Here, Mr. Crant talks about finding work at a small company:

What approach should a job seeker take when beginning to look for work at a small business?

Start by finding just one individual with a similar background or skill set as yourself. Do a People Search on LinkedIn to find this starter profile. Take a look at where they worked before joining their current company. Start by creating a list with this first new company name, and continue. Now search their current employer’s name to find other individuals similar to your function. Now you have a list of people to look through and this is where you can begin to create a larger list. These are companies that individuals, similar to yourself, went to work for after leaving this current company. Some will inevitably be larger companies that you have heard about, but many will be these smaller companies that you have never heard of before.

What are some qualities to highlight during the interview?

Highlight your abilities to work independently, without the need for too much support. Illustrate through example where you have taken the reigns and have worn several hats at once. Show them that you can bring significant industry expertise to their team. This will help a smaller company manager see you as just the self-sufficient addition with the expertise that they may be looking for to solve their needs. Of course, be sure to convey that you are a team player too, but they should feel you are happy and ready to expand your role and wear multiple hats as needed.

Is networking more important than in larger organizations?

In smaller companies it’s much more like a family. Contact and network with several individuals within the company, and work to build chemistry with these contacts that you may uncover. As your dialogue with the company evolves and they begin to discuss you internally, you will have already warmed up those discussions of you by laying a foundation of chemistry through your networking activities.

What are some mistakes that job seekers make when applying for work at a small business?

The largest single mistake is when individuals with large company background fail in their roles in these smaller companies, underestimating the level and type of support you will have in your job function. Yes, you need to do what you did for the larger company, but you very likely will also need to do the support functions that others performed for you in your previous role.

How have smaller companies taken advantage of talent during the recession?

As in past recessions, smaller companies have asked their employees to do even more to help the companies survive and thrive. But after a while, all of that extra workload must be redistributed by hiring new talent. Make sure to position yourself as an asset that can help these smaller companies take that next step in their own growth.

Readers, are you seeking work at a smaller company? Share your stories in the comments section.

My productivity lapses don’t come from Facebook. My problem is a combination of world news sites and Twitter. Using RescueTime, an online time management tool, I’ve named two productivity goals for myself. One goal sets my unproductive time at less than 90 minutes per day. The other sets my highly productive time at greater than five hours per day. After setting up these goals, I’ve been able to monitor what applications I use, what internet sites I visit, and the exact duration of both. It quickly becomes painfully clear how easily I can become distracted and miss these goals. As I only report to myself, this tool is obviously self-policing, but it has been extremely useful to see when I’m not being as focused as I need to be. For example, I’ve adjusted my morning time with a cup of coffee and reading the news from 45 minutes down to about 15.

Another challenge I have is how to efficiently share documents during interviews. For example, on a few occasions it has made sense to prepare a presentation and an accompanying spreadsheet for a succession or panel of interviewers. I prefer not to use flash drives, as I find their use in interviews to be a tad awkward. Enter Box.net. I’ve found Box.net’s online file storage and sharing to work perfectly for my job searching requirements. I’ve dropped the day’s presentation, a spreadsheet, and even a spare PDF of my resume into a web folder that I can direct my interviewers to open by providing them with the customized web address. This also allows me to leave my laptop in the car and sidestep any challenges I may have connecting to their displays. Box.net also has an application on LinkedIn allowing users to share files, such as a resume.

My goals when refreshing or obtaining new skills are keeping costs low and learning efficiently. As such, I prefer an online training site. There are several online options out there, but the one that I prefer is Lynda.com. I recently used it to refresh a data query language that I hadn’t used in several years, but knew an upcoming interviewer would ask me about. It provided me with another layer of confidence to be able to say that I’d updated my knowledge only days ago.

Wisestamp, a branding tool that I use to finish all of my email communications, works with all of the big webmail providers to allow you to create customized email signatures. What is so useful about the tool is that it drops those tiny social networking icons into your signature. So in my signature there is all my usual contact information, a link to this blog, and clickable icons that take the recipient to my LinkedIn and Twitter profiles. By doing this I’m much more comfortable knowing that anyone I write to, be it a hiring manager, recruiter, or friend will get a lot more context around who I am, above and beyond the content of the one email.

The best thing about all of these tools is that they’re cheap or free for the level of functionality that a job seeker would need.

Readers, what online tools do you use to help with your search? Share your favorites in the comments section.

Until 18 months ago, I had a terrific job with a wonderful nonprofit organization — a position created for me. Like many of my generation, I had turned my skills to the benefit of a worthy cause, seeking to “feed my soul.” The organization made a difference and the role offered genuine satisfaction. I intended to stay there for many years.

