Community Blog: Martha Finney - St. Louis

(This post is based on some of the principles included in my new book, Unlock the Hidden Job Market: 6 Steps to a Successful Job Search When Times Are Tough which I wrote with San Diego-based executive coach, Duncan Mathison. For a free sample chapter, visit the book's official site: www.unlockthehiddenjobmarket.com )

If you’ve been following my posts, you’ll know that I’ve been writing about networking a lot lately. Or at least it seems like it. Networking, networking, networking. Maybe it’s me but don’t you think that when you say it out loud enough, it begins to sound like earwax? Okay…it’s probably just me.

Networking doesn’t have much appeal, does it? It doesn’t sound nearly as much fun as going to your local Applebee’s with some friends for a beer and some wings. Now there’s a problem with even that Applebee’s scenario. Based on the emails I’ve been getting, a lot of you are feeling that you don’t have too many friends either. And the ones you do have are getting, like, really tired of hearing you talk about your struggles to land a job. And you’re getting really tired of talking about it too. In fact, you’d just wish they’d change the subject.

I don’t think my readers are social losers. (At least I hope not, but, then again, what are you doing reading this blog post when it’s such a pretty day outside?) When you’ve been out of work for any amount o time, it’s easy to feel that you have run aground in the contacts department – especially in recent years when we’ve all been so busy taking care of our jobs and our families. We’ve let outside friendships perhaps atrophy. Maybe all your friends were work-related. And now that you’re out of work, you’re also fresh out of buddies. Or you’ve moved to a new town where you really, really don’t know anyone.

Whatever the reason for your feelings of isolation, you know you have to mix it up a little bit, well, a lot. Get some fresh meat, I mean talent, into your tight circles of relationships. Get out of the house. So I thought I’d offer some tips in that direction.

Remember that one thing leads to another. The thing about circulating is that your first dip into big world probably won’t net you a job. It’s a cumulative kind of thing. So leave that desperate, graspy, over-eager feeling at home when you head out the door. Just be open to meeting who you meet. Maybe tonight you’re destined to actually help someone else. And you’ll come home feeling just a little better about yourself.

Look for opportunities where you can become a regular. And no, I don’t mean the Applebee’s bar. When your face starts becoming familiar, you will emerge from invisibility to someone who people will be glad to see. Maybe they’ll even shout out your name, like, “Norm!” (But don’t count on it.) If you try a business mixer or worship service or volunteer opportunity, and people completely ignore you, keep going. Week after week. Introduce yourself as often as you can. And just let the cumulative effects of time work their wonders.

Stay away from solitary pursuits, even if they’re out of the house. Going to a matinee movie doesn’t count as “getting out there.” Go to local economic development or chamber of commerce meetings, receptions, mixers. Your local bookstore probably offers booksignings, author lectures or special classes. A friend of mine who is a professional coach is part of a team who gives courses at Whole Foods! Go! The home improvement stores offer free courses. Go! The American Red Cross offers courses in first aid, cpr, etc. Go!

Make job-related networking events only a small percentage of your out-of-the-house activities. First of all, you’re so much more than unemployed. And you need to nurture those other parts of who you are. At the very least, this way you’ll lead with an opener that’s so much more interesting than, “Hi, gotta job?” But most importantly is that your self-definition has a chance to stay strong and defined beyond this immediate need of landing a gig. You will also stand a better chance of meeting people other than fellow job-seekers. You know…people who already have jobs? And who would be thrilled to help you get inside their companies or organizations.

Learn something. Go to local college courses – especially the ones at night, when employed people go to school. You don’t have to matriculate and take on the expense of a formal semester. Continuing ed courses can be inexpensive. The teachers are often professionals in the community (hint: employed people!). It’s probably best if you took a course that would help you be more qualified for the kind of job you’re looking for. But even taking a non-job related course will at least remind you that there’s more to life than your daily bread (although, it’s kind of hard to make that argument right now, I know).

Teach something. Surely you know something that will benefit others. How to read, for adult literacy programs, for instance. If you have a profession or skill that’s useful in the for-profit world, surely you can introduce at least the basics to young people. Convene a panel of other experts and put on a program! (You’ll be able to find a venue. A friend of mine hosted the annual meeting of his professional association – on the premises of the company that had just laid him off. Awkward.)

Volunteer. Those same skills you can teach you can donate. It will make you feel good about being who you are and what you can do. That boost in self-esteem will give you the added confidence that will send out the signal that you’re a valuable contributor to the world.

Call old friends – even if they haven’t heard from you in a long time. This is where Facebook comes in handy. The other day I heard from a dear friend for the first time in about 8 years. We’d been looking for each other off and on over recent years but, thanks to Facebook, she found me first! And we talked on the phone for a full three hours. A lot of it was catching up. But, she was also very candid about the fact that she needed some professional advice from me. Did I see this as a cheesy ulterior motive? Heck no! First off all, I owed her a gigantic favor from 10 years ago (I mean, huge). Secondly, I love her and I know she loves me. So whatever I have is hers. (Advice, I mean.)

Ask for introductions. Unless you’re a bitter whiner who needs to blow your nose and brush your teeth (and, uhm, a little roll-on?), the friends you have should be happy to give you introductions you need to move your job search forward. If they’re reluctant to help you, find out why. Wouldn’t you want to know the truth, especially if it was something you could fix? And, if they’re possessive with or protective of their contacts to the point where they’re keeping you from helping yourself, or making you feel judged, it’s best that you should know that now. You might have just discovered a brand new opening in your group of friends to fill.

They say that once you achieve a certain age, it gets harder and harder to make new friends. Everyone is set in their habits, patterns, commuting routine, relationships. Well, one of the upshots of these economic times is that everyone is thrown higgledy-piggledy into a big pile of confusion and some flavor of disconnectedness. Now is a fantastic time to build new circles of friends and business contacts.

And vow to take better care of them in the future. Like, don’t wait 8 years before picking up the phone.

 

In recent weeks I’ve been watching events unfold in Sedona  -- that whole James Arthur Ray thing and how people died in an ersatz sweat lodge.  I suppose for many people, a terrible event such as this (where people paid $9,000 for the privilege of dying a horrible death, surrounded in the gloom by their vomiting and fainting companions) is so exotic to most people that “that could never happen to me” is a thought that briefly passes through our minds.  And that would probably be true.

 

However, this whole clutch of motivation and self-help teachers has been bugging me over recent years. While a multitude of programs are offered every year that don't involve ambulances and homicide investigations, many of them are damaging in the way they take advantage of intelligent, open-minded individuals looking for a better way out of frustration and despair.  And the cumulative effect of little damages everywhere can also be very destructive indeed. And I’m worried that the general public might be even more at risk as the economy continues its stagger, stagger, crawl mode.  These are emotional frontiers we’re in, folks, and the woods are lousy with snake oil salesmen – people who promise to give you a breakthrough secret to life in a week or a weekend, for the price of a semester of college or a small car.

 I have had in my bookshelf for a couple of years now the book, SHAM, by Steven Salerno. And I’ve been really reluctant to read it. Primarily because I knew he would blow the lid off of the mechanics behind self-help gurus and their business models. And at the time I was also reading Martin Seligman (the very legitimate founder of the very legitimate positive psychology movement), and I was also dabbling in more than a little Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins, Marianne Williamson and even Joel Osteen. And, frankly, I liked the way their messages made me feel.  And while I certainly didn’t buy The Secret’s promises hook, link and sucker (I mean, sinker), having grown up in a family whose mantra was mainly, “ain’t it awful, ain’t it tragic,”  I knew there is definitely something to be said for willfully focusing on the positive side of things. If you have read my earlier postings, you’ll know that I believe that a positive attitude is more conducive to creative thinking and endurance during a time where everything seems to be hitting the fan.  At least it makes the ride a little more tolerable.

