If you’ve been looking for recovery jobs for awhile, it’s quite possible that you’re frustrated. But are you acting desperate and displaying actions that seem bizarre enough to garner negative attention? If this is the case, you aren’t doing your job search efforts any favors and could be undermining your future prospects as well.

Are You Displaying Desperate Recovery Jobs Search Behavior?

Most people will agree that desperation is a turn off while being assertive and pro-active is generally appreciated and awarded.  However, many of us don’t see or notice when we cross that line into cuckoo land and are inches away from boiling bunnies.  It’s a process.  So, if you have been at a job search recovery jobs for awhile and haven’t been having luck, you may have gotten close to, or crossed, that line.   What sort of behavior is considered to be “over the line” and desperate job seeker behavior?  Here are a few examples:

• Me, Me, Me – We’ve seen the Billboards and stories of extreme self-promotion by job seekers.  A university graduate in Pennsylvania handed out flyers on the roadside with his resume, roadside signs, television ads (expensive).  If you are spreading yourself around like confetti, you are essentially begging for ANY job and hiring managers don’t want to see that.  Instead of begging for a job, approach companies and tell them that you can “solve problems” for their business and how you can do that.
• The Follow Up – If you are following up with a hiring manager multiple times a day via phone, text and email, this is extreme.  Not only that, it’s stalking.  There is no business etiquette in any business, in any country, that says it’s ok to do this.   One follow up is sufficient.
• Interview Behavior – Acting bizarre in an interview isn’t going to help your case.  It may make you memorable but not in a good way.  Telling a hiring manager that you’ll “do anything” to get a job is a bad idea too.
• Becoming a Spammer – Whether you are dealing with hiring managers or just your friends, family and network that you have built up, if you are sending out mass emails to people begging for help to find a job, this is inappropriate and not likely to get you far.  Where it will likely get you is banned from some networks and crossed off a lot of Christmas lists.

In the end, there’s a big difference between being confident and believing in yourself and being obnoxious.  It’s ok to be assertive and ask for what you want but it’s not ok to act desperate and demand attention and help from people.  If you find that you are close to this line, consider the hiring manager’s perspective.  Would you want to hire someone who was behaving this way for recovery jobs?  I sure wouldn’t.