In the landmark Elks movie theater in Rapid City, S.D., 200 people have turned out for a job-search strategies workshop. The speaker asks the participants to pair off and alternate role-playing employer and job seeker. The employer has one question: "Why should I hire you?" Nervous laughter breaks out as the job seekers fumble for the right words. More than one blurts out, "I need a job!" Ginny, a laid off researcher, can manage only, "I'm good at what I do."

Ed, a $75,000-a-year telecommunications specialist who's been out of work for 10 months, wants his old job back. Unfortunately, there isn't much call for what he used to do. He needs to look at alternatives and envision a new future for himself.

At the nearby South Dakota School of Mines, 30 career consultants are discussing this problem. They wonder how to support clients who are totally unprepared for the future. "People are afraid to look for what they want" because they haven't learned to think that way, says Peggy Schlechter, dean of student services at National American University in Rapid City. "Their fear gets in the way, and they're looking for someone else to make the choices for them," she says. Another career consultant comments that many people spend more time researching a new car than on the direction to take in their careers.

What's Your Future?

Most of us are like Ed. We rely on past job titles and try to build our future out of our past, using traditional job-search approaches. In a rapidly changing world, we need to find a better way.

We must stop the job-search madness and think about our futures. "What future?" you say. "I've got a more serious problem. I've got to find a job. The future will take care of itself."

Actually, it won't. The work world is an ever-changing, dynamic phenomenon. New opportunities are being created constantly that require new skills while organizing traditional skills in new ways. Relying on your past to build your future and looking in the same places you always have for openings -- the way most people search for jobs -- won't work.

Like a powerful story or screenplay, a job search must be a focused search for something, not a random quest. Preferably, something you're passionate about. If you want only to get back on the carousel where you left off, you likely won't demonstrate enough energy to interest anyone who's breaking ground and hiring in this economy.

Create a New Blueprint

Still, it isn't surprising that many job seekers resemble the Rapid City folk. Many experts in job-search-related stress say the pressure of being unemployed often spurs people to take the least demanding course of action. They hastily crank out ill-conceived mass mailings, employ expensive resume services and make thoughtless phone calls. These tactics keep them from what they really need to do to create a satisfying future, which is to create a coherent plan focused on their future.

If you wish to stop doing more of what doesn't work and focus on what will lead you to your long-term future goals and address your immediate needs, you must understand certain principles. You then need to follow them up by answering important questions and taking suggested actions. This three-part series provides a blueprint to help you achieve this career victory, starting with three principles that can improve your short- and long-term odds of being successful.

Principle 1: There is no scarcity of opportunity.

How can there be no scarcity of opportunity when thousands of people are being laid off? The short answer is that at its most basic, a job is an opportunity to solve a problem or add value to a situation. There's no shortage of problems in the world now, and so, by definition, there's no scarcity of opportunity. What is scarce are people who know how to convert problems into tangible opportunities and to express this ability convincingly to the folks with the problems.

The longer answer is that the economy and its work opportunities come from the ground up, not from the top down. Before today's 25 million Web sites were built, only the ideas and problems involved in creating them existed. Now the Internet is the fastest growing human-communications system in the world. Use it as a model. As the Internet grew, people hooked on at different stages. What's happening now that offers you the same potential?

The $10 trillion U.S. economy employs 146 million people, up from 144 million in 2001, the U.S. Department of Labor reports. The overall turnover rate is about 20% annually. That means that last month more than 2 million jobs were filled or refilled. The unemployment rate is about 6%. The employment rate is 94%. How often do you get 94-to-6 odds in your favor? There's better than a 90% chance that in six months you'll be working. Will you choose the opportunity or will the opportunity choose you?

·         Consider the entire landscape of opportunity as your shopping field; advertised jobs are only a small percentage of the total. Don't join in or succumb to discussions about job scarcity, the bad economy, lack of responses from employers, bad luck and other negative thoughts. These fears can be paralyzing. You want just one out of the 146 million positions, and you want to be able to choose it for yourself. Choice leads to satisfaction. You can have a choice if you're willing to go beyond the scarcity myth and shift your approach.

