"Everybody's talking about the Y2K problem," sighs a weary-looking executive job seeker. "Well, I've got my own Y2K problem. It's called 'the Year-Two Knock.' I just started the second year of my job search, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Right now I really feel down, really discouraged. At the moment, things really feel beyond my control. I need to put something in the win column. I really need to get back to work."

Why do unemployment and job-market uncertainties bother some candidates while having little effect on others? Certainly, the strains of a protracted campaign can be tough on decisive, results-oriented managers, executives and professionals -- people accustomed to taking charge and making things happen.

"My search started out fast and furious, but then everything went flat," says a senior marketing manager. He reports losing emotional momentum and being overwhelmed with spells of anxiety.

"I came in second in two big searches," he says, "and there are a couple of other situations I just can't get off dead-center. I used to drive the action. I'm used to success. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I'm not the hot ticket I thought I was."

The marketing manager's search has dragged on 14 months. His severance has expired and he's dipping into savings, which means postponing retirement. "I'm letting my family down. This whole thing is becoming a catastrophe," he says.

Interestingly, neither of these executives worry that employers will consider their skills stale after a year of disuse or that their continuing unemployment gives them a negative aura. But an extended job search may be a warning that the job market isn't interested in your product, and you must do some reality-testing.

"There's only three things that can go wrong with a search," says Philadelphia-based career consultant David Laney. "There's either a problem with the product, with the market or with the way the product is trying to connect with the market. When the search starts to run long, you must be willing to trouble-shoot which of these issues is at the heart of the problem."

If you're frustrated by a prolonged hunt, examine when and how your disappointments occur. Are you repeatedly failing to make it through an initial screen? Are your mass mailings generating zero response? Are networking referrals refusing to make time to see you? Are they reluctant to provide names of other contacts? Are you landing initial interviews but not being invited back? Are you "finishing a close second," the most painful rejection of all?

Protracted searches call for tough self-scrutiny, not a descent into denial or wishful thinking about rescue fantasies.

Job search consultants agree there's often little connection between the length of a search and a job hunter's perceived capability. But as the clock ticks, your ability to sustain and project energy and enthusiasm may be critical to your success. This trait alone may not make the sale, but its absence can kill it.

While not clinically depressed, the job hunters mentioned above are reeling in the face of adversity. Both are aware that pessimism has begun to influence their thinking and behavior. A certain amount of pessimism may help reality-test events and spot problems. However, as a frame of reference, pessimism undermines achievement and health.

Most people don't realize that how they think about the world -- optimistically or pessimistically -- shapes their feelings about adverse events more than the actual events. Albert Ellis, Ph.D., founder of the Rational-Emotive Therapy Institute in New York City, explained this theory in his "ABC model." It states that in the face of Adversity, our Beliefs (not the adversity itself) about how the world works causes the Consequences of the negative events for us -- and whether we view them pessimistically or optimistically.

For more than 30 years, Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and past president of the American Psychology Association, has studied factors that distinguish optimists from pessimists. Dr. Seligman's research is now the basis of a program developed by Andrew Shatte, Ph.D., and Karen Reivich, Ph.D., for Adaptiv Learning Systems in Blue Bell, Pa., that teaches people how to identify alternative "explanatory styles" that place potentially depressing events into an appropriate and manageable perspective.

To avoid getting discouraged or depressed, job hunters should conduct problem-solving exercises about their situations. People first need to identify how their thinking works and its effect on the way they respond to events. To bounce back from misfortune, they have to judge the accuracy of their thinking and develop more accurate alternative views."

People prone to pessimism often have explanatory styles predicated on three P's:

1. Personalization: "This event is my own fault. I'm somehow personally responsible for my misfortune."
2. Pervasiveness: "Everything is my fault. One adversity breeds more adversity, and everything is bound to go wrong. I can't win."
3. Permanence: "This particular adversity isn't a temporary or isolated event. Things are going to go wrong forever."

However, an optimistic outlook can be learned and sustained, says Dean Becker, Adaptiv's president.

"The ultimate behavior that results from the optimistic style is something we call resiliency," says Mr. Becker. "We find that people who exhibit and practice the so-called optimistic style tend to be highly resilient in the face of adversity."

