INDIANAPOLIS—Although the National Bureau of Economic Research recently announced that the recession ended last year, job uncertainty continues to plague people across the nation.
According to Dr. Laurence Shatkin, author of the recently released book 2011 Career Plan, people have every right to be concerned about losing their job.
“During the worst months of the Great Recession, hundreds of thousands of workers were losing their jobs each month. We’ve moved past those dark days, but you’re never going to see the kind of widespread job security that your grandparents came to expect during most of the previous century,” he explains.
“Nowadays, very few employers feel any kind of loyalty toward their employees. When your work is no longer the best way to contribute to the company’s bottom line, you’re history. If your job can be done by a robot, a slick computer app, a worker on some foreign shore, a part-timer, a temporary worker or a fresh-faced graduate—look out!”
Simply put, job loss can happen to anyone—in good and bad economies. According to Shatkin, the resilient workers, those who take steps to prepare for unemployment before it hit them, are the people who rebound the quickest.
To become a resilient worker and, therefore, better prepared to bounce back from sudden unemployment, Shatkin offers the following tips:
- Specialize and focus on a specific goal. After a few years in an occupation or industry, find a niche that is not overcrowded and is related to your core skills; then, acquire the specialized skills to excel in that role. In a tight job market, employers are more interested in someone with the perfect fit of skills than in a generalist. Your niche may be at the intersection of two very different skills; for example, you may be the chemist who is an ace computer programmer or the police officer who is an inspiring teacher.
- Be visible beyond your workplace. Join a professional organization, find something missing from their services, and put yourself in that key role. Start a blog or be active in commenting on a prominent blog; this is a readily available way to become known by people with connections in your industry. Start a Twitter feed that spreads news about your industry and specialization (and not where you went for lunch).
- Keep your resume up to date. Do more than list your current job title. Be sure to include a recent accomplishment so you don’t look as though your career has been coasting. Make sure that your skills are easy to identify.
- Keep your skills up to date.The particular skills needed by your industry and for your targeted role will vary, but almost everybody needs to be familiar with productivity software such as spreadsheets.
- Believe in yourself. Every job you hold is just one scene in the drama that is your life. If one episode is going badly or ends suddenly, it doesn’t have to turn the whole arc of your career into a tragedy. Instead, think of the setback as a plot complication or as an adventure.
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