 But I also know a manipulative head-game when I see one. (At least I hope I do.) I certainly learned to recognize the signs when I’ve bought into one, much to my ever-lasting regret pretty quickly thereafter.  So, I thought I’d lay out a list of danger signs for you – with the hopes of helping you keep your money in your pocket.  (I get the fact that this could mean that I might miss out on a few sales of my own books – but at the end of this post I’m actually going to offer you my first book for free. I won’t even ask you for your email address as one of those cheesy quid pro quo gambits.)

 Avoid any course with titles containing such words as “breakthrough,” “success,” “transform,” “dream,” and whose tuition includes a comma.  Speaking from personal experience here.  These kinds of courses are mostly warmed over material drawn directly from the texts of books that you can purchase for $20 to $30.  There will be much playing of John Denver and hugging of total strangers  -- most who look like they either haven’t been hugged in decades or they’re really really really looking forward to hugging you. The break times are dedicated to urging you to sign up for the advanced course at twice the price (but today – and only today – slashed to the same amount you just paid for the basic course). My memories of those break times involve softly trance-inducing singing from the stage and a certain zombie-ness of the people moving to the back of the room where tables are conveniently set up, where staffers cheerfully accepted credit cards. Did I get anything of value from that basic week? Yes…my mastermind group is still intact after almost five years. We meet on the phone every other week and have become supportive friends. But have our circumstances changed significantly since we met that that “breakthrough” week?  Nope.  (As you can imagine, I’m usually the cranky one on our phone calls.)

 If you go to any course with a title that includes the words “spirit,” “warrior,” “vision quest,” make sure there is an EMT on call at all times before laying your money down. Most spiritual quests are flat-out scary. Who are these people to say they know the way, and will lead us there through a regimen of fasting, meditation and bodily deprivation? The way people refer to spirituality as Spirit, as if Spirit is their next door neighbor with handy cable piracy skills, is revolting. And the way white Americans romanticize the mysteries of Native American life and traditions is deeply hypocritical or willfully shallow. If they’re so enchanted by the Native American way, how about coming out to the Southwest, don't stop at the spas or casinos, and spend that week teaching Native American children to say no to crystal meth addiction and alcoholism? Share the inspiring benefits of your own education, skills and privilege, rather than trying to siphon off a few sips of mysticism from authentic traditions that you will never get anyway?

 If someone wants to teach you how to be rich (for whatever price), first find out how he got rich himself.  Look at the frequent fliers of this particular line of work, and you’ll find out that most of them got rich by sticking their hands into pockets of people just like you (and me). And they’re getting richer.  Did he ever grow a company, other than the staff of eager minions he has working for him now? Did he turn around a major corporation? Did he emerge from his own family of alcoholics and desperados to blaze his own trail by making something or contributing something useful to society (that is other than an ultra-expensive retreat)?  Is he an unimpeachable researcher who has the gift of translating esoteric, hard-to-understand information into immediately useful ideas that anyone can have for the price of a book?  That might be someone worth paying some attention to.

 When someone tells you that you’re nowhere without his secrets or gift, laugh and walk away. Need I say more? Okay, I will. I know of one so-called Buddhist guru (she’s American) who actually replaced the words “Higher Power” in the 12 Step Program with her own name.  That’s amazing. But what’s even more amazing is that hundreds of otherwise intelligent people said, “Duh, okay.”

 Just say no to any product marketed to you via email by someone you’ve never heard of but endorsed by someone you have. These people exchange mailing lists, knowing full well that purchasers of self-help products are the most likely to come back for more and more. The cynicism is mind-blowing.

 Avoid self-help books that were Number 1 on Amazon for, like, three hours one day.  Again, it’s the lists at work. These people know how to game the system and they use each others’ lists to snag that coveted spot, even for an instant. This way they can call themselves “bestselling authors.”  Big whup.

 Don’t give up your own dreams.  Life is full of true mysteries. My personal favorite one is the mystery of synchronicity. I’m a total sucker for those stories, and I have true, first-hand stories of my own that would curl your hair. But I wouldn’t bet the ranch on a synchronicity that I perceive to be an omen. (Even though, in my heart of hearts, I kind of hope it is.)

We all need fresh infusions of inspiration now and then. And  personal growth does involve keeping your mind open and venturing into uncomfortable zones now and then. But no breakthrough experience should necessitate group puking or even close bodily contact with strangers to the strains of “Sunshine On My Shoulders.”

 Keep your wallet in your pants. Or purse.

 (Now for the free offer:  I will give you a free copy of my very first book, Find Your Calling, Love Your Life. For absolutely nothing. Not even your email address.  Just go to www.unlockthehiddenjobmarket.com and click the green button that will lead you to free downloads. You can also have a free sample chapter of my new book, Unlock the Hidden Job Market.  Naturally, my coauthor and I would love it if you also purchased that book. But you know what? You don’t have to.)

 

 

 

My friend Patricia is probably the only person I would call a natural networker. Her worldly possessions have been in storage for most of the last 10 years as she goes where her heart tells her to (always beautiful places: Hawaii; Aspen; Naples, FL;  San Diego; hey! Why not?). Jobs and projects fall into her lap no matter where she goes (and right now she’s in Austria after having spent a couple of weeks in Spain).  She always has friends to stay with or a house to borrow.  I would say she’s female version of Tim Ferris. But she’s her own self.  And she makes her way in the world through relationships she builds along the way.

 

You ever have one of those right-words-at-the-right-time moments that blasts all your illusions away?  Patricia gave me the right words at the right time and showed me the way to think about networking.  It was a few years ago while she was visiting me on Cape Cod. I was feeling rudderless, pitiful, unnecessary, unwanted,  all those un’s that make it such a drag to get up in the morning. Patricia and I were sitting in the livingroom wrapped in blankets and drinking coffee (well, she was drinking herbal tea, of course). I was saying that I just couldn’t bring myself to knocking on Cape Cod businesses begging for a job.  And she gently said this:

 

“It’s not about what you need, it’s about what you can contribute.”

 

Oh.

 

Ohhhhhhhhhhh.

 

I’d been thinking about networking all wrong! It wasn’t about what a pitiful needy, loser, user I was. It was about letting the world know that I was here to help. Patricia certainly isn’t a needy, loser, user. She moves through the world like a queen (in a good way), and people take their cue from her – treating her accordingly.  And she benefits a lot of lives as she goes.  She may not have a permanent address (other than her Naples PO box). But she has real friends who love her, and she earns an honest living (thanks to laptops and cell phones), growing spiritually, emotionally  and professionally along the way.

 

You may not want to live the life that Patricia has (although, for me, every time she breezes through Santa Fe, where I live right now, ever fiber of my being screams ROAD TRIP!).  And you may not have the flexibility of treating the entire planet as your own personal marketplace.

 

But then again, maybe you do.  At the very least the marketplace that you most naturally belong to needs you! But it may not know you’re there. If your resistance to networking is keeping you shy, I don’t blame you. So maybe the thing to do is examine your beliefs around networking. And maybe change your mind just a little.

