Dealing with difficult times

Yesterday I met with a young person, about 26-28 years old, who happened to have lost job during these difficult economic situations. What came across to my mind all along the conversation was his obsession to get back to some job. I perfectly understand – losing a job is very unhappy experience. Besides the financial implication of not earning (which was not the case with this person), job loss alters one’s daily routine. You will not know what to do during the day. You will not like to socialize much. You will not like to sit at home either. But mere empathizing with this problem would solve the problem. The problem of job loss is real. And there has to be a real world solution for that.

While in the obsession of getting back to some job, this individual had almost forgotten the rich and varied experience he had till now. He had a solid four years of experience with exposure to multiple domains. He had an MBA from a school of repute. He had accomplishments about which he felt good till now. One event (of losing the job) has made him forget all those and he now begins to doubt the quality of his experience and of his own abilities to accomplish.

Showing desperateness to get back to any job will not help. This is the time to sit and think long term. This is the time to record what one has accomplished and to try and tweak the future. Perhaps meeting some career specialists would help. The need of the hour is to add some thing to your previous accomplishments such that it becomes more holistic and thus a strong value proposition. For instance, enrolling into to a professional development certification or training activity, doing an ad-hoc project of interest, writing on some topic of your interest and publishing it or even teaching part time.

The day to day busy schedule of work place would not have allowed luxuries of learning and of dwelling into academic style of enquiry. But now is the time to make up for it. Document it in your resume. Show it off to the prospective employer and be frank enough to say – you just tried to convert this crisis into an opportunity – by making up for what you thought you always wanted to do –but you could not do while working.