How do you tell friends who mean well to to give you the time to search? Or worse, to back off on their dated or just plain wrong job advice?

A good search takes time. If you're in a job, your time is severely limited by the time you're at work. If you're not in a job, you're challenged by time management.

So you need to have a heart-to-heart talk with the friends who constantly tempt you with evening activities, or weekends away. They bug you about being available to them, when right now you need time available to you.

How do you do this? Tell them how important your career is to you. Talk about how you need to get to your next step, but you need time to do it. And tell them that the more time you have for your search now, the sooner you'll be able to get back to just having a good time with them. Think of the celebrating you'll all do when you land your new job!

And whether or not your friend has been in a recent job search, what has worked for them may not be the right approach for you. "A resume should be only one page" is what a recent prospective client told me he'd been told by a friend -- a friend who hadn't been in the job market in over 15 years! Today's search is so different than even two years ago that even HR and hiring managers hire career coaches to help them with their searches.

So what to do? Thank your friend. Profusely. Then tell them you have only so much time to do job search activities that count, so you're following new and current advice from your career coach and you need to do this instead.

It's your search. And your time. Once that time is gone, it's gone. And opportunities evaporate. So you want to use your time well -- in ways that help you.

Job hunters often assume their best friends, and family, know what they do and what value they bring to potential employers. But often, they don't -- but won't tell you.

Learn how to help your friends help you by clicking on the link below.

From Joanne's blog:

Timing is everything. How do you get your resume into the employer ASAP? Click on the link below.

One of my favorite sayings: "There are no cat skeletons in trees...they always come down. And in the same way, you WILL land a good job!"

Some recent "landees" are Tom R. (major promotion on the job he landed through networking 11 months ago); Jason C., career changer (through networking); Mike B. (gov't admin); and Tom O. (network admin, through networking). And several people in my Face2Face Job Search Networking Group! Congratulations, each and every one of you!

As JMCS begins an 8th year in business, we want to congratulate all career-minded professionals who are paving the way to their next round of successes!