 

Networking is a waste of time.  It could be, depending on what you expect from your networking activities. If you want a job right this very minute (of course you do, just bear with me here for a minute), you’re probably going to think that networking activities are a waste of time because what are the chances that any given networking encounter will result in a job offer? To be honest – practically zero. 

 

Yes, I get that you need a job – right this very minute. And networking will eventually bring you that job. But it’s a cumulative effect kind of thing.  One person leads to another who leads to another who leads to five others.  As my coauthor for Unlock the Hidden Job Market, Duncan Mathison, says: Networking is about planting seeds. Lots and lots of them. Some will sprout. But the more networking you do, the more of those seedlings will sprout. And some – not to drive a metaphor in the ground or anything – will bear fruit.

 

Still not convinced?  What are the chances that staying at home will result in a job offer? Guaranteed: Zeeee-roe.

 

The only people I meet at networking events are people who are out of work themselves. That would be true.  Those networking events are the worst.  They suck the life right out of you. They waste your time. And feed your growing sense of despair and overwhelm. So. Stop going to them.

 

Networking is not  about going to networking events. It’s meeting people one-on-one, showing sincere interest in what they do, your shared industry or profession, your community, future trends, ideas, etc. 

 

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t network with other people who are out of jobs. But still make those one-on-one events, high-quality conversations where both of you end up with a growing list of ideas, connections, phone numbers, companies, introductions. 

 

People don’t want to meet me. How do you know? Somewhere someone needs you.  And that will only happen if you get the heck out of the house.

 

Just because you don’t have a job, that doesn’t mean you don’t have value and that you have nothing to contribute. People need you. To use Patricia’s philosophy: Get out and find out who they are.  Under other conditions would you let negative self-talk prevent you from lending a hand where your unique strengths and gifts can really make life easier for someone?  Of course not. So why let the inner gremlins have the power now?

 

People only want to hire to people who already have jobs. That’s a myth.  If you’re unemployed right now, you actually have some advantages working for you.  You’re available now.  You’re not coming in with that entitled “what can you do for me” attitude. You won’t be taking their offer back to your current boss to try to snag a sweeter offer.  Everyone knows that really great talent is on the loose right now because of the massive trend of lay-offs.  The fact that you’re between jobs right now is not a black mark on your record.  It’s just one of those things.

 

There’s no point in starting now, since the holidays are around the corner.  Wrong. This is absolutely a terrific time to look for a job. Budgets are being formulated for Q1. So while you might not start until January 1, you’d be making great use of your holidays by networking your brains out.  And just think,  if everyone else thinks that there’s no point in job hunting right now, you are out there with very little competition.

 

For a great article on this subject, check out: T’is The Season To Follow the Money.

 

I look like hell.  That might be true. If you’ve been stuck at home all day, not having seen the business end of a razor in weeks,  it might be time to put on your go-to-meetin’ clothes (assuming they still fit) and see if your car will start.  

 

Not judging here. In recent months I’ve been stuck at home writing books. Yoga pants and t-shirts have been my friends.  My business clothes have been on the floor, serving as bedding for the cats.  And just yesterday I spotted a coyote sauntering past my windows. And, while I was admiring its glossy coat and bushy tail, the thought came to me that it is better groomed that I am.  I picked up the phone and made an appointment. For tomorrow.  Can’t wait.

 

If you look like hell, you know what to do.  You probably won’t look like Heidi Klum, once you’ve spruced up. But you won’t look like Tom Hanks in Castaway either.

 

People will know that I’m only networking because I need a job.  So what?  You’re not the only one looking for a job. The question is: are you the person they’re looking for? It’s up to you how they’ll regard you. They’ll take their cues from you. If you act ashamed or frustrated, they’ll pick up shame and frustration and treat you like you have a contagious disease.  Figure out what it will take to behave with confidence, calm and professionalism. And do that.

 

Focus your conversation not on what you need but on what they need, what they think, who they might introduce you to, who you might introduce them to, etc.  Remember: It’s about contribution, not need.

 

I’ve already done everything I can think of to get my resume into circulation. No you haven’t.  Networking is not about bugging your family, friends, the Rotor Rooter man. A reader actually wrote to me saying that she gave her resume to her mail carrier.  

 

Networking is about expanding your circles of contacts, acquaintances, colleagues. It’s about making lists of people and their phone numbers. Then picking up the phone and calling those folks.  It’s difficult, I know, especially for people who don’t enjoy calling strangers.  But remember, you’re calling colleagues and peers…people you have something or someone in common with.

 

These are people you might be able to help.

 

And that’s what it’s all about.

 

Special note from Martha:  These principles have been borrowed from my new book, Unlock the Hidden Job Market, which I wrote with Duncan Mathison. To learn more, visit our website!

 

 

  Feeling like you're losing control of your career? Nobody's responding to your applications? Wishing someone would return your calls? Your career is your own! Time to reclaim control over your future! This is the article for you! I hope you enjoy it!

 

If you’ve been between jobs for, like, an hour, you already know that wishing will get you only so far. Now. Luck. That could be another matter altogether. While you can’t control everything in life, you can certainly help good luck along by the actions you take and the way you take care of yourself while you’re looking for your next job. You need all the advantages working for you. And that includes luck.

Now that you’re looking for your next, great job, let’s see how we can give it a nudge in your direction, shall we?

Expect that the right job really is out there waiting for you to find it. Yes, even in these days when it appears that “no one is hiring,” people are getting new jobs. You’ve got to hold onto the belief that you will too. If you don’t, you’re going to be sending out those freak-out vibes that will tell potential employers that you’re about to self-combust right then and there. And who wants to hire that? Keep that grounded core of calm, solidified by the belief that, yes, you’re on your way to your new job.

Be prepared to meet your opportunity when you least expect it. I don’t mean you have to be dressed in go-to-meetin’ clothes, with your resume at the ready all the time. In our new book, Unlock the Hidden Job Market, my coauthor, Duncan Mathison, and I tell a great story about a client of his who meets his next opportunity while standing on the beach in San Diego, dripping wet, battered and bruised after a raucus competitive ocean swim. He was CFO caliber, and the guy he met was a CEO looking for a CFO. Suffice it to say, not exactly your dress for success moment. (Personally, I’m imagining an ill-advised Speedo and a decidedly snotty nose. If this guy can land a job with that as a first impression, just think what luck you’ll have just being dressed!)

Keep your mind open. Duncan Mathison and I also tell the story of one of his clients who found a job through a friend of his mother’s. The daughter of a friend of his mother’s, no less. But it took this guy four weeks to pick up the phone and make the call that would ultimately land him the job. Whether it was generic sexism or mom-snobbery that was holding his client back from making the call that could change his life, who knows? Either way, it’s a good story to keep in mind when you’re inclined to say “nope” to hope.

Look at what you have to offer from the point of view of your potential employer. The line, “look, I really need this job,” is compelling only in the movies. In real life, it’s darn pitiful. And will net you sympathy, not a job offer. Don’t lead with your need. Present yourself in terms of what you have to offer. So look at your pile of gifts, skills and experiences from the standpoint of how they will solve a company’s problem or meet a need. That’s a conversation that will inspire the right person to say, “How soon can you start?”

