Job Search Tip: Be “Quick To Forgive”

A while back my wife was in some training and she picked up a phrase that has become oft-repeated in my home. ”Quick to forgive.” It’s a powerful concept, easy to accept, perhaps hard to apply.

The power of forgiveness is real. As a job seeker we feel slighted for many reasons… the people who let us go, the people who don’t help us network, the people who don’t choose to hire us, the people who ________.

Job seekers work with people… and thus we have plenty of opportunity to forgive.

As you let things go, and get over them (or through them), you can put your time, attention and energy into more important things, like the task at hand. What do you need to do to move forward, instead of why are you staying held back?

Try to create a personal culture of being quick to forgive, and move on with what you need to move on to.

Finally, I can’t talk about forgiveness without suggesting that you get really good at forgiving yourself. I’m not saying create excuses for not having or achieving what you want, but don’t wallow in self-pity and feelings of failure and inadequacy. Forgive yourself, take ownership of your issues in the spirit of being willing to improve, but stop harboring unsafe and harmful feelings – towards yourselves, or others.

I can’t imagine how serene life would be if we could be quick to forgive… can you?

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Jason Alba is creator of the online job search organizer JibberJobber.com. He created JibberJobber in 2006 when he was in his own job search and realized a spreadsheet was not a good tool to organize a job search. Job seekers, consultants and even people who have jobs use JibberJobber to organize personal and professional relationships, much like a sales professional would use a CRM to manage their prospects and customers.