You’ve got to do more to impress the masses these days but it does not take a lot.  Common sense, simple courtesy and an ability to make an impression will drive how successful you are, not only the interview, but everything you say and do in between you and the job offer you are wanting.

Like any seasoned professional worth their weight in contacts, knowing who can help you when you need a job is vital to your long-term success no matter where you are in your career.  Creating your client list is like new business development; you need to know where the opportunities are when you go to sell your best commodity, yourself.

You may not think of yourself as a business but you should.  You are selling yourself each and every time you update your resume, pick up the phone, call in a favor, apply for a job or consider yourself for a promotion.  Don’t underestimate the power of who you are in relation to whom you know.  Developing your list of contacts and knowing how to skillfully and masterfully apply yourself to developing your relationships is key to being tapped for a job whether you are actively looking for one or not.  Remember EVERYONE is your client so begin treating people as if anyone can be a resource in helping you along the way to finding your next job.

We all need to detox from one thing or another in life.  Whether you are cleansing your system from years of alcohol, drug or food addictions or you are looking to just rid yourself of the emotional toxins that have built up from years of wear and tear, you may feel the need to cleanse at some point in your life.  One area you might want to consider purging is the emotional and physical drain on your energy and psyche caused by the stresses of work. When your work environment resembles a toxic waste dump, it’s time for a career cleanse.

Everyone knows we are in a down economy.  If you don’t, then you are either richer than rich, or have been living in a cave for the past two years.  Just because you empathize with the state of the economy, does not mean you should forfeit your worth or value when it comes to what someone is willing to pay you.  So many of you think that you may have made a certain salary, earned a certain income level in the past and you can’t or don’t deserve to ask for the same amount of money now. What’s changed? Have you gotten less experience over the years? Have you depreciated in value? Just because you may not have worked in awhile or are trying it on your own for a change, doesn’t mean you are worth any less?

Like Rapunzel in the ivory tower throwing down her long braid in hopes of a rescue, does your career feel like you need more than a prince on a white horse to help you out?  Having a job these days has become more than a blessing given the alternative.  But do you somehow feel that you are sacrificing more than you think?  Feeling trapped in your situation even though you are collecting a paycheck is not any better than not having a job-you’re tangled by your circumstances no matter which side of the braid you are holding.

So maybe you’ve been focusing on your Plan A now for quite sometime without any real momentum. Or maybe you’ve been striking out but somehow you keep thinking it’s going to come together for you any day now.  Still, you stick with it, follow through and do everything you were told would help you get a job or move up in the job you currently have but, nothing.  So you might go to a career coach, figure you might need to tweak your resume or maybe splurge for a career makeover.  Trying to stay focused on your original plan, you continue to go out of your way to make it work even when nothing is coming together for you.  Do you dare ask yourself, “Is it time to initiate a Plan B?”

It’s really not that hard to kick your job search into high gear.  Some of us get so focused on building the resume, the bio and figuring out who to include as a reference that we forget to do a few basics which really happen BEFORE the resume re-write begins. When you think about preparing for your job search you might spend all of your time preparing a killer resume and think that is all you need.  Unfortunately, a resume is only one tool in helping you present yourself to a prospective employer or a recruiter. Your job search begins with your ability to research, goal-set and prepare yourself – three ways to plug and play to you’re your career forward and find your dream job.

Sometimes you walk in cocky and so sure of yourself that you may wonder why you even need to interview for the job in the first place?  Come on already you can’t be that good?  It’s great to possess self-confidence and to be self-assured when you are handling the interview process so well, but how do you really know you are acing the interview or living up to a higher standard?

Here are five ways to know you are hitting it out of the park whether you ultimately get a job offer or not:

It’s always good to be ahead of the curve.  Pushing your way through the crowd of angry job seekers like a mob scene out of “The Walking Dead,” you have the right to want to move past the rest of the herd.  It’s not that you aren’t ambitious.  But even a hungry zombie needs a break every now and again.  When you are just plain TIRED and you’ve been at this for a while, it’s okay to just chillax your search and sit this round out.

Sometimes you feel like no matter what you do you just can’t seem to get it right.  All the resume rewrites, networking parties, email requests, introductions and you still can’t get a job offer. When the going gets tough you don’t necessarily need to get going-in the other direction. When the jobs fall through, you...