Tell your career story in a positive way. When you launch into the response to, “So, tell me about yourself,” stay away from “…and then I got laid off.” Emphasize the results you achieved, talk about the people who noticed your performance and chose to promote you to the next level, tell about the teams you worked in or led. As you near the sad-sack conclusion that takes you to how you’re out of work now, don’t gloss over it. But quickly turn the tables and ask your interviewer a question about the company, his or her own experience in some similar project or team, his or her opinion about the current state of your profession.

Release your attachment to the so-called system. Amazingly, 70% of all jobs never get published or advertised in any way. That’s why we call it the hidden job market. But even though those jobs are hidden, you can still find them. But that means you have to release your grip on the expectation that “the system” will deliver up a selection of jobs for you to choose from every morning. It might have before (like in 2005) but it won’t anymore. The hidden job market is where you’ll find the great jobs. But you have to go looking for them.

Take that as good news. Sure you have to be more proactive than you were a few years ago. But the hidden job market puts you in the drivers seat. You have the power to go out and find the great jobs and companies that meet your criteria. That’s so much better than just sitting back and waiting for a diminishing stream of the wrong jobs trickle by you.

Finally, keep your standards high. Luck won’t find you if you’re targeting job opportunities that are clearly beneath your abilities. When you keep your standards high, you will be at the right place at the right time. On purpose. And by design.

So much better than just crossing your fingers, wouldn’t you say?

A special note from Martha:  These ideas come from my brand new book, Unlock the Hidden Job Market: 6 Steps to a Successful Job Search When Times Are Tough. This book tells you how to find that great job that’s waiting for you!

(Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which is out now!  Yay!)

 It’s hard to be choosy these days, isn’t it? The news is filled with stories like the public school that received more than 700 resumes in response to an advertisement for a janitor’s position (did you hear the emphasized detail that the resumes had to be put into a safe? What’s the deal with that? I truly don’t understand what that signifies. I’m thinking that’s just media hype, designed to get you all in a dither about something that’s neither here nor there.). It’s hard to hold onto hope and high standards for what kind of job you’d like to ultimately land when you’re surrounded by messages that the job market world is coming to an end.

Buy into the terrible headlines that people are losing jobs right and left (and, make no mistake, they are), and you’ll be tempted to abandon all hope for a job that’s good enough for you. But let me remind you, as Lauren Doliva said in my new book, Rebound: A Proven Plan for Starting Over After Job Loss, there is still a war for talent. “And talent is winning,” she said.

In other words, find the job opportunity that matches your skills, abilities and passions, and you’ll nail the interview – regardless of how worried you are about whether or not you’ll “ace” it. People are still looking for you. You just have to find those folks. And that means you have to be just as choosy as your interviewers are.

Easier said than done, right? Right. I get that. And it’s hard to forget that it’s the interviewer who has the ultimate power to actually offer you the job. I get that too. But remember, you have the ultimate power to say yes or no to that job offer. “Talent is winning the War for Talent,” and you’re on the winning side. Even if we find ourselves in a national economy of 10% unemployment, that means 90% of America would be still working. So why not you?

So what does this have to do with worrying about “acing” the job interview? One word: Desperation. Regardless of whether you’re single or married, you probably remember at least one date when all you wanted to do was crawl out of the restroom window. Puppy dog eyes that transmit the message, “you’re my best and only chance for happiness.” Ew! Just typing those words makes my skin crawl. Memories….

So what are you going to do to keep the desperation to a low boil? Or a low howl? Here are some ideas:

Keep your dance card full. Don’t just rely only on online job boards for lining up interviews. If you do, you’ll be sitting at home staring at the unringing telephone forever. Seek out networking conversations that might lead somewhere, even if that lead is only more introductions to additional people you can have informational conversations with.

Get over your aversion to networking. I’m writing a new book right now with the ultra-fabulous Duncan Mathison, who is teaching me (and ultimately you) all about the fantastic networking techniques that remove you from those expensive, soulless, schmoozy schmoozy hiya hiya mixers that make you want to run screaming for the ballroom doors. But while we’re waiting for the book to actually hit the stores, I’ll share with you what I can. Let’s just say for the moment that one introduction leads to another. And you probably haven’t yet met the person who will offer you the job of your dreams. That person will most likely come into your life through a series of personal referrals. And it’s likely that you have met the person who will ultimately lead you to that person. Hmmmm, who could that be?

In the meantime, network your brains out so that you have plenty of options to pick from (or at least you feel as though you do), so you won't worry so much about "acing" the only interview on your calendar -- all the while ignoring the signs that you could be walking into the job of your nightmares.

Remember that when you are in the interview itself, you must be just as careful a shopper as the interviewer is. When you’re talking with the person who might be your boss, find out from him or her specifically what makes the person who will ultimately land the open position a top performer – in the top 20% sparkly bracket. First of all, it’s important to know exactly what those characteristics are. But it’s also important to know if your potential boss actually knows what those characteristics are. How can you please a boss who doesn’t know what he or she actually wants? And then decide whether or not you want to please your boss in just those ways. Qualify your potential boss just as much as they're qualifying you.

Make sure you are willing to actually meet those characteristics. If you’re picking up a vibe of prejudice, attitude or cynicism, don’t automatically think, “it will be different with me.” It probably won’t be. But you won’t really know for sure until you find out what’s behind that ‘tude.

I remember that during my first job interview, I heard the sentiment, “It takes a special person to do this job well.” Well. Let me tell you, that spoke directly to my confused, codependent heart. I thought to myself, “I’m a special person. Whatever the challenge is, I’ll muscle right up to it.” Translation: “I will earn your love.” Boy was I wrong. Boy was I stupid.

What I should have said was, “Really? Tell me more. What do you mean by, uhm, special?” If they were honest they would have said, “You won’t mind being treated like crap by a narcissistic prima donna witch – I mean, boss. You won’t mind being humiliated in front of strangers. You won’t mind being on the receiving end of smug abuse from the person who just had the job before you and was promoted to be your direct supervisor. You won’t mind being set up to fail by people who really don’t care that this is your first job and maybe you could use a little kindness and understanding.”

If all of those things were said to me in answer to a question that I posed: “Really? Tell me more,” then I would say that I aced the interview by getting the fact that I didn't want it. I got the job. I took the job. I lost.

I get emails all the time from people who feel abused by their bosses. They need so much help and emotional support. But the first piece of advice is “beware of the dog.” And in this case, that dog might be a lousy job. Don’t be so eager to ace a job interview that will chain you to a dog.

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which is out now!  Yay!)

Looking back on my own career of 30 some-odd years, I would say that the single most important event in my professional life didn’t even happen to me. It happened to my dad. He got laid off just five months before I graduated from college.

I’ve mentioned him before in this column, but in case you’re new here, let me give you a little detail. Well, as much detail as I know myself, which isn’t much. See, he was a covert case officer for the CIA. In street lingo, that means he was a spy. But technically speaking he wasn’t. His job was to recruit spies. We were stationed in places, oh, like Miami, Berlin, Mexico City, Madrid, Munich, Vienna, and, of course, he was in Saigon for a while where he wore a flak jacket over his nerdy 1968 business suit. Students of the Cold War would see this list of cities and go, “check, check, check.” And then rightly conclude: “Wasn’t home much, was he?” Nope. He went on a lot of “business trips.”

Anyway, I’m telling you all this not to brag (well, maybe just a little bit) but to set the stage for why I’m so passionate about the topic of children and work. I learned two things by watching my father through the years. It’s completely unacceptable to do anything you’re not totally passionate about. And, then finally, there is no security in job security. I think the only reason why I’ve never been laid off myself is because I laid my own self off the moment I heard that my dad lost his job – via a callous pink slip that was handed to him while he was on assignment in Mexico City, right in front of a classroom full of baby spies he was teaching that day.

