Most people, when faced with redundancy, feel upset, scared, anxious, shocked, powerless. Like any loss, the loss of job and the status quo and security that come with it, is deeply upsetting. However it is possible to see redundancy not as the end, but as a door into a new beginning. A balanced, happy life and a fulfilling career are both possible post-redundancy. Here are some tips on turning your mindset over:
- Give yourself time and space: After any type of loss, we experience a grieving process. A job loss is not an exception. Allow yourself to grieve, instead of rushing into job search and making costly mistakes that can lead to demoralizing rejections.
- Assess your position: As you emerge from the grieving process, you should start to get clear on where you’re at and how you can proceed from there. Assess your financial position, create a budget and make a contingency plan. Getting financial considerations sorted now will allow you to focus on the job search more effectively later.
- Think about what you want to do next: When deciding which job or career to go for next, don’t make any hasty decisions. To end up in the right role, you must really know yourself and what you want to do. Consider your strengths, passions and hobbies and match them against any criteria or constraints that will affect your career choices. From there, you can start to figure out some suitable career options.
- Consider using a career coach or counsellor: If you get stuck on identifying suitable career options or feel a lot of fear about making a wrong choice, you might benefit from working with an expert who will help you to get clear on where you want to go. At Expert Factor, we will support and advise you in taking control of your life and career, without making the decisions for you.
- Use other sources/resources: If you’d rather not work with a career coach, there are plenty of career advice books and eBooks on the market that you might find useful.
- Be in great shape for a job search and transition: We have all heard this one: finding a new job is a full-time job. This is why it’s vital to be fully prepared for your job search before launching into it. Create a personal workspace at home, update your CV and attend networking events. Take care of yourself physically and mentally, eg exercise, meditate, eat healthy food. All that will boost your stamina. Don’t forget to socialize: don’t become a loner who deprives himself/herself of all pleasures of life.
- Don’t be shy to tap into your existing network: Although attending network events and finding new contacts is a useful foundation for any job search, don’t neglect to tap into your contacts for help. They might surprise you with who they can introduce you to or what information they can give you about an employer or industry.
- Research industries, roles and companies: If, by now, you have an idea of what types of work you want to do or what kind of company you want to work for, it’s time to research your ideas. As well as speaking with your contacts, use the Internet, go to the library to read relevant books and consider doing some volunteer work/internships to find out more about a job or organization.
- Don’t rush job applications: when you’ve done some thorough research and you know which roles you’re going to apply to, don’t rush the applications. Tailor each one specifically to each particular role you’re applying to, instead of turning them out according to a single template. Lots of job applications don’t necessarily mean lots of job offers.
- Stay positive: No matter how well prepared your job applications are, you are most likely to get some rejections. Always try to remember that this doesn’t reflect badly on you as a person – perhaps the role just wasn’t right for you or the employer was only advertising it out of legal obligation. Stay positive and don’t give up at the first hurdle. By persevering and being confident in what you want to do and about who you are, you’ll find the right role for you and may come to view your redundancy as more of a new beginning than a very sad event.
More about positive mentality and how it can help us create new jobs in my next posts. Stay tuned!