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Do You Need a Job Search Buddy?

A person typing on a keyboard.

We’ve written before about how one community got together to create a job search support group, where members shared their frustrations, successes, and advice with their fellow job seekers. However, if you can’t connect with a group of people to help get you through a tough job search, perhaps you can get the support you need from a job search buddy.

Over on Come Recommended, Andrew Lisa lists the benefits of having a job search buddy. This person isn’t necessarily a close friend—in fact, according to Andrew, it’s best if your job search buddy isn’t your friend as it will become too easy to just hang out. Instead, the person holds you accountable and gets you through awkward moments of job seeking:

"Finding a job search buddy used to be a common thing. People even took out classified ads in the paper, desperately seeking someone — anyone — to go through the long, frustrating process of job hunting with them. Someone to run your resume by, someone to share the leads they came up with that day, someone to call at 6 a.m. and not stop ringing until you answer to tell you that unless you get out of bed, you’re going to wake up unemployed again tomorrow."

Read the rest of his advice here.

While having support is never a bad idea, this seems less like a support system and more like a professional service you might pay for. That being said, one benefit of having a job search buddy who doesn’t know you well is the more objective point of view you might receive on your job search tactics.


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by Allison Jones

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