Managing Your Career When a Layoff Looms
By Matthew Rothenberg, The Ladders
It’s stressful enough to work for a company that’s going through tough times, let alone to look for a new job after a layoff. So how about searching for a job when your current company has told you your tenure is ending? TheLadders recently talked to a couple of senior executives who had to maintain this delicate balance: winding up the current job with dignity while looking to the future. Rick Joers was a vice president of HR at JP Morgan when the company acquired Bear Stearns in March 2008. Joers, 58, knew by June that the restructuring he was busy helping to orchestrate would ultimately eliminate his own job, and the ax fell in September. Nicholas Haaf was shocked in February 2008 when his 17-year run with a Dallas-Fort Worth financial-services company was drawing to a close. But he still felt enough loyalty to the company to stay on as a contract employee for a month to help with the transition. “I felt such a big part of the company’s growth and success that I felt a responsibility, even after learning that my position was going away, to help in any way I could,” Haaf said. Haaf said that while his transitional month was difficult, it helped him ease into the role of job seeker after nearly two decades. “While I worked, I was thinking about how to organize my job search,” he said. “I hadn’t written a resume in a while, and it took a little bit of change in mindset to put myself in the job market again.” Early warning Such advance warning of pending unemployment is rare, but, like Joers, most of us who’ve been through a layoff can say we saw the end approaching. Take steps to prepare yourself for the day your job ends, and position yourself to begin a productive job search as early as possible:
Update your resume with accomplishments from your current job. Finish or participate in high-profile assignments that will sell your abilities As long as it’s within the rules of your current employer, gather the electronic and printed records of career success you’ll need on the job search. Performance reports and other files are important to building a resume and demonstrating your bona fides.
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Start networking. Use your current position and access to industry organizations to attend events. Make sure to promote yourself, even put yourself forward as a presenter whenever possible. Those opportunities may become more difficult to obtain once you’re laid off.
Use opportunities to talk to the media about your industry. Keep your name out there while you have a platform to do so. Introduce yourself to recruiters. Be honest about your situation and your desire to stay at your current employer until your tenure ends, if you choose to wait for the pink slip.
You owe your current employer a day’s work and the sacred trust not to leverage your position to get another job, but you owe yourself preparation for the next stage of your career.
Matthew Rothenberg is editorial director for TheLadders, the world's leading online service catering exclusively to the $100K+ job market. Previously he worked at Ziff Davis Media, ZDNet, CNET, and Hachette Filipacchi.
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