Ed. Note: Anita Bruzzese is a careers syndicated columnist for USA Today and writes the super successful career blog, 45Things. She has a burning issue about jobseekers and wanted to pass it along to WWDS readers.

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By Anita Bruzzese, special for WWDS

When you’re a journalist, you get used to hearing “no” a lot.
No, you can’t have those records.
No, you can’t talk to the CEO.
No, we don’t want to comment.

It’s enough to make you feel defeated. But on the contrary, journalists get so used to hearing “no” that it doesn’t faze us much. That’s because we know that “no” just means “try something else.”
That’s something I used to take for granted. I used to think that the training I received to be resourceful was just part of my job. But now I know that being resourceful is much, much more. As a syndicated columnist for 17 years for Gannett/USAToday.com on career and workplace issues and the author of two career advice books, I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve talked with who don’t understand that there is life after “no.”

It sort of reminds me of the people who are interviewed after a disaster or tragedy. “I never thought it would happen here,” they all say, looking stunned and confused.

But it has to happen somewhere. Just like someone has to lose a job. Someone has to be denied the raise, to lose out on the promising job or to see the end of a 20-year career.

Since last fall, many people have been flummoxed when their careers fell apart or they lost their job. When their turn came for the disaster to land on their doorstep, they didn’t have the slightest idea of how to recover or how to rebuild. What’s worse is that even when they had been warned – just as if tornado sirens were blaring – that the industry or job was in trouble, they took no action. They remained frozen, refusing to accept that the house was finally going to fall not on someone else – but on them.

That lack of action has come back to haunt many people. Instead of seeing “no” and trying to find another path, they ignored what was going on. They didn’t call on their own resourcefulness to try and find answers.
Still, I don’t think this lack of resourcefulness lies squarely on the worker. Some of this, I believe, is a result of companies removing resourcefulness from their workers. Journalists are used to hearing editors yell, “If you don’t know, find out! And don’t come back until you do!” We’re trained to look for every means possible to find our answers, and that doesn’t mean just using the Internet. We know how to ask questions, where to look for answers, how to think of creative and unconventional ways to tap into knowledge bases, whether it’s government records or the human mind.

Employees have been, for decades, told to toe the company line. Their objectives and goals have been determined by managers. They have been reprimanded – perhaps even fired – for stepping outside the box that was created by others. As for those companies who urged employees to “think outside the box” or “push the envelope”? Workers knew the reality: They were really supposed to do and think and say what the manager told them. To do otherwise was career suicide.

Now, when we need resourcefulness the most, it is a skill that must be relearned and reintegrated into our lives. We have to learn to ask questions not for someone else, but for ourselves. We need to get comfortable with seeking information and piecing together a roadmap not gained just by what Google tells us. We have to use patience and dogged determination.

That means you find out who to call when you want to learn about a new career. You find sources that will tell you what jobs are expected to grow in the next decade. You find out what online courses are offered to beef up your resume. You figure out what resources your community offers and how your alumni association can help you in your job search. You must stop thinking that if it’s not sitting in your e-mail “in” box, the answer isn’t out there.

Being resourceful is something you must learn, and something you must never let go of again. You don’t need the Internet to get a job, but it helps. You don’t need a personal contact to get a job, but it helps. You don’t need a perfect job history to get a job, but it helps. All of it helps put together the story of your career, and where it will go. If you don’t know the answers, don’t stop digging until you find them.