy, manage a family, or conduct our personal lives effectively in a long-term state of isolation.

The nuances of losing direct contact with others were not obvious at the onset of the pandemic. While necessary at the time, we are now aware of the missing elements and the advantages of sharing face-to-face time and space with other people.

Isolation sealed off seemingly trivial things: personal greetings, the sharing of observations, opinions, rumors, firsthand experiences, and personal and social stories. We lost our reactions to and from other people regarding our thoughts and opinions. The variety and quality of input we had on a typical day, both with people we know and complete strangers, evaporated.

We also lost the most valuable tool in managing a diverse workforce: The constructive interactive effects; the synergy created when groups of people collaborate in problem identification, analysis, and the development of innovative solutions.

Isolation inhibits our personal growth and also promotes polarization of social and political ideas. Without steady interaction with people, we lose valuable exposure, reactions, and diversity of ideas.

Personal Isolation leaves us stranded in a void of our own making, and limits our ability to adjust, interact, and develop our social and individual people skills. We inadvertently sustain a narrow, unchallenged, and even stagnant point of view.

How does isolation affect our job-hunting efforts?
Job hunting is a new endeavor for those seeking a job change because the elements involved differ from the current familiar job skills we practice, aspire to improve upon, and master. When we are looking for a job, we want to be as knowledgeable and proficient as possible. Job hunting requires a whole new skillset, regardless of what your occupation or status has been until now. We do not regularly practice job hunting skills sufficiently enough to sharpen our readiness. It requires focus, learning, planning, and practice.

The pandemic has left us out of practice, and it’s time to sharpen our communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills. This includes networking, refreshing and growing our contact list, and pursuing new referrals. We need to have our written and verbal resumes ready for sharing.

We must be prepared to shed our isolation cobwebs and regain proficiency in our social and communication skills to aggressively engage in a job hunt.

Look for additional information in my Source Blogs, and my upcoming book, Job Hunting – Launching to Landing.

Ben

©2025 Ben Garcia // Website by Webstuff

MENU