Smart Job Search

Small Town Jobs

Contrary to popular opinion, THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF JOB IN TOWN AND RURAL COMMUNITIES.

Characteristics of Small Towns Jobs and Rural Areas

Most of the available advice about finding a job is applicable only for big cities. Finding town jobs or jobs in a country setting is entirely different.

Big cities have thousands of employers. Big cities have large employers with hundreds, maybe thousands of employees. Big cities have large employers with professional human resources staff. Big cities have many resources available to find out about possible employment opportunities.

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Rural areas generally have few employers, few or no employers that have more than 50 employees, few or no employers that even have a human resources or personnel department, and almost no assistance or resources to find out about possible employment opportunities.

In a rural area, if you use employers to practice your job search skills,you will run out of employers long before you will find a job. In a rural area, you will hardly ever find an employer who will say they have an opening. When you interview, you will probably be interviewing a worker, not a specialty management person who is highly trained in interviewing and personnel matters.

If you use big-city tactics in a rural environment, you will probably be the last to be considered, and laughed at once you leave the employment establishment, and you will soon develop the opinion that there are no jobs.

I have been an employment specialist in a rural community since 1991. I have consistently been one of the top 10 placement personnel in the entire state, when the measurement of success is the actual number of people that go to work. >That means that I have been able to place as many people as my competitors in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. And there are less than 42,000 employees in the entire county, and less than 8000 in the town that I work in. Believe me, THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN RURAL COMMUNITIES, if you know how to get them.

Small Town and Rural Area Job Search Methods

This is what we need to do:

Stop looking for advertised openings. There will be very few openings with good employers that are advertised.

Start looking for good employers. If you find a company that is run well and treats its employees well (they almost always go together) and if you are an excellent employee (or know how to be) you can probably be hired if you know how to approach the employer correctly.

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Stop asking for a job. An employer is not going to care at all why you need a job. An employer is not moved by your economic situation. If it is a good employer, he or she is probably approached with this beggar's attitude at least daily.

Start planning your first contact carefully and develop a professional sales approach. Let's face it; if you're looking for a job you are a professional salesperson - so act like one!

Start practicing first in front of a mirror, then with a good friend, ,then on video, and then with some business managers, if possible. Remember, before you can be good at something, you have to be mediocre at it; before you can do something in a mediocre way, you will probably be doing a very poorly. The only way to move up in proficiency is by practicing and having critical, impartial feedback.

Practice! Practice! Practice! Practice! Practice! Practice! Practice! Practice!

If you do an excellent job of identifying your employment strengths, develop strong accomplishment statements that communicate your employment strengths correctly, and develop a smooth, professional, 15 to 30 second introductory statement (first contact!), you will probably only have to use it two or three times before you get an interview which will lead to a good job offer.

                Questions? Comments? - Forum