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Despite all you read and hear lately there is some good news. First, if you are upright that is better than the alternative. Second, bad times don’t last forever, although when you are in them they might seem like it. Third, everyone today is vulnerable from the CEO on down. If you have not been riffed yet don’t think it can’t happen. But you can protect yourself if you are prepared. Now is the time to look ahead and recession proof yourself.
Personal Risk Management
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Probability: What is the probability that I could lose my job in the next six months? Be brutally honest with yourself. This is serious business.
2. Severity: If I do lose my job how difficult would it be for me to find a new one at the same level as this one without requiring relocation?
3. Preparedness: If it happens tomorrow am I ready to cope with it? Do I have a contingency plan that I can launch immediately?
4. Mitigation: If I don’t have a plan I need to make one today. So, what do I need to do to accelerate my job search, if and when the need arises?
Activate Your Plan
The good news is two fold. First, you have lots of friends out here who are willing to help you if they can. But you have to make the first move and now is the time for it. Second, the new communication channels make it easy to inform all your contacts of your situation.
If you lost your job you know what you would do. You would phone or email everyone on your list letting them know you have just become a “consultant”…in other words; unemployed. Why wait?
If you don’t need a job yet start networking anyhow. Get on the phone, email, Facebook, Linked In or whatever channel you have. Reconnect. Ask them how they are doing. Act like you really care. Find out what is happening to your friends and colleagues. It will be good for all of you. If they are looking for a job encourage them and offer them some leads. Tomorrow you may be calling them looking for job opportunities. They will remember the person who helped them in their hour of need.
Payback Time
You know what irritates me? It is people who only contact me when they want something. They never give me any business. They never refer me to someone who might want my services. With them it is all take and no give. I had a friend who used to regularly ask me to write letters to my clients on his behalf. But when I asked him to reciprocate he fobbed me off with, “I don’t know what you really do.” When his consulting practice tanked do you think I was interested in helping him get restarted? He finally gave up and went to work in a small college doing community outreach. Today he makes about 20 percent of what he was making at his peak.
How to Do It
When you do connect don’t spend time commiserating. No one wants to spend time with a whimperer. Just connect and support each other. Talk about strategies in the event you suddenly become a consultant. Share ideas on how to get back on the corporate feeding trough. Talk about other people you both know who you might connect with. Widen the circle. You might find an opportunity you weren’t even looking for. I know a fellow who was marked for the dust bin at Lehman Brothers. In talking to friends he found a VP job in a week just a few blocks away.
Sell It
Commercials always end with a call to action: Buy now! They don’t tell you to take you time and maybe come back some day. The same applies to you. You are your best sales person. If you can’t sell you no one else can be counted on to do it for you.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking “if they want me they can come get me.” The truth is they don’t want you. They want the skills, knowledge and motivation you offer. When you update your resume, point out your attributes that fit into their needs. Solve their problems with you.
There is hope Chicken Little. Put your hat on and go see a friend. At least it will make you feel better and who knows what other good you will discover or create? As we used to say in the Great Depression, “Write if you get work.”
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