Children of divorced parents, who then see their standard of living plummet when the parents split, learn very early that poverty is just one decision away. And children of laid-off parents learn the same thing. No matter how passionate, brilliant and dedicated you are to your profession, unemployment is one decision away.

And just as children of divorced parents grow up reluctant to throw heart, body and soul into an intimate, romantic relationship, children of laid-off parents get very early that you can’t really trust what your employer says about job security.

In my heart of hearts, I’ve always been “self-employed” because of that hard understanding that there’s no such thing as job security. And while this might be a moderately healthy attitude for an individual to take, it’s really too bad for employers who might have benefited from my talents, skills and dedication to their organization’s mission.

During this time of laying people off, we’re almost in an anorexic thrall. The compulsion to trim and slim seems to have taken on a life of its own – or at least a momentum that is going to be extremely hard to stop. But it will stop one of these days, and you’re going to need to start hiring again.

Where will you get your talent? If this current economic situation lasts as long as the doomsayers predict, you may be drawing your most new hires from the generation that is today’s kids – those kids who are right at this very moment finding out that mom and/or dad are suddenly – and through no fault of their own – without a job.

Assuming you’re still in HR when that time comes, you may look back on this time and think, “Oo, maybe we should have given more thought to the kids.” Remember, it was only 10 months ago or so when we were obsessing about the impending hiring crisis as Baby Boomers retire and their replacements fall short of both numbers and knowledge. That crisis is still coming toward us (even though maybe some of the Baby Boomers won’t be retiring quite so soon).

So how can HR keep the faith with future generations of workers when so many companies (not yours certainly) are breaking faith with their current employees? Here are some ideas, and I sure would welcome more as they occur to you:

Assume the leadership that is rightfully HR’s to govern the lay-off process in your organization. Make your process absolutely top-notch, humane and as generous as you can and drive it from the top. Don’t passively allow individual departments, divisions, businesses, leaders decide who they’ll run it as independent fiefdoms. That’s when stupid management tricks begin to take over.

Make humane the guiding principle of all your lay-off procedures and practices. Tell people what to expect as soon as you know. Maybe some essential talent will ditch the ship before you want them to, but you’re also going to see that the bulk of your people will stick around and help you turn off the lights – if that is indeed your new mission.

Give your people every reason to go home and say good things about your company. Offer them lavish advance notice that their jobs will be eliminated; give them the flexibility they need to search for new jobs while on their current job; pay for training that they need; offer them developmental assignments that will give them essential experience that they can talk about in upcoming interviews. If you have to furlough them only temporarily and you really want them to still be available to you, pay them a reduced salary if they dedicate their free time to community volunteer work. If you have to lay them off completely, remember that you still need to get their work done. So implement new contract-worker programs to keep them onboard as freelancers.

Make sure that coaches and child/family therapists are available to your employees as a resource. Your people may be so thrown by the shock of losing their jobs that they don’t realize how what they say at home will affect the motivation and dreams their children will have about the future. Families in the throes of this stress, shock and even despair shouldn’t be surprised to see school performance suffer and grades plummet during this time. No parent wants to see their children fail, either now in school or later in life. So this is a crucial time in their own children’s development. Help them out with this.

There are all sorts of basic, human decency reasons why employers should support the entire family through a lay-off crisis. But this is business, right? So here’s the business reason to remember that children are watching: One of these days you’re going to want to turn the lights back on again. There’s a whole generation out there who you’re going to count on to throw the switch. Whether they will or won’t tomorrow depends completely on how you treat their parents today.

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which is out now!  Yay!)

If you're a magazine nerd like I am, you might remember when Self magazine was first published. I loved that magazine, especially the feature that always appeared in the back, called Fresh Start. It was always just a one-pager, featuring the story of how one young woman changed her life in a really significant way. Oh how I missed that department when they canceled it. I just loved stories of people who were given the chance to begin again.

Well, here's the deal now. With hundreds of thousands of people being laid off and many more facing the prospect of losing their jobs in upcoming months, we're all being given the chance to begin again. Woo-pee! Right? Yeah. I didn't think so. But, like it or not, change is being handed to us, if not actually being shoved down our respective throats. So we have a choice: we can change our lives intentionally, or have them changed for us. I pick the first choice. Which would you pick?

But, you know as well as I do that no life change can actually stick unless we make the change from the inside. And we have to make that choice happily and hopefully (not in the context of dread and punishment). So, to get the best possible advice for all of us, I went to one of my favorite sources for mental health counseling and positive thinking -- Meredith (the very aptly nicknamed "Merry") Kaplan.

(I also interviewed her for my chapter on handling rage in Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss.)

Merry is a licensed mental health counselor and an executive and life coach with a national clientele (but she herself is based in Palm Beach Gardens, FL). And she gave me this six-step process to align your thinking around change and to organize the way you manage your life from here on out.

We've broken this interview down into seven parts. Use this process and see what your life is like by 2010! We're thinking that this action process will prove to you through real experience that you do have the power to make your life exactly what you want it to be. So...here's Step One:

Step One: Acknowledge Your Feelings

Merry says, "It's so important to acknowledge your feelings because if you don't you are in denial. And your denial will hinder the process of setting a new course for yourself. Once we are in denial and we are not accepting, we limit ourselves from opportunities for success, opportunities to visualize what it is that we want from our future. Also by acknowledging your feelings, you are able to share them with those near and dear to you. When you are able to verbalize how you feel, you are able to get the support from the people who are in the best position to help you emotionally. They'll be able to understand how you're feeling and respect the journey that you're on. Even if all they can do for you is be a circle of good listeners, that's a very important part of your toolkit for change."

Merry says that even though there might be social pressure to put on a happy face and hide your true feelings,  regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, you really need to be fully and expressively authentic with both yourself and your closest friends.

"Because of our socialization, it's much easier for women to express their feelings and have their friends and female relatives acknowledge those feelings and be empathetic. It's more difficult for men to express their feelings, especially to other men. When they do have someone in their lives that they really can share those feelings with, it certainly lightens the burden. They can actually reduce the possibility of psychosomatic illness that comes when they internalize toxic feelings. That's when they develop all sorts of stress-related medical problems. So it's extremely beneficial for both men and women to acknowledge their feelings to both themselves and to confidants whom they know and trust."

So Go Jobing Readers: Here's your assignment for the day...Make a list of all the emotions that are swirling around you right now. Get them down on paper. And then make another list of your closest confidants -- your spouse, your golf buddy, your walking partner, and resolve to set aside some time to share with them those feelings that you might be trying to ignore away, feelings that maybe you think might put you in a bad light. Take that risk.

You know you would want your friends to do the same with you, if they were wrestling with a life change challenge. You would want to be there for them. And, I'm willing to bet, once you show them how open up, they just might give you that chance themselves!

You can contact Merry directly:  meredithkaplan@bellsouth.net 

      Tune into a live interview with Martha as she talks with Chicke Fitzgerald about how to rebound from a sudden job loss!

  Here are the coordinates:

   Thursday Feb 5   11:30-noon ET

    Listener/call-in number:  646-727-2840

  Listen online:  www.blogtalkradio.com/solutionzlive

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which will be available online tomorrow and in bookstores everywhere on February 9! Hey! Just around the corner! Yay!)