Principle 2: Your future does not come from your past.

Job titles and descriptions, plus your accomplishments and duties, are in the past and done. They aren't meaningless, just done -- history. Your capabilities (the ability to produce fresh results) are here, in the present. And your future is . . . aimed where? You have to be able to envision your future before you can organize your skills and talents in a way that interests potential employers. Failing to create a concrete image of your future is like taking a car out for a spin, hoping to find a terrific place to go, without consulting a map or another source of directions. It's not necessarily a bad tactic, but it's an ineffective one if you're short on time or gas.

Does this mean your experience isn't useful? Not exactly. But from an employer's viewpoint, the most powerful conversation speaks to "What can you do for us now?" The nature of work changes daily for every employer linked to the dynamic economy. What worked yesterday may still show up in job-posting systems, but in the field, things have changed. You must go beyond your job title or academic degree. As Bill Stang, a regional manager in Texas for Ford Motor Co., says: "The billion dollars we bring in next year won't be the same as the billion dollars we brought in last year. We'll have to find a hundred different ways to keep our dealers on top and our customers happy. There are a lot of folks who want to slow us down. We won't let them."

Jerry Sturman, chief executive officer of the Career Development Team, a Bedford, N.Y., provider of employee-development programs, says: "I talk to so many people who just stand there with a folded-over resume and ask me to critique it. And when I ask them what they're looking for, many will say something like, 'anything in accounting,' or 'something where I can use my skills.' And then when I look over the resume, it's basically an attractive laundry list of past jobs and duties pasted together from some resume service that made its customer's past look like history warmed over. 'Like what?' I say. Sometimes they just look glum or show me their fresh-from-the-consultant objective statement. 'Did you write that?' I ask. 'I helped,' they say."

·         Without a clear target or set of targets, the average candidate (and resume) has little chance of cracking the job-search code successfully. A job target is a work direction that combines skills, capabilities, interests, passion, and values aimed at potential employers who value themselves and what you can accomplish with them. Creating a target is the first step in your 21st century career.

A job target isn't a dream job or a fantasy. It's a description of how you want to use your best to produce your best. The job or jobs you target by thinking clearly and with an open mind likely are those that are most "right" for you -- they fit you, but not necessarily someone else.

George Thatcher, a former chief executive officer in Connecticut and a world-class skier and gifted pianist, quit following a buyout of his company. He didn't limit his vision of what to do next and eventually opted to become a mail carrier in a small town in Colorado. He loves the exercise, people and time he spends on the slopes with his family and at the keyboard. Even if offered, he wouldn't accept the postmaster position. Brave or stupid? You decide.

·         Mix and match skills, capabilities, values, interests, family, and environment. Play with the pieces. Brainstorm 50 job possibilities that would fit the matches. Go after three or four of them at once.

Principle Three: Your resume is more than a document.

Your resumes (and cover letters) make up a compelling set of communications that promote your job targets to people who can fit what you're offering with what they need -- even if it doesn't match their posted job opening.

Targeting your future when preparing a resume will bring out your deepest feelings and vision of yourself. It's common to get resume phobia. Says Gordon Davis, a cartographer in Silver Springs, Md., "I can't even write a letter to my mom without repeating myself. How can I describe 10 years of 50-hour weeks in two pages or less?"

Create a strategic resume. Challenge yourself to look beyond the labels or certificates you received from your family, school or colleagues. Instead of relying on former titles and functions, you may have to deconstruct each job to get to what you did and how you did it. This activity will pay off, so don't give up.

Many pressures and assumptions can cause you to panic, get someone else to prepare your resume, make useless mass mailings, or jump at the first offer. The decisions and actions you take now will set the stage for your quality of life and livelihood for years to come. Don't farm out your future.

·         Quick Resume Tips