Here's an interesting alternative to a job search... Go back to school.  Before you blow off this suggestion, consider this. 

Having your BA or BS is not a big deal anymore, in fact for professional positions it is pretty much a minimum requirement.  Most management positions, even mid-level management positions are now asking for an MBA and the senior positions often require it.  One more thing to consider is the fact that many students have opted to stay in school to get their masters degree because they cannot find jobs and their student loan payments kick in if they aren't in school.  While this keeps them out the work force for another couple of years, and in a since reduces the number of job seekers, think about this, when they graduate there is going to be a flood of young MBAs on the job market. 

What's the impact of this?  Well in a few years an MBA or Masters degree is going to more common, and if you don't have one, you may not be competitive in the job market.  This doesn't mean you have to have a Masters for every profession.  In many professional a Bachelors is fine.  For example, in nursing a Bachelors is fine unless you want to move into management, then a Masters is a must. 

Let's say you have your Bachelors degree and you are unemployed.  You may well be looking at a 6 to 12 month job search (or longer) depending upon the level of the position you are looking for and quite frankly your age.  Let's just go ahead and say it.  If you are over 40 your job search will take longer than one for someone that is 30, and perish the thought, if you are over 50 like me then you could be looking at very long job search.  If you are looking for a management position or an executive/senior management position and you are a Boomer, then your job search is really going to take some time.  This has nothing to do with you, your capabilities, or experience, and has everything to do with the fact that the job market is flooded with people just like you and all of them have competitive skills and experience, just like you. 

Let's change our thinking from jobs and careers and look at this as if we are running a company.  If we have a product (you) and our competitors products (all of the other job seekers) have essentially the same features and benefits (job skills and experience) and there are a lot of competitors, what is going to happen in the market place?  You probably guessed it.  One, the price we can fetch for our product (your salary) is going to go down (and this is happening) and two, it is going to take longer to sell our product because there is much more competition. 

If we were running a company in this scenario we would have a couple of choices.  We could re-engineer our product to make it more competitive, with new features and benefits (bascially re-invent yourself), or we could cut the cost of the product and compete on price alone with nothing to differentiate our product.  If you have ever been involved in a market where your product competes on price and delivery alone you know this is a tough position to be in.  Your career is no different.  You are selling a product and the product is you.  If you have competitive skills you have an edge, if you do not then you are competing on price and delivery only and that is very tough in a tight job market. 

If you go back to school you can finish your MBA in 18 to 24 months, sometimes faster.  When you graduate you will have a fresh MBA on your resume.  This will freshen up your experience, make your educational background more competitive, and there's one more benefit, you will develop new contacts and expand your network. 

Another benefit of going back to school is that this is a socially acceptable form of unemployment that actually helps your career.  Instead of saying "I'm looking for a job and I've been unemployed for a year now", you could say, "I'm working on my Masters" or "I decided to finish my Bachelors" or "I decided to change careers, I am getting my degree in...".  This also plugs that awkward gap on your resume. 

One obvious question and challenge is paying for it.  Let's face it, when you are out of a job spending tens of thousands of dollars on getting an MBA or a BS in a different field is probably not at the top of your list of things to do.  Your not going to run home and say, "honey I just lost my job, and I am going to go back to school, what do ya think!"  As I said above, when you consider that you may be out of a job long enough to finish your degree anyway, this may not be such a crazy idea and if you can finance it with student loans you may actually be better off going back to school than sitting at home applying for jobs all day.  Below are some links to sites with information on student loans.

Links to Student Loan Websites and Information:

Financial Aid 101 - EducationPlanner.com

SallieMae.com - Federal Student Loans for Grad School

Federal Student Aid - FAFSA

Stafford Loan Information - Graduate & Undergraduate Loans

Graduate Plus Loan Information

Gradloans.com - Information on Grad School Loans

Obviously this isn't a solution for everyone, but for many this may be a great alternative to spending a year or longer looking for a job and competing on price and delivery with thousands of job seekers with similar experience and capabilities. 

As always I wish you the best and brightest future,
Bill Grunau