I’ve been half-teasing lately with my career services colleagues that the banks and GM aren’t the only ones in need of a bailout. Job seekers should ask for one too. Why not? It seems that in today’s environment the more corporate leaders mismanage their businesses, the more attractive they are for getting bailed out by the U.S. tax payer.

So why should job seekers be any different?

It is no secret that most job seekers are ill prepared for their job search. They spend money in the wrong places. They pin their hopes on the wrong things. They have very little idea of what to expect (although they think they know it all). They try all kinds of tricks and shenanigans to make things work for them.

And then they are upset when they don’t have positive results. Or when they don’t land the career of their dreams.

I spent a great deal of time the other day trying to work with this woman in Jackson, Mississippi. She’s been searching for a job for a little less than 30 days, and she is looking for a sales position with an earning potential of about ~$150,000.

She’s frustrated. She wants the resume “fixed,” she wants the economy “fixed,” she feels victimized by her last employer, and she wants this job search over within 45 days or else…..she doesn’t know what “else” is exactly, but she really means it. It better be over in 45 days, or she is going to do something!

After talking her down off the ledge, I spent some time 1) discovering how she has been conducting her search so far and 2) figuring out where these expectations came from. As I suspected, kind of like the housing market, when people aren’t making 150% profits from their homes, then they’re suffering…

So you tell me, is my client from Jackson a victim of the economy or of herself:

When I explained to her that as a full-time job seeker, she should be sending out somewhere between 35 and 50 resumes per week (because she is only sending out ~5/week now), she told me that there weren’t 35 to 50 jobs posted in her area in Jackson each week. Her exact words were “Recruiters are telling me to wait until after the new year.”

Like most job seekers, networking and cold calling are foreign concepts to her. Instead, she is just planning on waiting around for that job to open up (within 45 days or else, of course!).

When I asked her how she was spending her 40 hours/week since now she is unemployed, she confessed that she has no idea how much time she is really spending (remember she is only sending out ~5 resumes/week). But again, there was little for her to do because Jackson, MS, doesn’t have many job postings…

When I told her the average job search time for someone making $150,000/year is about 4 months for ~40 hours/week of time spent searching, she simply recited to me all her stellar credentials. And then blamed Bush and the economy. When I told her that those stats are nothing new, and have been around for a while, she still blamed Bush.

Basically, no matter what I said, in her mind, if she didn’t have a job offer within 45 days, either her resume service ripped her off or it was all Bush’s fault.

So what am I to conclude here? You think maybe she is a rare case?

I’m afraid not.

Listen…is this a tough job market? Sure it is. I don’t think that is in dispute. But tough does not mean impossible, and too many job seekers give up without hardly trying. And most of the time, they went into the search with poor expectations in the first place.

Perhaps the oddest thing about my friend in Jackson is that, of all things, she is a sales person. She can tell you all about the sales life cycle, all about branding and product positioning, all about selling in a tough market. But when it comes to her job search, she cannot apply those same principles.

It never ceases to amaze me just how emotional the job search process is. It challenges you to move outside of your comfort zone and put yourself out there. Most people go into it kicking and screaming, on a good day. So as soon as there is something out there to blame, to latch onto as the reason for all our problems, we so easily take the bait.

Then what are we left with? Demotivation? Looking for that genie in a bottle?

No worries. The government is into redemption these days.