Check out Preoccupations column in today's NY Times.

The title: "Handing Out the Pink Slips Can Hurt Too," which is eerily close to the title of chapter 12 of my new book, Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss (It's available on Amazon tomorrow!!!!!)

In my chapter I help the readers understand the HR perspective on this terrible time. This way they get at least some comfort in understanding what it's like to be you these days. Not so much fun, is it? I didn't think so.

Embedded in the NY Times article is such a fantastic idea, I wish I'd thought of it. But I'm really glad someone did...and much better that this guy did because the NY Times is better at spreading the word. Here it is:

When you have to lay off really cherished high performing employees, write a recommendation for them on their LinkedIn pages.

Laying people off, especially people you love and you know your company really needs, is excruciating. It's a terrible time for you.  So helping them get their new future off on the right foot is essential to both of you!

Don't forget to look for ways to hire them back -- even if it's only on a contract or freelance basis. You still need to get the work done. And they still need the work.

 

 

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which will be available online and in bookstores everywhere on February 9! Hey! That's one month away! Yay!)

All morning long, while doing the semi-annual dishes (Question: What’s the difference between Martha Finney and Martha Stewart? Answer: Just look in the kitchen.), I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember who told me about Timothy Ferriss’s fantastic book, The 4-Hour Work Week.   I was down to the lasagna pan when I remembered:  It was “Anna,” one of the “voices of experience” I interviewed for Rebound. Ah yes, now that I’ve read the Ferriss book on her recommendation, I can see how it all fits.

Ferriss himself is one bad boy.  I like him. While I don’t necessarily approve of all of his tactics (some of them are a little duplicitous for my taste), I love his attitude. Which is basically: Your life is your own and you have every right (in fact, responsibility) to lead it exactly as you want to.  And…by the way…you can.  You just have to be bad enough to break out of the box that someone else shoved you in. Which totally fits with what Anna was telling me about her experience. So let me tell you about her first.

The brief version of the whole story, which you can read in Rebound, is this:  She was a hugely successful salesperson in one of the top ranking companies in her industry.  She helped the founders grow it to the point that it could be sold to a public company and walk away millionaires many times over.  She’s glad for them. They deserved the rewards of their hard work, she says. So far so good.

But then she watches the new owners run the company into the ground. And she’s getting both angry and worried.  What to do? Nothing! She is assured by management, everything is groovy, no worries.  Her plan was to move to California – a more happening market for her merchandise – but that would require buying a hugely expensive house in an insane market.  So she double-checks with her manager. Are you sure it’s a wise personal risk for me to take right now? Absolutely! Go for it!  Enjoy the beach, he says.

Within days of her closing on her house, the word comes down that the new owners were shutting the company down.  Why wasn’t this the absolute worst news ever?  Anna had been a very “bad” girl. She had chosen not to fully believe her boss and had seized control of her own life and future.  So, by the news hits her, she already had two job offers in her back pocket – offers from her employer’s direct competitors, no less.

Make no mistake. All is not totally hunky dory. She still grieves the destruction of the company  that she helped raise from its infancy, not to mention the anguish of her former colleagues, who she keeps track of on Yahoo blogs.  But she is in a job she loves, with people who are smart, cutting edge, and totally committed to the smart, ego-free management of the business. No champagne-saturated helicopter rides for this executive team, nosireebob.

When I say “bad,” I’m talking about an internal shift toward the direction of self-respect.  I don’t mean that you should consider doing anything that will result in a regrettable firing or even a court case. I don’t want to find myself on Nancy Grace trying to explain your “Martha told me to do it” defense.  This is about arriving to the realization that you are 100% responsible and in control of your career and life. And if something in your company isn’t passing the smell test, don’t be “good” and believe everything that’s being handed to you. Be “bad” and take action on your own behalf.

No one’s going to reward you for being “good.” When the executive team is sitting around the table thinking about who to lay off and who to keep, no one is going to say, “Well, you know, James was always so good about taking his lunch leftovers home on Friday nights.  Let’s keep him.”

If you think that one of the best ways to keep your job may be to be eager to please, you could actually be taking the front spot in the bye-bye line.  You know how annoying some over-pleasing, obsequious people are.  You don’t know what they have to offer you and your life. All you know is that just being around them makes you really peevish for some reason. They’re the first ones you want out of your life.

So what do I mean about being bad?  That all depends on how your particular brand of being good is screwing you up.

Are you inclined to believe management when it’s telling you that you’re safe, even though people are disappearing right and left?  Does blindly believing management feel like you’re being “good” like you were when you were blindly believing the parents?  Time to get bad.

Does taking action on your own behalf feel oddly disloyal or disobedient? Time to get bad.

Do you find yourself taking on really crappy assignments that no one else would be caught dead with? And that you wouldn’t do either if you weren’t afraid of getting fired? Time to get bad.

Are people all around you getting promoted, even though you are doing the lion’s share of the work?  Time to get bad.

Are people taking credit for your work? Time to get bad.

Do you suspect that people are just looking for an excuse to fire you – even for the most insignificant mistake?  Time to get bad.

Have you been the object of an ambush? Time to get bad.

Do you feel that normal actions that reflect self-respect somehow come off as insubordination? Time to get bad.

I wish I knew how to help you specifically get bad. All I know is how to tell when you’re on the right track. You’re acting reasonably, responsibly, like the adult with healthy self-esteem. And then someone (some, uh, jerk) says to you, “Hey! Who the hell do you think you are?” 

And you can mentally respond with, “My own bad self.”

 

 

 

 

 

Follow me on Twitter!  www.twitter.com/marthafinney

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which will be available online and in bookstores everywhere on February 9! Hey! That's one month away! Yay!)

When I wrote last year’s Best Resolutions article, it was very clear that the HR leaders in the country could see big trouble coming right around the corner.  And now that it’s here, the question has become: How does HR handle the people side of business now in such way that we will emerge from this unprecedented time powerful, proud of how we’ve managed these tough times and with our corporate cultures intact? Employee engagement is difficult enough when times are good. But now that times are bad by every possible measure, this is where we discover the essential ways that HR can continue its leadership role to drive the company toward a future outcome that everyone can be proud of.

With that in mind, here is what HR leaders are recommending to be some of the Best Resolutions for HR in 2009:

Resolution #1: I will tell the truth. David Russo, former SVP/HR of the famously engaging SAS Institute, and now CEO of Eno River Associates, follows up that resolution with this mandate: “HR will not participate in sugar-coating problems. HR will not allow the organizations to either broadbrush or whitewash situations. HR will face up to management and hold their feet to the fire. HR will handle things such as re-engineering, downsizing, right-sizing, diversification, and divestiture with honesty, logical business purpose and compassion. HR will not become a partner to bloodletting. HR will tell the truth:  ‘This is what we’re going to do, and this is why we have to do it. This is survival mode and this how we’re going to survive.’ HR will make sure that by telling the truth that the best right people are not sacrificed in an effort to stem the tide.
“If it’s communicating up, horizontally, or down, I’m going to tell the truth,” recommends Russo as a resolution for all HR professionals.

“And don’t get wrapped up in little protective lies that turn into big hate-filled conundrums,” he concludes. “When that happens, the trust would be gone forever.”

Resolution #2: I will hold onto the commitment of employee engagement now more than ever. No company can ever afford to be cavalier about customer service and the customer value proposition. Ever. Especially now. And the thing that we’ve learned about employee engagement over recent years is how inextricably linked the engaged employee is to the quality of the customer service promise. So, even though companies must lay people off and cut resources back to the bare bone, they still have to do it in a way that’s consistent with the established employee value proposition.