Then the economy began to quiver. In any economic downturn, the nonprofit sector is like the canary in the coal mine. Concerns developed in my organization, and grew; I was laid off. It was May, and I remember thinking that a few weeks finding a new opportunity might afford a pleasant spring break. I reworked my resume, got busy networking and was enjoying the challenge. I completed some consulting work and helped with pro bono projects for some local nonprofits.

Now, slip-sliding my way through my 50s, I cannot help but wonder: Where is the job search leading? What will be the long-term impact? How long can I sustain this state of limbo and still be confident of recovery? Is the successful part of my career essentially over?

It’s clear that, if you’re a seasoned professional with 20-or-more years of experience — regardless of the achievements and accomplishments that filled those years — the numbers are against you. There aren’t many positions for those with 20-plus years of experience. There are more candidates for each open position. Additionally, I’ve found that automated systems do not appreciate diverse backgrounds. Overworked HR specialists face mountains of resumes to fill jobs about whose subtleties they have little understanding. Some aspects of experience cannot be reduced to a keyword.

More importantly, there’s the rolling impact of the time we’ve been out of the saddle. The age discrimination is real but too subtle to pinpoint. I don’t feel anywhere near my age either physically or mentally but, like Indiana Jones, I see a giant boulder rolling toward me. I’m intensely aware that I’ve lost 18 months and the gap is becoming a greater liability. Calendar pages are torn away, unemployment runs out, Cobra expires, money disappears and bills are still due. It’s something most of us never in the proverbial blue moon thought we’d face. We wonder how we’ll rebuild that 401(k).

Countless business articles over the past few years have bemoaned the anticipated leadership deficit as baby boomers retire over the coming decade. In truth, there are a lot of us who don’t want to retire, but want to keep working and contributing.

With the unemployment rate flirting with double digits and the number of long-term unemployed at its highest level in more than 25 years, I have no illusions that my case is unique. But I am eager to get back to work, sharing all I’ve learned to the benefit of a new company or organization. I just need to find that opportunity!

Readers, how do you think age affects your search? Share your stories in the comments section.

Sometimes you have to work yourself into an industry. That is what I am finding with the green market. To become more knowledgeable about the role of energy efficiency in consumer and commercial markets, I have decided to pursue energy auditing. Energy auditing is the evaluation of a home’s energy consumption and the methods by which appliances and overall architectural design reduce total consumption. This path grants me the ability to familiarize myself with the latest technology and also gain inroads into the financial industry players such as Wells Fargo and green homebuilders like McStain homes.

Like any other position, this requires certification. Fortunately, there are some key companies who provide reasonably priced coursework. Thanks in part to the Workforce Investment Act, I am now looking to get the cost of this training covered since this qualifies as a career transition. Achieving this transition requires that I prove my ability in math and data analysis through standardized testing and attending training sessions. Upon completion, I can proceed with marketing myself in conjunction with commercial and residential builders.

At the outset, completing this coursework only enhances my skill set and doesn’t necessarily grow my network. By performing this service in the residential sector, I do continue to meet homeowners who would be interested in alternative energy. The main benefit is meeting commercial companies who are collaborating with alternative energy companies in the area.

My full-time job search has not really suffered as this is a short-term break from checking job boards and positions. Once several positions are in the pipeline, it is often a matter of time. In the intervening hours and days between the initial application and the interview, there is often time to pursue some of the desired training. This position is on a contract basis and should assist in the coming months as job opportunities may be scarce. With the networking aspect of this position, it’s possible that I’ll also learn of new companies entering the Colorado marketplace.

I only have one more career training session left so I can finally pursue. This should be a good means to continue my transition to an industry building its foundation here in Colorado. However, it will probably not be until early next year that there will be numerous jobs.

Readers, what temporary opportunities are you pursuing during the search? Share your stories in the comments section.

I recently started working on a temporary assignment to re-launch myself into the workforce while continuing to seek a long term position. It was clear after the first few interviews I had earlier in the fall that even though they were attracted enough to my credentials and going through several rounds of interviews, it was the matter of having been out of the game for so long that made them pause.

Now, I am two weeks into my temporary assignment and realize that this was probably the best thing I could have done for the coming year. This assignment is giving me the opportunity to jump into the immediate management of five professionals and rapidly build an organization to carry out a program with immovable deadlines within the next twelve months.

However, the position is not at the level I left eight years ago. In many respects it may prove to be challenging, if not more so, as any program assignment I was asked to develop and manage in my last corporate role. I had been with my last company for over 10 years and had progressed through the ranks. As I moved from assignment to assignment, I would generally work with or select people to work with me who I knew within the organization. In this current assignment I have had a team pre-selected for me and must quickly figure out how to adapt their skills to the tasks ahead of us. I am reasonably certain I will make management mistakes in this re-entry assignment, and there is a part of me that is somewhat relived I am sharpening my skills in a role I know to have a certain end. On the other hand, I have pride in my work and will strive to do my best.

