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AVOIDING THE FUZZY SLIPPER SYNDROME

Most job seekers face an endless course of frustration, disappointment and
disillusionment.  This often leads to a lack of activity and even immobility, whether
conscious or unplanned.  The problem is not laziness or lack of interest but a lack of
knowledge or a specific plan.  Imagine telling a teenager to clean up his/her room and 
coming back a few hours later to find a mess.  While the culprit may be TV or a video
game, more than likely your instructions were not clear or specific enough.  Had you
said, “Put away your clothes, organize the closet, make your bed, throw out the garbage
and pick up everything on the floor and dresser top,” you probably would have found the
room more to your expectations.  Job seekers need the same specific guidelines and 
direction.  The following offers techniques and information on how to manage a more
comprehensive, thorough and self-directed job search.

The Sales Campaign

Getting a job is most like a marketing or sales campaign.  First you must learn all
you can about what makes the product desirable; then, identify the likeliest market, create 
effective sales literature and meet with the prospective customer.  Along the way you (the
job seeker) will communicate at least three times with the potential employer.  Imagine 
you are a major appliance - I use a large-capacity refrigerator.  You're sitting in the back 
of the store and no buyers are noticing you.  Before you meet the buyers you must first 
decide why you are the best choice.  This is called features and benefits - a tried and
proven sales technique.

Most people focus on their previous/present duties and responsibilities.  This is what
your employers have hired you to do but it leaves you out of the equation.  Prospective
supervisors want to know what you did to benefit the company.  The features are the job
responsibilities; the benefits are your accomplishments.  The features of the refrigerator
are, perhaps, large capacity storage, icemaker and frost-free freezer.  The benefits are the 
ability to save money by buying in bulk, no empty ice cube trays and time saved by
eliminating defrosting.  Take each duty of your past jobs and identify the results of each
task; in other words, how you benefited the company. 

Consider the scope of the job (doing payroll for 100 employees is more impressive than for 
10) and ways you saved money, increased profits, reduced waste, increased sales, expanded
the client base, improved the quality of products or services, increased efficiency or improved 
customer service or the company’s reputation.  You can take credit for suggestions and partial
successes.  All of these go into an accomplishment-based résumé.  Finally, I ask clients to 
pretend their bosses wanted to bestow on them a 200% raise in pay.  The job seekers
must list what they did to earn or justify this extra pay?

Now we must decide who will potentially buy a large-capacity refrigerator. 
Eliminate obvious mismatches - students, seniors/retirees, apartment dwellers - and
imagine who would want this product (YOU).  Go through local newspapers, chamber
listings and business directories to identify potential employers.  Take the gathered
information and fashion a résumé and cover letter that highlight your skills and 
accomplishments and are targeted to the specific market.  Remember, your résumé cannot
be all things to all people.  You may need two or three versions, specific to different
industries or job titles.  Also know that there are no résumé police.  Yes, you must never
lie or invent information.  But you are allowed to tailor the contents.  Only include data
that will enhance your employability.  With every line ask yourself, “How will this get 
me a job?”  You are permitted to provide your own emphasis and down play (or
eliminate) activities you no longer wish to do.  This is not an autobiography - it is a sales
tool and this sales literature will get results.
 
Organizing the Job Search

The best way to avoid the Fuzzy Slipper Syndrome is to plan and organize your job search. 
The Syndrome is the inactivity that follows the initial flurry of job search effort. 
At first you update your résumé, call a few contacts and answer any reasonable
advertisement.  Then you are left with, supposedly, nothing else to do.  The productive
job seeker spends 30+ hours a week looking for a job.  Most people can only find 3-5
hours of things to do.  They soon fall into the habit of sleeping late, shuffling around the 
house in their robes and fuzzy slippers and bemoaning the fact that there are just no jobs
out there.

The first step is to shake off the doldrums and begin the business of a full-time job 
search:

1) Set up a home office, even if it’s a card table or desk in the corner of the bedroom. 
Stock it with job search materials (résumés and paper, phone book, dictionary, postage
stamps, daily work sheets, area maps, bus schedules, note cards, address book, calendar 
or date book, pens, pencils, etc.).  Get a comfortable chair (but not too comfortable, this is
not nap time) and an uncluttered work surface.  Try to borrow or acquire an answering
machine and computer or typewriter.

2) Get up at a reasonable and regular hour each day.  I don’t expect a 6 AM start but be
up and at it long before the soap operas come on. 

3) Dress and groom yourself to do a day’s work.  I’m not suggesting a suit and nylons, 
but definitely get out of those pajamas. 

4) Make this the most important job you’ve ever undertaken.  This is, after all, your
future.  The better the effort, the better the results. 

5) Plan each day in advance.  Remember the old saying: Those who fail to plan; plan to 
fail.

6) Keep excellent records.  Don’t be a secretary you would want to fire for 
disorganization.

7) Stick with the program.  Set and meet weekly goals.  Persist through the ups and
downs. 

8) Use the buddy system for encouragement and monitoring your progress.  Meet or
speak weekly so you can report in (like at a diet center) on your activities.  The job search 
is very isolating and your friends and family are likely sick of hearing about this.  Try to
join a job club or support group.

The organized and thorough job seeker will cover all the bases to find every possible 
job opening or lead.  He/she will present professional documents that sell his/her
strengths.  The job search will be efficient and targeted to appropriate companies.
Follow-up will keep the job seeker on top of activity and the interview will be an
opportunity to take charge and shine.  The organized job seeker is more positive and self-
assured and, therefore, a more desirable job candidate.
 
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