Says Loren Nalewanski, Vice President, Lodging HR – Work Environment, Marriott International: “The time is ripe for us to ensure we handle all these difficult decisions with dignity and respect for the individual. We have to be making smart, critical decisions that allow us to emerge beyond  ‘09 and into ‘10, and even beyond, very very strong. And we have to have the right mindset about our people as we move into this difficult year and not make knee jerk reactions to what’s happening all around us.”

Resolution #3: I will be even more passionate about working with leaders to become positive clear about their personal values, their moral compass, and what they stand for.   Says Courtney Harrison, former managing director of HR for the U.S. Olympic Committee and now senior faculty member of the Center for Creative Leadership, “We keep seeing companies that are going bankrupt, laying off masses of people, or under investigation for legal issues. We’re watching people get led away in handcuffs.  And every time we watch another one of these scandals, we think, “Well, at least we learned our lesson.” But it still keeps happening.

“Good HR people know that the solution doesn’t lie in putting together a one day class on ethics or establishing an ethics policy.  True leadership, especially in today’s world is about risk taking, courage, and standing up for what you believe is right.

“Leaders need to be absolutely grounded in who they are,” she says. “And this requires a personal investment and discipline to be reflective. It takes time, and potentially money. And their organizations must be willing to invest in the pursuit of more personal exploration. 

“In tough economies, the few great companies out there stand out because they’re the ones that forge ahead with leadership and leadership work,” says Harrison. “They don’t say, ‘we’re pulling back on it because we can’t afford it.’   If there’s ever a time to afford it, it’s now when you need it.

Resolution #4: I will take the leadership role in moving the company forward in creative uses of people.  Says Lauren Doliva, Heidrick & Struggles,  “Companies may be trying to reshape themselves in the context of reductions in force, but in about six months to a year, they are going to discover that there are still work to do. But now there are fewer people to do it. Now’s the opportunity to think about how you’re going to reshape the process of getting your work done.”

The Free Agent idea is alive and well. And those free agents may be the very people you laid off a few weeks or months before. They know the workings and culture of your organization, their relationships with your clients, vendors, etc., are still current. And they may be willing to take your calls now – now that they’ve had the chance to process the shock of having been laid off. Whether you choose to go with the people you laid off from the company, or bring in entirely fresh cadres of  talent and innovation, open your mind to the notion of bringing in the best people for the projects at hand.

Resolution #5: I will remind myself that this is a marathon and not let the current economic crisis alter our strategy and focus on acquiring and retaining the best talent possible.   Julie Weber, Senior Director, People, for Southwest Airliines, says that you may have slowed down new hiring – maybe even shut down that pipe completely – for the time being, but don’t lose sight of the fact that you’ll be hiring again one of these days. And effective recruiting necessitates a long ramp up of identifying and cultivating relationships with your target talent. Don’t wait until you need them to spring into action.  You will already be too late.

“From a recruiting perspective, she says, “I might be tempted to just turn off the recruiting machine and focus on something else for a while. But recruiting is a marathon, and over time conditions will change. We have got to keep those recruiting fires burning. We have got to keep ourselves in the game. We have to continue to be out there promoting Southwest as a strong employer. We have to continue to stay on top of where the great candidates are from a strategic sourcing perspective.

“You may not be building for this afternoon, but you’re recruiting for the next two or three years. Take college recruiting, for example. In order the get the best talent that’s out there you have to start finding those students and talking to them early on in their college career. Not when they’re seniors. College recruiting isn’t something that you can just turn on quickly and be successful at it. “

Resolution #6: I will help my organization retain its confidence and competence so that we can get through this. Says Marianne Jackson, SVP/HR, Blue Shield of California,  “We have a good number of people in the Gen X and Millennial generations who have never had to lead through such a remarkable economic crisis. It’s HR’s role to help people keep things in perspective and to discover ways to use innovation to sort through challenges that require solutions that are unlike anything they’ve used before.

“When we’re talking about how HR can help an organization come out the other side of a crisis stronger than before, the usual thing to do is to hunker down and cost manage, do lay-offs, slow down hiring, and try to manage through the implications and effects the crisis has on your brand. 

“In this case, we have to focus on the confidence of both the organization and its people.  This crisis is hitting everyone – often twice in the same household if both wage-earners are laid off. Then as people lose confidence they lose their ability to innovate. So we have to be committed to providing a lot of compassion.”

Resolution #7: I will stay on top of how my people are handling this crisis personally.  Senior vice president of HR for Lowes, Maureen Ausura, agrees with Marianne. “It’s easy for management to take it for granted that when employees show up for work, they leave their personal troubles in the car. And, even though there is an historical crisis going on right now, we expect there to be no change in their performance.

“So our profession this year needs to make sure we know how our employees are feeling and how we can help.“

I’ve already heard those dreaded words that I thought we had left behind in the 1970’s:  “They should just be grateful to have a job.”   When I raised that issue with Maureen – strictly from a devil’s advocate perspective, of course, she said:

“That attitude is extremely short-sighted. We know that customer service and satisfaction is what distinguishes Lowes. And our employees are not going to be serving our customers if we’re not serving them.  Employee engagement principles drive so many positive business results, that to replace them with the point of view that we’ll just replace them if they’re not performing is extremely short-sited.

“If you damage your reputation as a great employer now, it will take a long time to recover. You can’t just all of a sudden say, “Oh! Now we want to be an employer-of-choice again. People have very long memories.”

Follow me on Twitter!  www.twitter.com/marthafinney

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which will be available online and in bookstores everywhere on February 9! Hey! That's one month away! Yay!)

 

  

 

 

Have you given any thought to freelancing? Almost anything that can be done full-time can be translated into freelance gigs. And, according to CNN.com's news crawl yesterday, more and more companies are turning to freelancers to get their work done project by project, instead of full-time job by full-time job.

Now, I know that most of us aren't cut out for freelancing as a lifelong career. So I'm not suggesting that everyone rush right out and hang out their shingles. But if you're not working right now anyway, it beats the heck out of sitting in your socks soaking up the soaps all afternoon. Believe me, I tried that. Freelancing is a much better way to go.

Here's what freelancing can do for you:

It keeps you in touch with your former employers, who were really sorry to have to let you go, by the way.   I have one friend who actually was able to hire back a fantastic employee as a freelancer after she was forced to shut down her department. And, she was able to pay him more money because she had a lavish freelance budget. Which is kind of weird, but there's no arguing with reality.  (And, if CNN is right, more companies will have more money in their freelance budgets. So why not claim some of that for your own?)

Freelancing makes you the head cheese. As a freelancer you get to pick which assignments you're willing to take on. As an employee, you pretty much have to say yes to everything that crosses your desk. Of course, to be realistic, when wolves are beginning to gather at your door, you still have to say yes to most assignments that come your way. (Especially in the beginning when you're just building your practice.) But it's still very nice to know you can still say no...any time. Really. It's allowed.

You can actually fire clients! In fact, if you were feeling especially spiteful -- and your former employer completely deserves it -- you can turn right around and fire the guy who fired you! Just make sure you have plenty of money in the bank and a line of clamoring clients waiting for your attention, like the rope line outside of NY's au currant nightclub. Again, it's just nice to know you can.

