Dealing With Hard Times

"Many people fail because they conclude that fundamentals simply do not apply to them" - M.L. Chichon

I got the call on December 22nd, the last day I planned to be in the office before closing for the holidays. The caller was an former client and the words were ones I hadn't heard in three years. "Hi", she said. " I just got laid off."

Her words took me back to a period in 1993 when I dreaded opening the newspaper in the morning. The headlines were always about another round of layoffs at some Silicon Valley company or other. At the time, I was working as a career counselor at an in-house career center and most of the people I saw on a daily basis were laid-off workers. I knew my clients would be dismayed to see that another 1,000 people had been added to the competition for what few jobs there were.

If you went through that time in Silicon Valley, you remember how bad it was. Seemed like everyone was downsizing and no one was growing their work force. It could take months of sending out resumes before getting even one interview. And job offers were on a take it or leave it basis. No negotiation for a signing bonus. Very little room to try to get a better starting salary. It was all about too much supply and not enough demand.

Then the economy started moving again. Slowly at first, then it gained momentum until it became a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut. Interviews became easier to get. Offers became more generous. People started having to choose between multiple offers. The boom continued and the shortage of people made it easy to negotiate a great salary and a fat signing bonus. Or, if you worked it right, you could get a retention bonus for not quitting your job.

Well, it seems like the bad old days are back, or at least a version of them. Layoffs are on the rise and companies are slowing down expansion, even if they are still doing well. So, what should we do to ensure that we ride out the storm, whether it is a small one that passes quickly, or a major one that hangs on for a while?

First, stay calm. The end of the civilized world as we know it has been predicted many times and here we still are. In 2000, it was the Y2K bug that was going to send us back to the Dark Ages. This year, it is the electricity crisis that is going to do the same thing. Stay tuned because next year it will be something else. What is true is that economies are cyclical and have periods of expansion followed by periods of contraction followed by expansion again. The periods of contraction are painful, but survivable, especially if you know that expansion will get here again eventually.

Second, focus on what you control. You can choose to pay a little closer attention to your company's financial health in order to get some early warning of what might be ahead. You can choose to update your resume "just in case." You can choose to start building a list of companies that look good as a "Plan B" in case you need to abandon the ship you are on. You can choose to start talking to former co-workers who have moved to other companies, just to stay in touch. You can choose to bite the bullet now and go back to school to upgrade your skills to gain a competitive edge if hiring standards get tighter, as they do when the economy slows.

In the last recession, I learned a great lesson. I learned that those who ignored the factors they couldn't control did much better. Their job search might not have been shorter, but it seemed so because they were focused on hope rather than fear. They were spending their time looking for a solution, rather than being burdened by a problem. And finally, they seemed to know the truth of the Zen saying that "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."

© 2001 Richard M. PhillipsReturn to Article List

 I offer a free 30 minute telephone session to help you get started toward solving your career challenges - such as getting what you really want. The session is an opportunity for you to talk with a professional counselor and coach about what you want from your career or job and to get some initial feedback on what some solutions might be. It is also gives you the chance to experience my counseling style to see if I'm someone you'd like to have help you.

Interested? Just click Free Session to get some details of what to expect and how to prepare.