Assess your job situation and get creative!

Going into work day after day not knowing if the axe will fall and you will be made redundant is a fearful and stressful time for most.

You may hear rumours for some time, there may be signs that  the company isn’t as busy as it used to be or it can come ‘out of the blue’: to you or your colleagues. If it’s not you this time there may well be a nagging feeling that you may be next.

It happened to me several years ago when I was an Account Director for direct marketing at a global advertising agency. It’s well known in that industry that your job is only secure while you and your clients are contributing to the bottom line. Mine were but only short term and there wasn’t much in the pipeline so my redundancy wasn’t a complete surprise.

I’d kept in contact with ex colleagues I liked, shown an interest in what they were doing, had already let them know I was looking for a change and got a contract to do work for one of them within a month.

And, thinking about it, years before that when I was out of work I phoned a guy who ran a telemarketing bureau and who I’d consistently failed to sell advertising to some time before (he finally admitted he had a watertight contract at very advantageous rates with a competing publication that precluded him using ours).  We’d met once and I hoped he’d remember me.

He did. Whilst he didn’t know of anything going that would pay me what I was used to, he told me about a 2-week job at a fledging institute. He suggested I call the company’s Marketing Director if it was of any interest to me…

That 2-week job lasted 2 years and led to me meeting someone who helped me create my next job in his company.

Here’s another bit of data for you

I worked as an employee for many years at varying roles in different companies before I gradually clarified and had the nerve to follow my passion.

I’ve just checked up and realised that the last time I got a job (that lasted more than 3 months) by responding to an advertised vacancy was in 1982 – 27 years ago.

I don’t particularly remember what the economy was like then but there were a lot more jobs overtly on offer than now.

So my suggestions are

  • Know what you enjoy and are good at
  • Understand your value and what it could mean to somebody else
  • Practise how you can best express that to the market
  • Actively seek out opportunities rather than waiting for them to come to you
  • Be prepared to be flexible
  • Never expect it but get used to rejection as part of getting what you want and need

Get creative!

Already redundant? Think practical!

First: Remember it’s the job that’s redundant not you, the individual.

You may need to take down to earth action while you’re working on your star role and future you.

I came across these two contributions elsewhere and thought they might help you think creatively and seek out opportunities:

“I am looking for full or part time work, permanent or contract. I have a masters degree and 20 years experience and I can’t even get a response to the jobs I apply for…”

“I’ve got two part time jobs and am earning 30% more now than when I had a full time job. My advice would be to contact companies directly asking about part time vacancies…”

What’s the difference in the two approaches?

What can you learn from them?

How can you apply your learning to your own situation?

Facing redundancy? Be bold! Think BIG!

In the words of Mary Oliver:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Wow: That’s huge!

Yet strangely, it’s probably more apt now, in this economic doom and gloom that’s poised to suck us right down with it, than at other time for the past 70-odd years. And if you’re facing change, with the threat or reality of redundancy, now is as good a time as any to really take stock:

What do you want?

In the words of the Spice Girls – old hat now, yet still holds true – What do you really, really want? Or, to put it another way:

Where do you want to be?

Hint: “Somewhere warm and sunny with good health and enough money” is nice and fluffy but fluffy doesn’t do it… So, to help you along you might want to ask:

What do I want to achieve

Why is that important to me?

How important is it to me?

Maybe don’t think how you’re going to do it at this stage because that tends to hold us back and make us think small. It’s more liberating to concentrate on the what first.

If you’re going to be the star of your own life rather than having a walk-on role in somebody else’s, what is that going to look like? How BIG can you think?