Riding the Employment Roller Coaster: Surviving a Downturn
When economic times were great (remember the “no end in sight” dot-com boom?), job seekers found themselves so much in demand that they could almost write their own ticket. They hardly even needed a resume—in many cases, it was almost a formality. Multiple job offers and “bidding wars” became commonplace.
Then the overheated bubble burst and reality roared in to replace it. Once-sought-after employees turned into commodity items in a buyer’s market. That painful adjustment to reality has gone on much longer than originally expected, and it’s impacting job seekers from entry-level to executive across virtually all industries and geographic regions. Except for isolated pockets of good news, the outlook appears doubtful for the foreseeable future.
So what should you do to improve your situation? There’s no easy answer and probably no single answer that fits everyone’s circumstances. However, you almost certainly have a number of options and resources to choose from, and you’re not necessarily limited to only one. Here are just a few suggestions:
Arm yourself with information. To quote Wendy Enelow, author of a book titled Top 100 Strategies to Recession-Proof Your Career, “You can never read enough or learn enough about career development, career management, and job search. Every book and article will give you new ideas, new strategies, new opportunities, or simply validate that you are doing the right thing. Be an educated job seeker…”
Make sure the source of your information is, as the FBI says, “credible.” Before you go out on a limb to act on the information, verify it. Get a second opinion—maybe even a third or fourth, if the decision you need to make is critical. Key questions to ask include the following: (1) What are this person’s qualifications for providing the information? (2) Does the individual have a reasonable understanding of my background and current situation? (3) What’s the worst that can happen if I take action based on the information? Or if I don’t act?
Cover all the bases you can. Look for information from a variety of locations, both online and offline. Online sites offer some excellent career resources, such as www.careerjournal.com (The Wall Street Journal electronic version) and www.fastcompany.com.
CareerJournal labels itself “the premier career site for executives, managers and professionals,” but don’t be put off by that if you’re not an executive and not planning to become one in the near future. The site presents timely, focused articles that can benefit job seekers at less exalted levels, too.
To give you an idea of what’s included on CareerJournal, here’s a short-list of articles I found in just two or three visits to the site: Eight Tips That Can Help You Land a Job; Are Tech Certifications Worth the Steep Cost?; A Collection of Bright Spots for Job-Hunting Executives; Shortage of Positions Keeps Unemployment High; Softening Economy Requires a New Look at Your Career; Tips for Jobless Pros: Focus on the Future.
Fast Company also offers articles and other resources for site visitors. One of their noteworthy features (apparently started around spring of 2001) is a series on “Hard Times, Smart Strategies: 89 Ways to Stay Fast During a Slowdown.” Article topics in this series include the following: 10 Truths About Layoffs; Smart Ways to Land Your Next Gig; How to Move Forward When You're Between Jobs; What Counts in a Job; Now Take This Job and Click It; Pink-Slip Blues; 20 (More) Ways to Slow Down Smart.
Of course, both The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company also publish print editions full of potentially valuable information, but the online versions offer a concise—and free—resource to job seekers, who are often trying to stretch limited funds to the max during unemployment.
Offline resources include the sometimes overlooked but still valuable local library, particularly the reference librarian. Aside from giving you ready access to print resources, including the Gale Directory of Associations, the library can, in many cases, help you obtain significant information electronically. For those who don’t have a computer at home, it can also provide an opportunity to conduct job research online at no cost.
Strike a Balance. This applies to several aspects of job searching. To start with, look for a middle ground between unbridled optimism and unrelieved depression over the current state of the economy and the job-hunting situation. Too much of a high-hope attitude not backed by realism can set you up for a roller-coaster ride big-time. On the other hand, the pessimistic views so widely expressed these days, if you accept them as inevitable, could convince you that your search is doomed to failure and paralyze your ability to take appropriate, assertive action.
Evaluate Potential Problem Areas. This can touch on a wide variety of issues, such as financial, educational, geographical, physical, and emotional. For example, if your industry is riding the downward slope of a “maturity hump,” you might consider shifting to a related or totally different industry. Deciding factors could include how transferable your skills are, possible barriers to entry (e.g., specialized experience you don’t have or a starting salary so low you can’t live on it), and whether you can network your way to people who are in a position to mentor you and help you break into the field.
Create and Execute an Action Plan. Start by looking at problem areas you can control, to see if you can, for example, find a realistic way to live on less than you’ve been doing, at least for a while; team with other job seekers to share resources not readily available to one person; identify an unmet need you can fill using skills or knowledge you haven’t really tapped into in the past.
Determine which areas you can and should focus on, then outline the steps necessary to tackle them and the support required in order to take effective action. For instance, if you’ve decided to increase your qualifications by returning to school or to “bite the bullet” and transfer into a new field at a lower salary, you may need the emotional and financial cooperation of family members to make it happen. Securing that backing belongs in an early stage of your action plan.
Whatever plan you come up with should be viewed as a “work in progress” (subject to change) all the way to your next job—and beyond. Even if you overcome the initially targeted issues and land an acceptable new job, other issues could still require attention at some future point. In career management, complacency is never a wise idea. You can increase your chances of a disaster-free ride on the employment roller coaster over the long run if you stay alert and make smart moves at the right time.
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