Part 1: Surviving the Employment
1. The best advice one heard about dealing with unemployment was that, for the unemployed, finding a job is their full-time job. Amen to that. Whenever you are unemployed, wake up in the morning, shower, get dressed, and get going. New doors to knock on and new people to meet.
2. The next best advice: Be open minded about any opening, anywhere and work on talking to as many people as possible within the niche you are aiming at working in.
3. Meet people: Networking events, gym, bar, social media, chat...and drop information about you being in-between jobs somewhere in the conversation. You don't have to start out all desperate. You are just an interesting, useful, and valuable person who is available at the moment.
4. Doing free stuff gets people jobs: Volunteering, internships...teaching is a great way to let people know about your skills (and also to meet new people). This also keeps you busy.
5. Learning new things, news skills also keeps you busy. The employers may look favorably at your initiatives while you were unemployed. Also tone up on the 'soft skills': better communication, better negotiation and persuasion, better writing (business writing, online writing, clear, concise and persuasive writing etc), be more likeable, etc. Learn the shortcuts people use in your line of work. Learn to be more productive (time management, to do list, prioritizing tasks etc). Read up on business skills such as leadership, accounting etc. Get some tech skills (basic coding, getting better at internet search etc.)
6. Smarten your job hunting: Have multiple versions of your resume ready, do minimum editing is done when you apply for a particular job. Maintain a spreadsheet listing all the jobs you applied for, how many responses you got and so on and which ones got you better interviews. Stay on top of industry news.- Just use Google news and Twitter search. Beware of the scam promising thinks like 'work from home' Read up on it. And never search for ideas on 'making money', you will mostly come across hucksters selling guides, videos and 'packages' on making money.
7. Go over your resume: Make it up to date, using all the tips you can read in the Resume guide.
8. Sometimes, resume broadcasting works: Just send out customized resumes to all the jobs you can find on job aggregator sites such as indeed.com. Regarding cover letters; Not sure they matter, so keep the, short, sweet and to the point. Sending customized resumes is a daily task, part of your current job of finding a job.
9. Improve your living standards: Treat yourself with respect and care. Make yourself stronger. Exercise. Wake up early (we already covered this before, didn't we?). Less caffeine and more water. proper amount of sleep. Think positive. Simplify your life. Cut down unimportant expenses. Learn to manage your hard earned money better. Discover the power of compounding. Learn from examples of faced people who faced hard times and came out a better person.
10. Do your own thing: Take up a small side project- business, freelancing etc.. Small because it will be easier to manage and learn, and the downside is not that severe. Hopefully, one day the learning will go more serious about having your business. It will also improve your business skills.
Persist and you will win one day soon. All the best.
Part 2: Surviving a job loss / firing
Nothing bad’s going to happen to us. If we get fired, it’s not failure; it’s a midlife vocational assessment.
- P. J. O’Rourke
Job loss tip#1: To turn your job firing to your benefit, ask the boss for a candid feedback
Get an honest (and private) feedback about your performance. You will learn why you were fired and what you can do to improve.
Job loss tip#2: Don’t sign the severance agreement while in a state of shock
They will try to make the best of our situation, pushing the agreement for us sign, while we are too busy registering the sudden job loss. Most such severance agreements are negotiable. See if you can get the best deal as you go. Read anything carefully signing.
1. Reasons people get fired most of the time:
- They are not performing at their job.
- Their job has been made redundant (outsourced, merged with another job role, etc.)
- Chronic absenteism and other misdemeanors on the job, despite multiple warnings.
- Disloyalty: Wanting to take the boss's job (and the boss is very well placed), gossiping negatively about the boss/company, failing to follow company line or policy, blaming the boss for failures, hiding important information from boss/company, etc.
2. What to tell the family?
You can get away with not telling your family about the loss of job for a while, if you are able to get a new job quickly. But over a long duration, you will find it difficult to bear the daily train and tension- how long can you pretend to go outside or make excuses?
When we don't tell our family about our job loss, we are also internalizing all the unnecessary guilt. People get fired all over the world, often for no fault of theirs.
By withholding such critical information, we also let go of the chance to get support from our family, as well getting closer to them in this moment of crisis.
3. Practice positive thinking after job loss: Don't fall into a cycle of despair
Each day, regularly stop and evaluate what you're thinking. If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, try to find a way to put a positive spin on them.
An example of typical negative self-talk and how you might apply a positive spin:
Negative self-talk: I've not done this before., It's too hard, There's not enough time.
Positive spin: I can learn something new. I'll try a different way or break it down into smaller steps.
If any of the following habits seem to apply to you then try to stop them.
Filtering: you magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out the positive ones.
Personalizing: when something bad happens, you automatically blame yourself.
Catastrophizing: you automatically anticipate the worst.
Polarizing: you see things only as either all good or all bad.
Try these effective and positive activities:
- writing letters of gratitude and thank you notes,
- counting your blessings
- practicing being optimistic
- performing acts of kindness
- meditating on positive feelings toward others
- using your signature strengths
The world continues to offer glittering prices to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords.
- Frederick E. Smith
Thank you for reading.
This guide is from The Success Manual, which contains 200+ guides to succeeding in business, career and personal life. Get the pdf ebook for $12 only.