EditorialsBy Matt Bud, Chairman, The FENG

It has only been since about the time of the American Revolution that sailors have had the technology available to find their exact location on the face of the earth. Although determining your latitude was possible (those are the lines that run around the middle of the earth like the equator), knowing your longitude, or how far East or West you were, was simply not possible.

What sailors did before that time was sail down to the appropriate latitude and then sail East or West and hope they didn’t arrive at a landfall in the middle of the night or in a storm. Alas, this happened all the time and many lives were lost. If you would like to learn more about the “search for longitude” there is a 6 part series on YouTube that you might enjoy watching. Just use the key words: “Lost At Sea: the Search for Longitude”

After the discovery of a solution to the “longitude problem,” an accurate clock or chronometer, a sextant and a book of tables were all you needed to find your exact location once this solution became practical. Of course, you also needed to know how to use them. This took a lot of time and training. I was once considering the purchase of a sextant, but thank goodness Loran was available in the 1980’s when I began sailing. Now, of course, everyone enjoys the benefit of GPS (Global Positioning System). (Even you dirt dwellers.) Thank goodness I didn’t bother getting an Excedrin headache trying to absorb this knowledge.

The advantage of GPS is that you don’t need the sun or the stars. Even in a fog, you can determine exactly where you are, and you can navigate to a destination. If visibility is low, you just have to go slowly and watch for other boats, but at least you won’t hit any rocks.

The lesson to be learned here is that it is awfully hard to get to where you want to go in this world if you don’t know where you are. And, if you want to get to a particular destination in the shortest amount of time, it pays to use all the technology you have available, and to learn how to use it effectively.

When it comes to job search, I have found that many of our members have not learned how to take advantage of the latest technology. Things as simple as adding an outgoing signature to their emails so everyone will know who they are seems to be beyond their capabilities.

I also find that some members have not taken the time to read a few job search books like Rites of Passage by John Lucht so they will be better able to navigate the shark infested waters we all seem to be living in these days.

But, what is worse is that some of our members have not figured out how to use our Member Directory Search feature, available at no extra cost on our website. They are either too embarrassed to ask or are unaware of the “GPS” nature of this powerful tool for navigating the uncharted waters of job searching.

There are many useful documents just waiting for you out on our website: recent newsletters, model resumes, and a few other things. But, the most important tool out there is our Member Directory Search feature.

You can remain lost at sea if you want to, but our membership directory is the key to your connecting with other members. You have access to our entire 40,000+ membership through our Member Directory Search feature.

Hopefully you don’t need a sextant or GPS to find our website.

Regards, Matt

Comments are closed.

OUR SPONSORS:

cfo