Using this site

This blog was set up after the previous site was lost to a changing host service. The first few posts, in April 2012, were effectively pages of that site rewritten for the blog format. They can be found in the Blog Archive menu at the left of this page and include the results of a questionnaire given to people who have their own dream jobs.

The aim of that site, and of this blog is to collate information and resources for anyone searching for a job or career with meaning, getting out of the rat race, working away from the cubicle and not tied to the clock.

The idea is to gather together as much of the available knowledge and advice that is out there and to offer it up for the reader to take and use as required. Not all of it is unique to escaping the rat race but is generic and applies to all job hunts. Some is about what the recruiters, HR managers and employers are doing on the other side of the job hunt. Some is about finding a way to break out and take flight on a unique career. Some is about work in the news.

Between posts we Tweet links which you can see on the Twitter feed to the left. Those links might be from other Tweeters or sites found during research, some are from America but many are UK sites. They may be about careers advice, the world of work or the process of recruitment. Some may be about personal development, skills, entrepreneurship or about people who are living the dream already.

Some of the advice in the links contradicts advice in other links. Some sites offer great advice with poor proofreading or graphics, some offer a slick site with less useful information.  All the reader can do is read, learn, assess and make their own mind up about the best course of action for their own next steps. The more sites and advice the reader investigates the better their feel for the good and bad content will be.

The writer is not an expert in any of these areas but is just a job hunter trying to find all the best information and advice that others have offered up.

Please remember our motto - No Link Is An Island - when you visit a site have a clickabout to find what else is on offer there.

Preparing - the last part

You've done all your lists, you now have a lot of words related to your passions and skills.

Now you need to settle down with a beverage of your choosing and go over those lists and give scores to each word.

It can be whatever scoring system works for you; black marks and gold stars, graded from A - F, 0 to 10 or colours.

Focus on each word and think about all the possible connotations or ideas it represents. Think about how you feel about every possible meaning of each word and give it a score. Do you feel all warm and glowing when you consider accounts payable? Do you feel anxious and panicky thinking about sales? Are you indifferent to managing staff? Find a suitable way to score a range of reactions from very negative right up to very positive for the things you love to do most. Even if those things don't seem immediately to be work related.

Now everytime you do a job search refer to your lists. Use them as keywords to search by or for cross checking adverts to see how they match up to your responses.

Keep expanding your lists, keeping thinking about, and feeling your reactions, to each word and any that you add as time goes by.

Make sure you keep your lists handy as you go through your job searches and keep your ears and eyes open for new words, new ideas, new phrases, new skills or new things you love doing.

I wish you all the luck in the world with your job hunt or career move.

Check back here for more in the coming weeks and don't forget to look at the links posted on our Twitter feed - see left!

New year and your big lists

We have just a couple of steps left in the preparation stages.

Take your lists and for every word on them look up some alternatives.

This Thesaurus site is a good place to start.

Look up 

Write down all the synonyms you can find for the words on your lists and in a different colour write down some antonyms as well.

This will be your last list and probably the biggest as you will hopefully find a couple of words for every one you wrote on the previous lists.

For example if you wrote Writing  you will get these synonyms:

autograph, calligraphy, chirography, cuneiform,  hand, handwriting, hieroglyphics, longhand,  manuscript, print, scrawl, scribble, script,shorthand Some of them link to further words you could add. The next step is the last one in the preparation plan.

Happy New Year

Hopefully you had a nice break and feel refreshed and raring to go. A new year is a good time to think about new starts simply because of the date.

Did you make your Big Lists? Have you been looking at them from time to time and reviewing, editing and considering what you wrote down?

Now it's time for some word association. Read your lists and make a new list. This time your list will be any words that spring to mind when reading the words you wrote on your earlier lists.

Just jot down anything you can think of.

For example I wrote Theatre on one of my lists, so on my new list I am writing:
creative                                                  words
exposition                                              writing
director                                                  new worlds
stage craft                                             imagination
props                                                      team work
costumes                                                philosophy
masks                                                     speeches

I will be adding to that and writing out all the thoughts that come to mind regarding each of the other items on my lists.

This is something to be doing over the next few days.