You can write some really cool stuff off. See your tax guy about this. But, just so you know, I've been able to write off a scuba diving trip to Bonaire.  My groovy new Mac? Deductible. That video camera I want to buy? Deductible.  All that chocolate I eat when I'm writing under deadline? Not deductible.  Can't have everything.

You can grow much faster as a freelancer. By which I don't mean chocolate-eating, although that is also a guaranteed growth strategy.

What I do mean is that as a freelancer, you can go after potential clients in companies you would love to work for. You learn about the latest, greatest developments in your field, and you can, if you so choose, hang out with the leaders and role models of your profession. One of my most favorite assignments was helping Intuit write a white paper about their employee engagement initiative. Of all the books I've written, the cool places I've traveled to, the amazing people I've interviewed, I have to say that spending a couple of months working with Intuit's director of workforce research taught me so much...and even made me want to leap back into the workaday world.Just for a minute, there.

You have the satisfaction of actually completing projects. You know that sense of "ah, done!" As a full-time employee, you don't always get to feel that feeling. But as a freelancer, you do, because there is a definite "done" time, and that's when you get paid the second half of your fee (the first half comes when you say yes to the assignment at the beginning of the project).

You get to meet a heckuvalot more people as a freelancer. If you're stuck in your cube all day, bent over the same keyboard, staring into the same screen, day in and day out, you know what that makes you? A full-time employee.

As a freelancer, you get to wake up exactly when you want to (in my case, it's 3:30 am...so no slug-a-bed visions of sloth, please, thank you very much).  You get to pad around the house in your jammies until you're ready to put on shoes to go out and get the newspaper. Then you get to decide whether or not you want to haul on go-to-meeting clothes and attend a top-notch, cutting-edge lunch meeting with the leaders of your community and industry. You get to sit in big round tables, asking "is this your bread plate or mine?," of people whose business cards represent the best of the best in your profession.  You get to make friends with these people. Why? Because you're the head cheese of your own operation. You're not buried deep inside a corporate org chart, which, by the way, is just about to be thrown up into the air like pick-up-sticks. The reorg will be announced next week, time to tidy up your desk.

Now, if you were a freelancer, first of all you wouldn't be worried about being laid off. Secondly, you'd have all these fab business cards of people you've met in business/social functions who will help you.  The successful freelancer's network is something to envy, that's for sure.

You get to learn new skills and even heal old self-esteem wounds.First of all the new skills: Marketing yourself (by which I mean, "marketing your brains out"); new technical skills that will expand your marketability and competitiveness; negotiation skills; productivity skills; time management skills; public speaking skills; making new friends skills; getting-out-of-the-house skills.

As for the self-esteem healing part: I just find that people who are self-employed have a greater sense of purpose and potential than they did when they had a full-time job (and when I say "people," I mean "me").  When you are a freelancer, companies don't care whether you are too fat (heck! it's not their health insurance rates at risk here; but really, just stay away from the fridge at home) or too old. They just want to know if you can do the job, and what will it cost them. And how your talents and skills will help them achieve their own objectives.

Which brings me to the next self-esteem sticking point.  You discover very quickly how closely linked your self-esteem is to the money you make.  You build a lot of confidence landing gigs, successfully completing them to the point where you're like the Lone Ranger and your clients want to know when they're going to see you again. And pretty soon you can start asking for more money. And then more money. And then more, as your value goes up and your name gets around.  It's really good for your self-esteem, let me tell you.

Freelancing isn't easy. But it sure can be fun. And, if you've been laid off, you're not doing much right now anyway, except banging your head against the wall, perhaps looking for jobs that may or may not be there (but the work still needs to get done!).  Present yourself as a freelancer, and it's quite possible the more doors will swing open for you.

At least, that's what CNN.com said yesterday. And that's what I've been saying for the last 20 years.

Twitter alert!  Don't forget to "follow" me on www.twitter.com/marthafinney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which will be available online and in bookstores everywhere on February 9! Hey! That's one month away! Yay!)

 

  

 

You might think that taking a job with a company that's laying people off would be a very bad idea. But the days of LIFO (last in first out) are over. And you could discover that joining a company that has been cutting jobs could be the best career move you've ever made.

How?  You can find out by reading the free sample chapter of my new book, Rebound: A ProvenPlan For Starting Over After Job Loss. It's absolutely free in every way. You don't even have to sign up to access it.

Simply click on this link:  www.reboundyourcareer.com, and follow the navigation buttons to the sample chapter. And enjoy!  You don't even have to take notes because it will be there for your reference any time you need it!  (Be sure to visit the table of contents tab, which will show you all the other topics that are in the book!)

And guess what!!!!  I've finally joined the Twitter generation!  Thanks to Libby Gill, my fantastic, patient friend and genius coach, who walked me through the process this afternoon, I'm, how you might say, hooked up! If you like to follow tweets, follow me!  I'll be singing like a bird! www.twitter.com/marthafinney

 

 

 

 

    (Do you know anyone who needs help, advice, inspiration, and hope after being laid off?  Please send them to my new blog, Rebound Your Career!  It's based on my new book entitled, amazingly enough:  Rebound: A Proven Plan For Starting Over After Job Loss, which will be available online and in bookstores everywhere on February 9! Hey! That's one month away! Yay!)

 

   So this morning the job report headlines on CNN announced that unemployment is up to 7.2%. Yikes!  Does that make you feel nervous? It probably does. But should it?  Maybe. But probably not as much as the news anchors would like you to be.  If you were feeling groovy, you might not be so hooked on the news (and the commercials) as a result.

So with all this competition for whatever jobs there may be out there, should we just leap at the first job offer we're given?  I'd like to think not. But that's a personal choice that only you can make, given your personal circumstances.

But I'd also like to suggest that you pay attention to your instincts and intuition when you go in for interviews. Your interviewers and prospective bosses are going to want to know if you have a respectable credit rating, a disreputable rap sheet, perhaps a drug problem?  All those prying questions designed to peer under your hood to discover whether you are a nightmare waiting to happen.

You need to be looking under your potential boss's hood as well. While you certainly can't give him or her a cup to take into the bathroom, you can use your own detective skills to determine whether you're about to hitch your wagon to a star or a nut-bag, who will make your life miserable and probably put you out on the street again. 

Here are some signs to watch out for:

A high-tension office:  Is your potential boss's office a pig-sty or does it look like a paper bomb went off in it?  Is the rest of the staff exuding a simmering pot of freak-out that's just about to boil over?

A discourteous interviewer: Does your prospective boss let you finish your sentences? Is the interview on time? Are the questions designed to help you shine or make you feel defensive?Does your interviewer make you feel like you're Bovine #75 in a cattle call? What does your potential boss have to say about the person who last had the job?

Confusion about what the job entails: Job descriptions are one thing. But does your prospective boss know what he or she wants in an employee? Can that person describe for you what success looks like in that workplace?

A negative outlook: Ask your interview to tell you about a time when he or she was especially proud of the department. What was the challenge? How was it addressed? What did they learn from the successful experience?  If your interviewer draws a blank, that might be a sign that the only time he or she notices the people is when things go to hell.

Now...I can take feedback myself. And my ab/fab marketing director has told me that my blog posts are way too long!  REAAALLLLLY??????  Wahhhhhhh.

So I just want you to know that this posting is a just a taste of a longer posting that appears on Rebound Your Career.  If you want to know more, just click on Rebound Your Career and enjoy the whole shebang!

See you there!