Vacation if You Must -- But Be Smart About It! Part 3 of a 3-part series

To Vacation or Not to Vacation ? . . . . .  That is a question that frequently comes up during a lengthy job search.  

If you do decide to take time away from your search, be smart about it! 
Generally, I advise job seekers to post pone taking a vacation or time away from their search if at all possible.  Why?   A job seeker runs a real risk to the productiveness of their search.

The cost of time away can be $$ that you don't get the opportunity to earn due to missed leads and opportunities while you're away.  The fact is that you'll never know exactly what you may have lost, but know you run a risk of doing so.  Time away slows your search, hinders your networking, and takes you out of your geographic vicinity if an unexpected interview happens to pop up!  Feeding your pipeline, the "life line" to finding that next opportunity, slows or stops altogether!

So, the best advice is to postpone your vacation until after you have landed your next position or role.  Then, with the stress of your job search behind you, you can truly enjoy your time away.

However, if you decide to vacation anyway, then, at the very least, be smart about it.  Put into place plans to keep your job search moving forward from a distance.

Here’s how to be smart about it:

1.  Research the area you’ll be visiting.  Identify prospective employers, staffing firms, and network contacts who can be helpful to you in providing leads to opportunities, whether in the geographic area of your vacation, or back home in your home town due to their long-distance contacts.

2.  Keep your search going back home.  Advise hot employment prospects that you will be out of the area for “ __X__” period of time, and attempt to step up your interviews.  Who knows -- faced with the pressure of your absence during a prospective employer's interview period --  you might get an offer using this technique, before you vacation (which is the best way to vacation, isn’t it!?!)

3.  Network from afar -- every day.  With today’s technology, you can network via your computer and phone from whatever corner of the earth you’re on.  Set aside a part of your vacation days – each day  – to stay in touch and connected with leads, employers, network contacts!

Using these three techniques, you can keep your search alive and moving forward during your vacation or time away.  
For additional information on marketing yourself and your capabilities, please refer to the many articles found under the Articles tabs of the AJC–Career Strategy website.
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