Riddle me this: what do the most common question asked at a dinner party, the biggest defeatist sigh of a generation, and the greatest quagmire of all time have in common?

They’re all bad questions.

We’ve already discussed the dinner party question and how it’s more of an invitation for a statement. The greatest quagmire of all time (“What is the meaning of life?”) took a whole movie to answer. And the defeatist sigh? You know you’ve heard it over and over again.

Why can’t I get a job?

I know that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but MAN does this one come close. You can give yourself any number of reasons why you can’t get a job, and not one of them will change the situation. What you should be asking is, “What can I do to get a job?” or “What can I do to get a job that I haven’t done already?“

Moping around doesn’t help. Instead, come up with proactive questions that can help you find the answer.

I hate to blame the Internet (again!), but with the instant answer-getting abilities of the World-Wide Web at our fingertips, it is easier than ever to find answers to just about anything. But while asking questions can be easy, answering them correctly can be more difficult.

You might have to dig deeper and ask more questions to really get an answer to your personal unemployment conundrum: What steps have you not taken to get a job? Are you keeping your search too narrow? Only using two or three search sites? Limiting your applications to one communication method? Not preparing for an interview?

So why can’t you get a job? It’s because you asked the wrong question.