Flip The Perspective In Your Job Search, Find Your Interests First Before Hitting The Jobs Boards

DENVER (CBS4)- Two well-known Colorado career coaches Andrew Hudson and Linda Sollars, teamed up for an hour-long seminar for job seekers on CBSN Denver on Friday.

"If you're in your pajamas and it's 10 o'clock in the morning and you're just randomly sending out resumes because it looks like it's a good fit, you're going to get frustrated very, very quickly," said Hudson.

For more than two decades, Hudson has managed his own jobs board Andrew Hudson's Jobs List and career coaching business.

"People who are frustrated that they put their blood sweat and tears into resumes and cover letters and then they never hear back, a lot of times is because a human being has never seen your resume," said Hudson who spends time with his clients finding ways to get resumes through filters companies use to narrow down perspective applicants.

For Linda Sollars, this journey is personal.

"The day I was laid off I can remember standing in the parking lot with my box of things from my desk and looking up at the freeway and thinking somehow I got off the freeway, and I have no idea how to get back on. I felt very isolated, I felt very alone," she recalled.

"I sent over 200 resumes out, and I got zero response, not one person contacted me, not one person did I connect with at all," said Sollars.

She learned some lessons from that time, lessons she shares with her clients now that she owns her own Golden-based career coaching and consulting firm Creating Purpose.

"At this particular time is one of the few times you actually will find in your life that you have a little bit of time to reflect on what you might want to do next," said Sollars.

Both Hudson and Sollars recommended Strengthsfinder as well as the website VIA Institute on Character to help you find out what you're good at and how to market yourself to potential employers.

Instead of just looking for jobs, Sollars recommends looking at organizations which might interest you, first, then see how your skills can contribute to the company.

Most of all, don't let this process consume you.

"Don't dedicate your whole day to this job search, an hour to two hours at most," she said.

And that job you had just to help you get by, could be the key to getting into a great career.

"People who have worked in fast food, have more transferable skills than a physician does because they have worked in every possible way with customer support with money management with time management, all of those types of things," said Sollars.

And whether you are just coming out of college or are making your final career move, don't sell yourself short.

"They use all of these adjectives to describe themselves: too old, overqualified, under qualified. All of these negative things as opposed to, I went to college, I got a great job, I was promoted, my boss loved me, I was a motivator, I inspired people and my clients loved me," said Hudson.

Hudson gets especially discouraged when he sees his more experienced clients water down their resumes so they don't seem overqualified for the position.

"Ageism exists, but all of a sudden and to me it's kind of like you know you have a light dimmer and all sudden you're dimming the light, as opposed to you know brightening the room with everything you have to offer in all the things that you bring to the table," he suggested.

Despite the difficulty of the current crisis, Hudson is optimistic.

"I read something this morning, they said, 'God didn't write a period, he wrote a comma,' so this is a comma in all of our lives and we're going to get back to a sense of normalcy," he said.

Sollars also offers free webinars and forms for teachers who are trying to teach career development classes, particularly online. Teachers may contact her on www.creatingpurpose.com or Creatingpurpose@gmail.com

LINKS: Andrew Hudson's Jobs List | Creating Purpose | VIA Institute on Character