I am also concerned about having lost momentum with the people and processes I set up to pursue a long term role. Juggling the responsibilities and learning curve of an intense temporary management assignment and being able to maintain a level of intensity about pursuing a permanent role has me concerned. Networking has fallen off a cliff. I worry that if I don’t find some balance, all I will have succeeded in doing is putting off what I need to do in order to find a new role, only to be on the same job search treadmill I was on this past summer.

Readers, is it difficult for you to continue the search after taking on a temporary assignment? Share your stories in the comments section.

Does anyone else remember this scene from one of my favorite movies of the 1980’s, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”?

“Teacher (played by Ben Stein): Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Simone (played by Kristy Swanson): Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.

Teacher: Thank you, Simone

Simone: No problem whatsoever.”

Talk about networking — Simone had it covered! Although her information wasn’t exactly correct, (Ferris skipped school that day for a trip into Chicago), her network went eight layers deep within about 12 hours, back in the days before cell phones, texting, and YouTube. If Simone had used her network to find a job, she’d be CEO of Paramount Pictures by now.

While I’m not quite up to Simone’s standards, I am currently one of two remaining candidates for a position where my network includes my brother in Denver, my brother-in-law in Massachusetts, family friends in New York City, an ex-co-worker in Kentucky, another ex-coworker in Florida, and my wife for a job in Cincinnati. All of these people have provided me information or assistance for this specific opportunity. Without them, I would have missed the job opening all together. Which is not bad for me.

Another quote from the movie, is when Ferris proclaims: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” For the past year, I have been looking for a job — searching internet job boards, reading company web sites, establishing user accounts, filling out applications, anti-ATS-ing my resume (making sure to include all of the key words in the job description), making a relevant and interesting cover letter, monitoring job pages — taking lots of time and effort. The responses from the companies for my efforts are more or less non-existent, and are almost never positive. While I know that “attitude is everything,” it has been very difficult for me to remain positive amongst all the rejection.

I try to keep things in perspective — life is too short. I believe that a qualified, hard-working, value-added employee will always be needed. It is just a matter of time for me to find the right fit and I’ll be back in the ranks of the employed. I need to follow Ferris’s lead and take some time to laugh and enjoy the things I like to do. I won’t let job hunting get me down while my life passes me by.

Readers, what movies or books do you find inspiring and uplifting as you continue your search? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

When I earned my MBA in May of this year, I hoped that I was punching my ticket into the executive ranks. Being laid off in June forced me to reevaluate that career trajectory.

As part of the unavoidable soul-searching associated with a layoff, I sought advice from friends and family about how best to proceed. Some of the feedback was unexpected — several friends suggested that I consider taking a teaching job while I looked for a “real” one.

I was skeptical. Don’t teachers need a teaching certificate? Wouldn’t I need experience? As it turns out, completing an MBA can, in some cases, be an acceptable substitute for other qualifications. Because the MBA is a Master’s degree, it can replace a Master’s degree in another business-related discipline. Along with my 15 years of IT experience, my MBA qualified me to teach MIS (management information systems) courses at the undergraduate level. Although I had never seriously considered education as a career before, my layoff provided time to explore the possibility, and I applied for an adjunct professor position at a local university.

As I prepared the syllabus and other course materials, I noticed that there were a number of parallels between preparing a course and managing change in the business world. My first step in both endeavors was to clearly define the objectives. In the case of the course, objectives were provided for me as part of the curriculum.

After that, I tried to determine where the students would be at the beginning of the term. My “current state” for students was determined by an assessment of the prerequisites for the course (and what concepts or skills should have been learned there), and a pre-test covering the objectives for my class. I also needed to plan how my students would learn the concepts and demonstrate that they had acquired the skills needed to meet the course objectives. I chose to use a combination of reading assignments, homework, quizzes, exams, and a final project.

Having thoroughly prepared for the course, I arrived at my first class and discovered that my carefully designed plan for delivering educational brilliance had failed to take one key element into account — the students themselves. Each of them had a unique set of knowledge, skills, and perspectives, and a teaching plan without built-in flexibility ended up, in practice, being no plan at all. However, my students met me halfway, and we worked well together to achieve the course objectives as well as build skills that could be used in the real world.

This eight-week teaching experience gives me exposure to education, another potential career option. While I’ve historically been a senior-level technology project manager, the opportunity to be a junior-level college instructor has provided a much-needed stream of income. Also, the possibility of pursuing education as a full-time career is causing an interesting level of uncertainty about my career plans, and the opportunity to teach others who are employed while being unemployed myself is providing an unintentionally profound sense of irony. I may make a full-time pursuit out of this teaching thing after all.

