Job seekers

Businesspeople constantly talk about focus, especially after they lose it. Job seekers have a particularly difficult time maintaining focus after they've established a target. This column will discuss three different people from the East, South and West and how their ability to focus simplified their job searches. All three spent eight to nine months job hunting.John Maher, HR coordinator at EF Education First Ltd., in Cambridge, Mass., brought experience that worked for and against him. He'd been an HR coordinator for a leading multi-national luxury hotel for about a year and, after moving to Boston, worked at the chain as Club Lounge manager, where he managed six concierges."I wanted to return to HR, even if that meant leaving the bigger company I'd become a part of," he says. "In some people's eyes, I'd passed the level of professional experience to be an HR coordinator. In other people's eyes, I didn't have enough HR experience for another HR coordinator role." Seemingly random feedback about the problem made it impossible for him to see a pattern and re-target his efforts.His solution was somewhat simple -- keeping his eye on the ball and heeding the confidence-building words of his recruiter. She reminded him, he recalls, that "any organization hiring could be looking for something very specific, that not meeting their requirements" only indicates lack of fit.