It’s not easy being out of work, especially if you are a naturally “busy” person. So the question is, how do you stay motivated when you are looking for a job?

Well, some of the following suggestions come under the category of the blindingly obvious, so you will have to excuse their inclusion.

Finding a job is your job when you are not working:

Sometimes it is easy to slump into the habit of “I’ll do it tomorrow” especially when you have been out of work for a considerable length of time (of course considerable differs from person to person). The question is, what happens if you read the paper tomorrow and find that your ideal job, the one that you have always wanted, had a closing date of yesterday afternoon at 4pm. How do you think you would feel? Right – not good. Chances are that with such a tight deadline few people would have applied and would have gone to the person who had been motivated to read the paper – and apply for the position.

What happens if the closing date for your dream job is today at 4pm? Is your CV up to date? Do you have enough paper for the printer? Do you have time to run into the offices and apply in person? Or will you just scrape enough time to apply by email?

How motivated you are to find a job can make a huge difference to the way your life turns out.