The wreckage, carnage, and detritus of 2008-2009

When I last blogged on the job market and the shock tremors it's causing you, things were a lot rosier than they seem now. In the past two months, companies and careers have been plummeting to earth like fighter planes in World War II newsreels.

If you've lost your job (especially in Financial Services or in Technology), your situation may appear more hopeless because a number of the companies that you might have targeted for your next position either have been acquired or as is the case with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, they don't exist any more.

We know that the acquired companies will be focused on integrating operations and eliminating redundant positions for the next few months. The wreckage we see is even affecting companies whose obituaries have not appeared in the newspapers. For example, you might be attempting to network with or contact someone at another firm only to find a few weeks later that that person no longer has a job.

Let's be realistic. It will take a while to replace the many jobs that disappeared in the economic mess we're experiencing.

NEVERTHELESS, this IS a time to be sure to be focused, consistent, and persistent in your networking, in your planning, and, most of all, in realizing that the best of opportunities often surface in hard times just like these.

This is a good moment for you to take a step back and ask yourself, "What do I want for the next role in my life"? Do I simply want my old job back, or a job that's very similar in perhaps a different company?

Here's a slightly different angle of approach: all things considered, does the job loss that you just experienced give you the opportunity to examine some of the things you've wanted to do but have not done because you were caught up in the daily pressure of the "urgent" while being forced to give short shrift to what is really "important" in your life and work?

I'd like for us all to think about some "what-ifs" and "maybe's" and the possibility of trying different things that might open a door to alternatives, new interests or types of work, or new paths in our personal and professional life.

For example, do we have to stay in the big city where we worked until recently? How possible is it to get away for a while, even for a few weeks, to experience some other place, find out what's going on someplace different, perhaps in the town we came from? Most of us are accustomed to thinking of "getting away" in terms of a costly vacation trip, with all the frills. What if we just packed up and went away somewhere to "smell" what life is like there, to investigate working and living in a new place?

The carnage of the financial services sector has now spread to other, very different sectors, and reading the newspapers and watching CNN, you get the impression that there's an insidious job plague racing around the country killing jobs and workplaces. This makes for a scary picture, believe me, but watching the same bad news run and re-run on all the networks, cable news outlets, and on the internet is unhealthy.

So get out. Do something. It need not cost a lot of money. Change your venue. Change your habits. Take a walk. Go for a hike. Leave the house in the AM on a nice morning and see how much you can walk and clear your head between 9 AM and 4 PM, let's say. Breathe easy. Observe your home town, your surroundings, the things you normally race past every day on the way to the train or to the expressway to get to the job you no longer have. Live a little. Talk with your neighbors. Strike up a conversation with a stranger in a coffee shop. Take some time to experience daily life in ways that you probably couldn't or didn't think of doing while you were working and watching life pass you by.

Then, and only then, can you begin to figure out where to go from here, what makes sense and is worth achieving, and how to do it.

Work AND Life--- a word to the wise

In our society, the biggest challenge is to focus on your life, your family, and your "outside-of-work" activities with the same diligence that most of us use to focus on our jobs and on our work assignments.

Sure, work pays the bills, but "jobs" and assignments come and go. There are no guarantees and nothing is permanent in work life. Furthermore, it looks as though we'll all have several careers and a number of jobs/assignments/projects in our future.

So it makes sense to invest ourselves just as fully in things that are not work-related and which help us attempt to achieve some balance and respite in our lives and to focus on our families, activities, and outside interests.

There is a saying: "You have your kids only once, and then they're gone." And it's the same way with family,friends, and our "outside-of-work" activities. Unless we cultivate them the way we cultivate our work and work relationships, we risk running on empty.

Lost My Job! What Do I Do Now?

When Change Happens, and You Need to Find a New Job!

Three in the afternoon on Friday, your boss calls you into the office. The news either hits you like a ton of bricks or you’ve been expecting something like this because of all the rumors. “The company has eliminated your position. The Head of HR will walk you through the procedures. I wish you the best of luck.”

That scene is replayed every week somewhere in our “world of work.” Cost-cutting, outsourcing, redeployment, restructuring--- it goes under many names. But today it hits you. What do you do?

Here’s the plan for success that I recommend to my clients.

Step back and think. This is your opportunity to take stock and decide what you REALLY want to do in your next role in life. Figure out if you want to change fields or try your hand at a different industry. Perhaps you’re intrigued by the thought of living in a different town or region. This is the time to research and figure that out.

DON’T jump at the first thing that comes up unless your financial situation demands it.

Write your resume. Most job seekers haven’t updated their resume in years. Focus on what you can contribute to an organization. Emphasize accomplishments and results, especially those that can be quantified in dollars or in percent improvement (of sales, time saved, cost reductions).

Be terse.

Use short sentences that get to the point. If you’ve met or exceeded goals, make that prominent. Avoid focusing on “X” years of experience in a field. Employers want a sense of what you will do in the future. I recommend writing your resume under guidance and with feedback, but YOU must write it and internalize its contents.

Show your resume to others. Ask for their candid feedback. Writing a good resume is about re-writing. Make it the best expression of your capabilities.

Prepare your “elevator speech.” Imagine you’re on an elevator with the person who has the power to hire you, and you have only until the 10^th floor to grab that person’s attention. Develop and rehearse that 45-second description of you so that you can deliver it impeccably, in any situation.

You can't do that in five seconds, and you won't have five minutes to do it. So go for the 45.

Research the companies/organizations/areas of the country that interest you. Read online annual reports and press releases of specific organizations that you think you'd like to work for. Check the names of officers and members of the board. Anyone there that you know or are somehow connected to? Keep a file of the most interesting ones. Try to work them into your portfolio of useful contacts.

Develop your “portfolio of useful contacts.” This is the art of networking with others. You should develop and maintain your contacts the way you watch your portfolio of financial assets, for they are just as precious.

Tell your story to friends and associates, to the people with whom you coach the soccer league. Those contacts are always willing to help, but you need to guide them in how to help you. It’s critical to remember that you do not ask these people for a job. You ask them for information and for other contacts that help you broaden and enrich your circle of networking contacts. Always remember to ask if there is some way that you can help them as well.

Practice interviewing. Meet with some of the contacts. Tell your story. Give your elevator message. Ask for feedback. Ask where they may know of opportunities for you. Ask each of them for the names of three other people who might help you and ask for their referral. In between meeting with people, practice your interview skills with friends, your spouse. If alone, practice in front of a mirror. But practice. Get comfortable with it.

Develop a tailored cover letter. When applying for a job or following up on a referral, write a brief letter with POW! You need to market yourself in a couple of brief paragraphs that get the reader’s attention. DO NOT parrot your resume. Your letter should state how you will follow up to schedule a meeting or conversation with the recipient. Then you keep that commitment.

Follow every contact with a thank you letter or email. People remember those who follow up and are consistent. That is often a reliable predictor of how you might work with them.

Looking for a job can be daunting, whether you’re 22 or 52, but, in my experience, when you start with a plan and follow the plan, you increase your success in immeasurable ways.

Good Luck and Good Hunting!