This is a story about hairspray.

Well, not really.

But it serves as a great metaphor for a job search.

This morning, as I was getting ready, I was exhausting the last little bit of the hairspray can as I readied my hair.

You know that moment- when you are shaking the can, trying to get the spray nozzle to empty that last annoying spritz that you can hear jiggling inside.

As much as I wanted to get that final amount out, the can was not cooperating and instead just spraying empty aerosol at my head.

Finally, I called it. And reached for the new can.

In a job search, this can also be the case. Sometimes, it is best to reach for a new direction.

If we keep trying to squeeze one more result out of something that is not yielding the results that we desire, we are wasting our time and energy.

We know that we’ve reached the end of the road with one direction in a job search, and now it’s time to reach for the new opportunity that is much more rich with possibilities.

If you are doing everything right in a job search including networking, having a polished resume, and focusing your efforts on a specific area, and you keep running into dead ends, maybe it’s not you.

Maybe it’s the job search direction you are going that isn’t producing the jobs you want.

Maybe that career direction is going the way of the ancient dinosaur and it’s time to call off the search for openings in that area.

Necessity is the mother of invention, the saying goes, and sometimes, it is necessary to move away from things that are fruitless endeavors in a job search.

So if this situation sounds familiar, quit shaking that empty hairspray can hoping you’ll get the final spray out, and move on to more fertile ground.

It’ll help you get the results that you desire in a job search.