12 Tips to Handle a Job Loss

The following strategies and guidelines will help develop a healthy and successful approach to handling job loss.

Janet Andrews:Contributing Writer
Strategic Career Coach & Executive Resume Writer
http://www.andrewscs.com/

o Know that identity, self-esteem, friendships and financial security all are affected at the same time, especially if there was no warning. Before moving into action, reach out and talk to others about what happened and how you have been affected.

2. START A JOURNAL

o Writing helps let go of emotional baggage, achieve closure and prevents bringing negativity to networking meetings and the interview.

3. DEVELOP A STRONG NETWORK

o Contact friends, families and mentors who care about you and can provide positive feedback and support along the way.
o Let others be involved in encouraging you to attain your goals by letting you share your process and your progress.

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4. CREATE A PROFESSIONAL IMAGE

o Create a look of success by dressing above the position you are interviewing for.
o Express self-confidence by good posture, receptive body language and eye-contact.

5. ADOPT A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

o Make a conscious effort to focus on the positive side. Could this loss bring a welcome change in your career and create new, unexplored opportunities?
o Visualize yourself in a new job attaining all of your career and financial objectives.

6. PLAN A SELF-MARKETING / NETWORKING STRATEGY

o Utilize all resources to tap the hidden job market including: professional contacts, friends, family, neighbors, alumni associations, group memberships and professional organizations.
o Determine industries and target companies, so that you are in the driver’s seat and can structure a marketing plan to reach those companies.
o Ask for people leads instead of job leads in business when you are networking.
o Pursue all referrals and be sure to thank the referral source.

7. ORGANIZE YOUR TIME

o Establish a daily routine, create “to do” lists and break tasks into manageable chunks.
o Maintain a record of your calls, meetings and interviews to know when to follow-up.

8. MAINTAIN A BALANCE

o Plan enjoyable and fun activities into your schedule.
o Exercise daily and watch the waistline….
o Keep communication open with all family members, allowing feelings to be expressed.

9. DESIGN A SOLID RESUME

o Customize the resume to each position you are applying for.
o Bring out strengths to align with job requirements and highlight achievements and accomplishments.
o Exclude “references upon requests,” yet bring a list of references with you to each interview and only give them out “upon request.”

10. SHARPEN INTERVIEW SKILLS

o Role-play with a partner or Career Coach. Practice responding to open-ended questions such as: What are your strengths? Why should we hire you?
o Work on improving listening skills and maintaining eye contact. Do research on the company before each interview and develop your own set of questions to ask.

11. EXHIBIT ENTHUSIASM

o Approaching companies and contacts with optimism and zeal can put you far ahead of others.
o See your job search as an opportunity for making new networking contacts and learning about other businesses.

12. DEVELOP FLEXIBILITY

o Examine your “transferable skills” and be open to multiple career paths and job possibilities.

Janet Andrews:Contributing Writer
Strategic Career Coach & Executive Resume Writer
http://www.andrewscs.com/

Finding a new job after a layoff in a down economy takes hard work, ingenuity and persistence. You are competing with a vast sea of other laid-off professionals for a compressed bank of job openings. Seems depressing, doesn’t it? It could be, but with the right approach you can overcome the odds.

It is important to maintain a high level of energy and attention in order to achieve your goal in the shortest time possible. Eat healthy foods and exercise, take fresh air breaks, call a job search buddy, listen to music that inspires you and stay as positive as you can. Stay as organized as you can by establishing files and maintaining a calendar and expense records. Your attitude will pervade every meeting, letter, hand shake and phone call—so maintaining a realistically optimistic outlook should be part of your job search strategy.

Set aside up to six core hours a day for your job hunting activities. Overdo it and you could burn out. The secret lies not in the number of resumes you send out each day but rather in developing and following a strategy that fits today’s job market. That means using your connections, targeting companies, doing research, ferreting out the hidden jobs that never get listed, and staying current.

The job hunt process doesn’t have to cost you much. Email and electronic applications have reduced the expenses formerly associated with sending resumes. You can find low cost ways to network with local business leaders and peers in your field and conduct informational interviews. You can also network online and by phone. Friends and family may be able to help through people they know.

You could decide to go back to school and learn a new set of skills either to enhance your career chances in your previous line of work or to give you a shot at a new field where jobs are predicted to be more plentiful.

No, there’s no magic bullet, but to use a sports metaphor, you can’t win the game if you’re not in it.

