Complacency damages your career more than lack of qualifications. The most obvious roadblock youll encounter on the race to find your next job is usually regrets about skills, education, and professional knowledge. However, be careful that you dont possess an inner smugness that rests on past successes. Complacency will trick you to believe that employers will find you without any effort on your part to find them. Youll be anesthetized to job search urgency by this false sense of security. Overconfidence costs you money and opportunities if you decide to sit back with a Jack Daniels and idle your time away until the phone rings. It wont.

Job seeker loses $30,000 and top management role while waiting for right opportunity. Rich Connell, senior consultant for R. L. Stevens & Associates Inc., a leading international career marketing firm headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, regretted a huge blunder he made during his earlier career adventures. I lost a high level management position and $30,000 in commissions and bonuses because of job search complacency, said Connell.

After being suddenly downsized, Connell admits several valuable months vanished while he waited for the right opportunity to magically appear. He didnt take his search seriously. These tactical errors took him out of the marketplace and off the hiring radar at the critical start of his sales career. Employers didnt know he was available. He missed a great position that was significantly more suitable and provided larger financial reward than the one he settled for because he ran out of leverage. In retrospect, I shouldve jumped right back into the market and not wasted all that time. If only I had started my search sooner and gave it more attention. Losing $30,000 and a management fast track was an expensive teacher to learn how to conduct a successful job search, he lamented.

Now wiser and more successful from the experience and lessons learned, Connell from his ninth-floor office overlooking Indianapolis, Indiana strongly encourages job seekers to not postpone a career transition to wait for non-existent perfect conditions. Dont delay your search any longer, for any reason. Get serious and get on with it, he says.

Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains. We often in hindsight, look so long and so regretfully upon the closed doors that we dont see the one which has opened for us. Use these ten tips to anticipate and plan your next job search move. Your foresight here will convert regrets, disappointments and fears into much needed fuel to strengthen your chances to reach your next career destination faster:

1.Develop a sense of urgency to move fast on opportunities. Measure the value of everything you do against the results you expect.

2.Recognize and exploit cycles and trends in your industry.

3.Update your knowledge continually through coursework, news and blog reading, and active participation in trade association activities.

4.Segment your targeted employers and focus on those who can benefit the most, immediately, from what you are selling.

5.Anticipate how you can differentiate your product (you) from every other similar product (your competition) in the marketplace.

6.Analyze your competition thoroughly through strategic market research; be clear about where youre strong and theyre weak.

7.Make a list of all the reasons why an employer should hire you. Translate them into personalized solutions, organize them by priority and memorize.

8.Identify the primary objections to why an employer might not hire you and then develop bulletproof answers to those objections.

9.Refuse to let the fear of rejection hold you back. Dont take rejection personally.

10.Never forget that whatever got you to where you are today is not enough to keep you there.

Hot career advice: Dont let other job seekers gain tactical advantage because your paralysis of analysis or inertia derailed momentum. Anything less than total commitment to excellence becomes acceptance of mediocrity.

Use career campaign foresight to continually deal with and calculate your future. By doing so youll fast forward to your next career pit stop and avoid most job hunting potholes and roadblocks. Remember: Its not about where youve been. Its about where youre headed. Be alert. Look ahead.