RIF (FED)

Michael Maynard, a free-lance journalist who has joined us to provide his weekly perspective on various topics from Human Resources and Recruiting to business at large, shares his experience on the ever-growing phenonemon of being "relieved of one's responsibilities" at work.  Thanks, Michael.

 

The economic downturn appears to be widespread.  Industries that previously have been inured, like high technology and financial services, are having to lay off employees:  Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) minus 500 employees, Motorola minus 4,000 employees, Fidelity Investments minus 1,200 employees.  The reality of a Reduction in Force (RIF) is that real people get laid off, real pepole lose their jobs.

It happened to me.  No matter how much you prepare yourself for it, being riffed hurts.  You've given your best efforts, you've given your heart and soul in doing your job, and it wasn't good enough for the company to keep you.  So, what do you do?

There are plenty of articles which tell you what to do.  It is equally important to know what not to do. Here's a list of no-no's:

Take a vacation.  You won't be as desirable for other companies to hire you as when you are first riffed.  As soon as you get home, your job search campaign must start.  Redo your resume.  Go through your Rolodex. Start calling your former company's competitors.  You have to be tough-minded to succeed in this new step in your career.  Taking off one week will cost you three weeks of lost job search momentum.

Get involved with non-job search activities.  You now have a new 24X7 job, finding your next job.  Anything that takes away from the new job search extensively must be verboten.  It's nice that you now have time to fix the screen door or coach your daughter's soccer team, but if doing those activities takes away from the job search, don't do them.  You have two main assets in the successful job search -- your knowledge and your time.  Don't waste either of them.  Which is more important in the long run -- your daughter's soccer team winning or finding a new and (hopefully) better job?

Badmouth your former employer. I've worked for companies where I couldn't leave fast enough.  The door couldn't possibly have hit me on the way out. The business community is very large and very small.  It's very large for the number of companies who might hire you now and in the future, including your former employer.  It's very small when you are interviewing and find out that one of the interviewers is from your former employer.  What goes around does come around--there are no good reasons to badmouth your former employer.  You cashed their paycheck, didn't you?

Get together with former co-workers.  Sorry, but commiserating isn't going to help you find your next job.  Yes, you have a lot of anger inside and it makes you feel good to bash your former employer.  However, you'll feel even better when you get your new job.  You win by getting the best job possible with an employer that is not going through financial problems.  Wait until you get your neew job and then invite your former co-workers to celebrate.

Contact family, friends and neighbors. Unless you are trying to sign your family, friends and neighbors to be part of your cell phone's calling circle, then don't get them directly involved in your job search.  If they offer to help, accept their support as it is intended. Sure, they want to help you find your next job, but if they're not in the position to do so, they'll feel worse about not being able to help you.  Accept the offer from those who are in a direct position to help you.

Answer want ads. Reading the want ads as one part of your overall reconnaissance is valuable.  The want ads are one measure of how the local and industry markets are performing.  But only answering want ads has a very low probability of succeeding.  As you probably have read, 80% of open jobs are not advertised.

You have no way of differentiating yourself and your skills by answering want ads.  Twenty-five years ago, one of my former employers ran a small ad for a position in my department in the Sunday Boston Globe Career section.  I received over four hundred resumes; many were applicable for positions in other departments.  Those resumes ended up in the wastebasket.

What the job search agencies don't tell you is that the decision making process for hiring is negative in focus.  The process is less about finding the right person, however long it takes and how much it costs, and more about finding an overall acceptable new hire.  The likelihood that your resume will be read in full during the hiring process is very small.  Going through all those resumes quickly means that the ones that obviously don't fit are tossed first; the ones that have some relevance to the position are tossed next, and hopefully, the best candidates will be left.  And yes, you do need to create a professional looking reume. If your resume is poorly designed or poorly written, the resume will also get tossed in the wastebasket for being disrespectful to the parties who have had to peruse it.

Call repeatedly. Remember what it was like doing your daily job?   You hardly had enough time to wolf down a sandwich and Diet Coke.  Calling the hiring manager once is acceptable.  If you really believe that you are the right person for the job, then calling again is usually taken favorably that you really want the job.  But calling repeatedly just makes you appear to be desperate and needy.  Don't do anything that you wouldn't want to have done to you when you were the hiring manager.

Use multiple job placement companies. There are only so many jobs in your geographic area and in your line of work, so using more than one or two contingent job placement companies, unless you are looking for different types or different geographic jobs, is counter-productive.  For example, if you were looking for a job as an accountant or as a sales representative, then using more than one contingent job placement likely isn't necessary.  If you are looking for a job as a biochemist, then using one contigent agency which specializes in biotechnology should be sufficient. But if you are looking to be the Vice President of Marketing, where there are fewer positions available, you need to work both with a contigent job placement agency and a retained search company, if the "head-hunter" agrees to work with you.  Find the agencies that you want to have represent you and let them do their jobs.  If after four to six weeks, you haven't had any job interviewers from the contingent agency, then use a second one.

I know how difficult it is personally, professionally, and financially to be without a job. But conducting a successful job search will be an asset to your career because of what you have learned about yourself.  You have skills that you didn't think you had, like in marketing and sales.  You have risen to overcome the challenge. Ccongratulations! Go forth and prosper!   

About Michael Maynard:  Michael is a free-lance journalist and management consultant.  As a freelance writer he has written for CEO and CIO magazines and other magazine and newspapers.  He was managing editor and featured columnist for Global Business Newsletter.  He was also a featured columnist for the Washington Post-Newsweek syndicate.  For more than 25 years, Michael has been President and Co-Founder of Azimuth Partners, a marketing and business development consultancy.  Michael is currently lending his consultant talents to Improved Experience, which helps employers use feedback to measure and manage competitive advantage, engagement, and retention. You can reach him at michael@improvedexperience.com.

 

Technorati tags:  reduction in force, job interviews, job search, job agencies.

Comments

[Realestate]

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[school_dubl]

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