Readers, would you pursue a teaching career after a layoff? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Here, Ms. Needleman reports on how job seekers can jump-start a stalled job search:

For many out-of-work professionals, finding a job in today’s market requires far more effort than it did in the past—and a lot more stamina. Last month, the Labor Department reported that it takes unemployed workers an average of 27.2 weeks to land a job, up from 19.1 weeks in September 2008 and 16.7 in September 2007. But career experts say there are several ways job hunters can revive a stalled search.

Taking a highly targeted approach, as Ms. Jones eventually did, is one strategy. Another is to focus on obtaining leads to unadvertised positions where the companies seek out their own applicants. Relying solely on job-board listings, which have been shrinking, isn’t enough these days. There were roughly 3.3 million jobs advertised online last month, compared with 4.4 million in September 2008 and 4.7 million in September 2007, according to the Conference Board, a research firm.

Many employers have cut back on advertising jobs online because they are overwhelmed with applications, says Bradley G. Richardson, a partner at executive-search firm Kaye/Bassman International Corp. in Plano, Texas. Instead, they are relying on word of mouth and referrals to draw a more manageable number of applicants, he says. That requires more networking on the part of the job seeker—even tapping into people you don’t know well.

After getting laid off from a market-research firm in November, Jon Evoy says, he devoted most of his time to applying for positions he found online. “It’s easier to sit in front of your computer and just start looking for jobs as opposed to pounding the pavement,” he says.

But then a month passed during which Mr. Evoy, 30, says he failed to land a single interview. The lack of interest prompted him to shift gears. He reached out to everyone in his network—even people he hadn’t spoken to in years. One was an advertising professional he had met two years earlier at an industry event. Kaplan Thaler Group Ltd., the New York agency where she worked, wasn’t hiring at the time, but she agreed to set him up on an informational interview with a colleague who was a director at the firm.

Readers, what have you done to get past an ineffective job search routine? Share your experiences in the comments section.

I am writing this on the morning of the day my life may change. I am off to work for a couple of hours at my part-time contract job, and then to an interview. Two things may happen today that would have a profound effect on my life: I may find out that my contract position will become full-time and I will join the team with whom I’ve been working for the past five months. I may also be offered the position for which I am interviewing and I would have the opportunity to do something completely different from anything I’ve ever done before. Or, neither of these things will happen and nothing will change. I am becoming accustomed to this kind of uncertainty.

I am excited about the interview, but recent experience has taught me to temper that with cautious skepticism. It’s not the type of position that I would have imagined for myself. Honestly, I wouldn’t have applied for it had I seen it online, but a friend of mine just started working for the organization and has great things to say about it. It’s in a different field than my previous work, but threads of my experience weave together to point in this new direction.

Most of my bottom line requirements are there: decent salary, a company showing some growth, no recent layoffs, and a positive, energetic company culture. In this challenging economic climate, my focus has drifted to basic needs. Of course I’d love to find something with opportunities for self-actualization and changing the world, but honestly I’d be grateful right now to pay the bills and know I have a consistent place to go each morning. In the moments before the interview, this position is starting to sound really, really good.

Reality check: reserve judgment and don’t get too invested. I have to walk a fine line between my naturally high level of enthusiasm and the reality that this may not happen. I am yearning for that moment when someone finally tells me “welcome, you’re in,” but I have to protect myself from the bitter disappointment of another rejection.

And in my back pocket is the possibility with my current contract position. I have been spending several months doing this work, hoping for a permanent home.

I am not happy about this constant state of uncertainty, but have accepted it for now. It may actually make me a stronger candidate, with a more realistic perspective on the market and a higher tolerance for risk. Today, though, I settle into the safe expectation that nothing will happen and nothing will change…but secretly have high hopes.

Readers, how do you prepare for the outcome of an interview? Share your stories in the comments section.

It’s funny how the job search can be such an emotional roller coaster. After months of networking, online applying, and soul searching, I received a call the other week from a recruiter asking if I could meet to discuss an opportunity. The meeting went well; in the recruiter’s mind I was a good fit for the role and getting an interview set up would be the next step. The next day, I got a call from the recruiter informing me that earlier in my search I had applied for this job and was deemed to not be a fit. Needless to say I was a little bummed.

Then, no more than ten minutes into my self-pity party, I received a call from a company wanting to schedule me for an onsite interview — my first one since being laid off in June. It was good to know that someone found value in me. While preparing, I received an email inquiring about my interest in another position. This one also sounded like a great opportunity. Last week I went to the interviews, and both went very well. The company I am really interested in has asked me back for a second.

In addition to my face-to-face interviews last week, I had a phone interview for what also sounded like an interesting role. I also have another phone interview scheduled for this week. Lastly, I just received a message from another company expressing interest in my background. Who knows if anything will pan out from any of these opportunities, but the activity is more than many people are seeing. Whatever happens, the responses are a positive thing. I just hope the level of activity keeps warming up for me and for all of us.

Readers, have you found that there’s a recent uptick in job leads? Share your stories in the comments section.