Bombarded by newscasts, newspaper articles, tweets, posts, and friendly chatter about unemployment as well as underemployment running high for many professionals and throw in a backdrop of civil unrest and countries going bankrupt; employees should take pause to consider if they have prepared for potential job loss.
Job loss and childhood anxiety
Sometimes I think back to those cold November days as a child and getting home from school to find my mother in the warm kitchen baking cookies and preparing supper and all my sisters fighting to see who would get to lick the mixer beaters clean. I never worried about food or if I would have a warm place to sleep, all I had to do was open the fridge and grab whatever I wanted. I never had to worry if the lights would stay on or if I would have a lunch the next day. I was and still am an optimist but I am also saddened by the frequent calls I get from desperate professionals seeking work who are on the verge of having the lights turned off on their kids and also losing the nice cozy warm safe beds their children sleep in. Living with anxiety is not a great childhood. Don’t let your job loss ruin even one childhood.
Career professionals not prepared for job loss
It is clear from my practice as a job search coach that career professionals are ill prepared for job loss and job search. The tragedy is that the unemployed are frequently eating up all their savings and in some cases even losing their homes as they conduct futile job searches. Why are these job searches futile? Because many professionals still play the job search lottery by applying to jobs as their main job search tactic, relying on ineffective job boards and job postings to find work. The landscape has changed forever and professionals need to wake up to the new job search and create a professional image that attracts attention and respect online, and market that image through social media and social network sites.
Attract employers and job opportunities
When is the best time to start your career management and secure your income by promoting and marketing the professional you? When you are employed and barring that RIGHT NOW! You must develop a professional image online not simply a personal brand and you must promote the keywords that define you as a professional, gain online cred through social proof, and clearly point and link “all” to your online identity. When it comes to ProfessionaliBranding a LinkedIn profile is a good start but it is not enough. You need to develop a job search and career management strategy that attracts employers rather than having to push yourself on employers, in other words you need to be a candidate not an applicant or what I like to call “be a lighthouse not a search light”! Forbes.com claims there are many jobs available but professionals lack the skills necessary to do the jobs. Maybe this is true but I believe professionals conducting job search or looking to progress in their careers do a bad job of promoting their competencies in a way that will get them found by the right employer. Get prepared now, manage your career and secure your income by attracting opportunities to you since you never know when job loss can hit.
Love to hear from you if you need any help with getting hired or would like to chat, please contact me.
To find out more on how to craft your compelling message as well as how to painlessly attract employers and opportunities, pickup the groundbreaking book The Panic Free Job Search: Unleash the Power of the Web and Social Networking to Get Hired, Career Press, NJ. Paul Hill is a career and job search coach, author and speaker. You can hookup with Paul, live on Vokle every week for free job search help and Q&A or at www.TransitionToHired.com. Follow Paul Hill on twitter @GetHiredFastTrk.