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About To Be Fired? Here's What To Expect.
It happens to everyone. There are very few employees around who
have who have not been let go from a job . . . or who haven't
wondered about it.
It's important to understand what can and should happen if and
when you get fired. After all,...
Characteristics of a Sought-After Teacher
When a school searches for a new teacher, they already have an image of the teacher they want. Every school has certain qualities they feel a teacher must have to be successful. Those qualities can be many things depending on the needs and location...
FORECASTING AND SURVIVING A LAYOFF OR DOWNSIZING
Dirty words for jobseekers include downsizing, acquisitions, mergers, closures, cutbacks, and layoffs. No one wants to lose their job, especially with rising gas, utility, and cost-of-living prices. Just the mention of proposed company changes has...
How to Become a Computer Consultant
Have you ever wanted to become a computer consultant, but you weren’t sure if you could cut it? Do you have a basic understanding of computer-systems, strong problem-solving skills, and a desire to help other people? If so, then you already possess...
Job Downsizing - Make The Best Of It
You're working at your family's welding business during the day,
and then go to your second job at night. You're 50-some years
old, working as a cashier at Target. You always said that if
you're 40 years old and have a career that requires you to...
Job Search Advice for Desperate Job Seekers
Another morning of job hunting lies ahead of you. You pour a cup of coffee and open the paper to the employment section. With a mixture of anticipation and desperation you pick up a stub of pencil and prepare to target and identify some possible...
Lost Your Job? Good for You!
Losing your job is a shock no matter how it happens. Fired, laid off, downsized-it's all spelled 'unemployed'. But once the shock of a job loss wears off, you might discover there can be real benefits to being unemployed By looking for the positive...
Online Job Search Techniques
There're many ways to conduct online job search. However, many job seekers only think of posting resumes and searching opportunities on big job sites like monster.com, hotjobs.com and careerbuilder.com etc. There's nothing wrong with it, but...
Teacher Interaction Skills For Misbehaved, Out-Of-Control And Disruptive Students
So many students believe that they should be in charge of the classroom and that they know more than the teacher. It can be tough to teach hard-to-manage students who think they should be in charge. Since few schools have a written game plan to...
Unemployment Blues: Take Back Control
One of the most emotionally crippling aspects of unemployment is the sense of powerlessness it engenders. Job layoff triggers financial pressures, emotional distress, family turmoil, and dashed career hopes. It is forced on us by unrelenting fate,...
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Unemployment Blues: Life Changing Events
If we are unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong
time, we experience a personal tsunami - a misfortune of
devastating proportions that sweeps away our routine lifestyle
and forever changes the world we know.
Yet despite the frequency of such events - the tidal waves of
Asia, the hurricanes of the Gulf Coast, the loss of life in the
Middle East, the wildfires and mudslides of California - most of
us are only indirectly affected. We bleed for those who have
lost everything, give what we can out of our pocketbooks and our
hearts, but our world is essentially unchanged and we move along
in our personal life journey relatively unscathed.
The vast majority of us will never undergo the wrenching jolt of
a major disaster, natural or man-made. The sheer size of the
human race insulates millions of us from the floods, the bombs,
and the mayhem. For us, the life-changing events we experience
never hit the front page. Personal, quiet disasters - divorce,
death, bankruptcy, or unemployment - change our lives forever
but remain unnoticed by all but our closest friends and family.
We pick up the pieces and try to get it together without
government or private succor and support.
It is the isolation of personal loss that is so emotional
destructive. We struggle alone to try to make sense of what went
wrong and how we can recover our equilibrium.
Others are sympathetic and wish us well but there is an abyss
between those who have a job and those who cannot find one. The
longer we are out of work, the more alienated we become. Even
those who love us start to worry that there's something wrong
with us. They start to suspect that we're not as motivated as we
say we are. Everyone has plenty of glib advice: "Have you tried
. . . ?" Of course we have -many times and always without
success. We become more disheartened as we analyze everything
we've done and realize we have tried every trick in the book and
still cannot find anything suitable.
Some of us get stuck in depression, anger, or paralyzing
anxiety. Our energy drains away and even the smallest action
becomes more and more difficult. As frustration and financial
pressures mount, we wallow in the unfairness of it all and
reminisce about how perfect everything was when we had a job and
a future and hope, wondering why all this had to happen.
As with hurricanes and tsunamis and terrorism, the victims are
not responsible for the catastrophe they face. Life-changing
events do just that - change our lives, sometimes forever.
Change can be negative, fear-provoking, and desperately
uncomfortable. But, if we look closer,
we'll see it also has a
positive face. Without change, our modern world wouldn't exist.
We would be living the way our ancestors did. And while olden
times may sound attractive in their pristine simplicity, such
times were filled with disease, inequality and a raw brutality
we could not stomach today. We need to embrace change and,
despite the turmoil it brings, look for the silver lining hidden
within the storm clouds.
Although you now remember your job with nostalgic affection,
there were undoubtedly times that you wished you could quit.
Even if you loved what you were doing, any single job position
only taps into a small part of your potential. Being forced to
make a change allows you to develop other domains of your
personal character.
Try to analyze your interests and preferences and identify
things you would like to do which have not been utilized by your
prior jobs. Can you think of an industry or a particular job
title that might allow you to move in a new direction? Think
about, and complete some preliminary research on, jobs in new
industries that you might be able to do. You may not have
directly related experience but there are common themes that
permeate every kind of work: the ability to communicate, to work
as part of a team, to learn rapidly, to be aware of details, to
organize and prioritize. If you pick an area of genuine personal
interest, you enthusiasm will clearly and naturally emerge and
that is something all employers seek.
The job hunting you have been doing may, without your realizing
it, have become routine and uninspired. The experience of
failure and the frustration of never receiving positive feedback
may have led to your merely "going through the motions," already
convinced, in your own mind, of the futility of your efforts.
Taking a new direction can open up your job search tunnel.
Instead of beating your head against the wall and revisiting
every technique and lead you've tried before, moving into a
different environment may give you a new sense of purpose and
appreciation of your own potential. That is when the positive
effects of forced change can become a new source of pleasure and
satisfaction.
About the author:
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years,
developing innovative job search techniques for disabled
workers, while serving as a Vocational Expert in Administrative,
Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive
and supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment
Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can
be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com
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