1. You talk about the power of using contacts – what do you mean by that?

Leveraging contacts is quintessential in the job search. In my ebook, I emphasize the power of “weak ties” which often form the basis of the best source of contacts and ultimately job leads. Contacts are necessary online and offline for a successful job search; they are the key to getting the “inside” track about company and employment information. The more contacts we have, the closer we tap into that sometimes elusive hidden job market, which is typically 70-85% in normal, economic times, and up to 90% in these troubled times.

Despite the allure of social media and the temptation to confine a job search to an exclusively electronic means, contacts represent human communication and relationship building (to quote a skill I saw listed in a job listing for a bank today). Regardless of whether the contact orginated online, inevitably, it will turn into an offline, face-to-face contact. People hire other people, not computers!

2. What’s the best method for identifying corporate “insiders”? The best method is to “think like a robber and go through the back door” by doing some real sleuthing. First and foremost, is the opportunity to elicit and solicit human contact. If that isn’t possible, tap into web sites which can provide vital information for you, such as linkedin.com, jigsaw.com (the free company data download is a goldmine and hoovers.com for company insider information.

3. How can someone address “social media fatigue” when building their online brand?

Primarily, social media does not guarantee immediate employment. It is neither a panacea nor a “cure” to replace human relationship building. Just as many career coaches and professionals caution job seekers about excessively searching online, the same applies to social networking. “Social media” fatigue can occur easily because of false expectations about what social media does. It is a viable job search tool, not a remedy or instant care for abandoning other successfuly job search techniques, such as cold calling, prospecting for job opportunities and using the telephone (gasp!) to gather leads.

Fatigue can also occur because social media is something of a sensation in job searching at the moment. Mark my words, another trend will appear! Lastly, fatigue can occur if someone uses social media to a saturation point. All the more reason to set up “Google alerts” to see what is being communicated about you or to calculate your online identity (scoped out by hiring managers and recruiters).

In the book, I allude to how one establish a health online identity, as opposed to a negative one, which is difficult to erase from cyberspace and from potential employers’ memories!

4. What alternatives do people have to building their online brand without using a blog, Facebook or Twitter?

Visual alternatives are important more than ever. Audio bites, once a swansong in branding, have been eclipsed by videos. Consumers are hungry for visual information, confirming why YouTube’s popularity is off the radar screen. A Canadian TV channel reported this morning that Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle received 120,00,00 views on YouTube this year!

Other alternative are visual resume sites (I have a comprehensive list of the major and minor players), PURL’s, which are personal URL’s that job seekers can create to be noticed by employers. and virtual business cards (mine is http://melissamartin.businesscard2.com

5. How is YouTube used for job search?

YouTube has multiple roles in a job search:

a. For example, you can watch what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for in job candidates

b. insider information on preparing for interviews, preparing a personal brand and accessing outstanding, innovative job search information

c. learning ideas about how other people got hired or promoted

d. creating a personal brand to entice potential employers

e. creating videos to establish online credibility and prove expertise

f. creating videos to demonstrate to employers that you are technologically savvy and current

6. What key trends do you emerging with social media and personal branding?

Recruiting trends. Linkedin.com, for example, contains articles about this trend. Social media is being embraced by decision makers and hiring managers because advertising revenues (particularly daily newspapers) are eroding at an alarming rate.

Growth in accessing job search information on IPhones, cell phones and blackberries.

Personal branding has alway been visible in North America since the 19th century in one shape or form. Numerous companies have used personal branding to sell their products and services. (On the front page of my web site, there’s an audio clip on how one major American donut chain has something in common with conducting a successful job search. And yes, it involves personal branding).

I also see the emergence of personal branding in the academic world.

In North America, we accept instant gratification to rule our society. Positive personal branding solidifies and quantifies a job seeker’s profile. It “clinches” the sale of a job candidate, in a current economy where 1 out of 5 Americans are jobless. (Today I learned a new term called “Q6″ to reflect the collective number of everyone who is truly unemployed, not merely the government unemployment statistics we receive regularly.

7. Where can people learn more about you and purchase your ebook?

Please visit my web site at www.careercoachingbyphone.com or follow me on twitter.com/ravingredhead (Well, being a real redhead is a personal brand of sorts!) My ebook offers essential insight for job seekers on how to leverage social media in a job search, tap into the hidden job market and learn some proven success strategies).

Since I am quite often sleep-deprived, you’ll find me loitering (just kidding) on the internet!

I am also an approved job search expert on www.careerealism.com and contribute daily to the Twitter advice project (TAP).

To get hired faster, visit me on www.careercoachingbyphone.com

Soaring to your career destination.

Melissa Martin

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