"Rather than personalizing, optimists tend to look at the outside world for causes of adversity," Mr. Becker says. "They see negative events as singular, rather than as pieces of broad-based catastrophe. And they believe that the causes of bad events are only temporary, with no lasting causes or effects."

Viewed in this light, the responses of the job hunters mentioned above differ distinctly. The executive is struggling to retain control and maintain momentum, but her outlook isn't fundamentally pessimistic. She understands that her adversity is "right now," not forever. By saying, in effect, "I've got to do something," she's affirming she's capable of breaking out of adversity. She's resilient.

The sales manager, in contrast, views himself as the probable cause of his difficulties -- "I don't know what I'm doing wrong." He experiences adversity as pervasive -- "Everything went flat" -- and he is "catastrophizing," or fearing that a bad situation will get only worse.

Mr. Shatte says the sales manager's inaccurate beliefs about the causes and implications of his adversity probably derive from one or more of seven common errors that result in illogical thinking:

0. Jumping to conclusions ("I knew it, they hated me")
1. Tunnel vision ("I lost out because my resume was too vague")
2. Overgeneralization ("All Texans hate New Yorkers")
3. Personalization ("Obviously, I screwed up")
4. Mind reading ("They think...")
5. Emotional reasoning ("They're just a bunch of jerks.") and
6. Magnifying or minimizing causative factors ("Surely, they weren't put off just because I had four martinis.").

Correcting these errors isn't simply a matter of confronting depressed feelings with rose-colored affirmations and upbeat "self-talk," Mr. Becker says. "This isn't about motivation," he says, "it's about cognition. You can read inspirational self-help books and go to pump-up seminars that teach you things to say to yourself, but it's like the joke about Chinese food: half an hour later, you're hungry again."

It's more important to master tools to affect how you think, he says. For example, the drained job seeker who's spent an hour being rejected by networking contacts he's cold-called may start to think:

"I've made 15 calls and I didn't get a single meeting. I don't even have what it takes to succeed at networking, much less handling high-stakes interviews. What if I never get a job? What if I can't pay the mortgage and we have to sell our house?"

To recognize and correct such errors in logic, Mr. Becker suggests this approach. When adversity strikes, first describe it objectively and tune into the thoughts that shape your beliefs about its causes and implications. Then identify its emotional and behavioral consequences.

"This requires some practice to learn to slow down long enough to reflect on the situation and not to fall into repetitive, self-defeating belief patterns," says Mr. Shatte. Once you've pressed the "pause button," review your beliefs to check for an error in logic.

"This is almost like going down a checklist," says Mr. Shatte. "Am I jumping to conclusions? Am I overgeneralizing? Am I personalizing and taking blame for things I really didn't cause?"

The point of this analysis is to answer: "Are the consequences of this adversity out of proportion to my beliefs?" If so, your thinking is inaccurate and your explanatory style distorted. Dig beneath your superficial beliefs to learn what's upsetting and to unearth your underlying beliefs.

To explore your beliefs, ask: What is the most upsetting part of this adversity? What does that mean to me? What's the worst part for me? Assuming my beliefs are true, why is that so upsetting? "We call this the 'Funnel Technique,' " says Mr. Becker.

Next, test the accuracy of your beliefs. Ask what alternate explanations there are. Then consider specific reasons for or against each of the alternatives.

For some, like the frustrated networker, distorted beliefs are more likely to affect your thinking about the implications of an adverse event, rather than its causes. For these individuals, the danger is of catastrophizing until this view becomes a self-fulfilling spiral of failure.

These people should ask: What's the worst that can result? What's the best that can happen? What's the most likely course of events? "The idea isn't to put a happy face on everything, but to identify and deal with the most likely implications -- not the worst case," says Mr. Shatte.

Professionals who master this technique tend to be less susceptible to the erroneous thinking and inaccurate beliefs. Generally they feel more resilient and able to head off problems or cope with adversity. This technique also can be used to help reduce anxiety before job interviews, Mr. Becker adds.

"In the job search context," says Mr. Shatte, "this is akin to mastering other skills, like resume-writing or effective interviewing. The difference is that it is a tool that can be applied any time, anywhere."