There are good resources but word of mouth is best in job search

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is not just a question for 5-year-olds; job seekers of all ages have come back to dreaming, inventing and wondering. Even the first wave of baby boomers — the over-60 crowd — is still exploring creative ways to answer this question.

Self-assessment is at once exhilarating and daunting. Doing it right can have a long-term positive affect on your level of job and life satisfaction. Doing it wrong or not doing it at all, by contrast, can lead you down the wrong path — sometimes for many years of your precious life.

There's fun in discovery

When I was in my early 40s and going through my mid-life "reassessment," I discovered the New York Times best-selling author, therapist and career counselor, Barbara Sher. The title itself of one of her books imparts great wisdom: "It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life After 40."

A woman once wrote to Ann Landers expressing her desire to go back to medical school. The writer was hesitant about pursuing her dream because by the time she was done with eight years of schooling and an internship. she'd already be 50 years old.

In response, Ann Landers pointed out that the woman would turn 50 years old in eight years anyway, so she might as well be a doctor when she hit that milestone. Sher believes that —» midlife is the perfect time (to follow your heart) "»when dreams for the future and experiences of the past finally come together."

Consider investing in a copy of "What Color Is Your Parachute? 2010" — the "hard times" edition. With more than 10,000,000 copies sold, it claims to be "the most popular job-hunting book in the world." For those of you willing to do the work to find your true passion and create your ideal life, Section II of the book contains the "Parachute Workbook," an in-depth analysis tool to help guide you to your true calling.

This was one of the original job-hunting manuals on the market and I used it as an undergraduate preparing to make my way in the world (more years ago than I care to admit!). I can tell you it is a powerful and effective tool and can be useful to job-hunters of all ages.

Put together a resource kit

Your kit should include a few well-chosen tools that will help you make the most efficient use of your time and keep you organized.

1. Two or three job-hunting or Career-changing manuals. Visit the career section of a major bookstore; go online to Amazon.com, search "books" with those keywords and see what pops up; do a Google search, or visit your local library. If you're not connected to the Internet at home, your local library can give you access.

2. A good "mega" job hunter's search site. Instead of visiting individual job boards like Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, why not go to a site that pulls together listings for all the major players, newspapers, professional associations and even company career centers? I highly recommend www.indeed.com.

3. Federal, state and local help. You may already be familiar with PA Career Links where more than 38,000 job openings are currently listed. The Web site www.job-hunt.org can lead you to 220 additional PA resources by scrolling down to PA in the "jump to additional state resources" box at the top of the homepage.

Think outside the box

To get your creative juices flowing, consider these ideas:

•  Form a job support group in your neighborhood.


•  Take a civil service exam for a federal job. (The library has study guides.)


•  Let your fingers do the walking in the yellow pages. Contact companies that interest you.


•  Do things the old-fashioned way and look at "want-ads" in the Sunday paper.


•  Tell the world you're looking for a job. Announce it during a meeting at your place of worship, post it at your gym, send e-mails to all your family and friends, get in touch with your college professors, and ask your former colleagues to help.

Networking and connecting face-to-face with people are the most effective ways to find a new job.

This will be the subject of my next column in two weeks. Until then, good luck.