|
By
Ken M. Shaurette
Omni Tech Corporation
Last month, I addressed the issue of recent technology layoffs
by all of the companies that have experienced reductions
in force during the last year. There have been plenty of
them in the last 12 months. This article will shed some
insight from first-hand experience on layoff survival.
For me, it was the first time ever. The last time I didn't
have a job to go to on a regular basis was in grade school
when I was mowing grass for the neighbors in northern Wisconsin,
which was pretty steady in the summer. It was very unusual
to wake up that first morning and realize I didn't have
to go to the office.
On of the first things to overcome is that emptiness, feeling
like you've been betrayed. Realizing you have nowhere to
go or place to be that first morning can be very overwhelming.
Stay on a schedule. There may or may not have been a good
reason why you got the axe. If you thought your company
treated everyone like family, think again. It is a business
and as such must make business decisions. Even a family
has their problems. When a business has problems, if it
doesn't address a problem, it can impact the whole company.
While in a family with a problem the whole family may feel
the pain and suffer a bit; in the end they will still be
your family. A business, is a business, is a business and
when the going gets tough anyone is expendable.
In order to help yourself get over the betrayal feeling,
stay on a schedule. Keep yourself feeling like you have
a purpose. If you have a family, your family is still your
purpose. They still count on you. Don't sleep late feeling
sorry for yourself. You were just given a new lease on life,
new challenges and a new job. That new job is to find employment.
Take it as a challenge to prove to the company that released
you that they made a mistake. This is not the worst thing
that could have happened. People are experiencing a lot
of worse things; from illness to tragedies. You just lost
a job you had probably been complaining about anyway.
Staying on schedule for you may be as simple as getting
up, having breakfast at your normal time, and going down
the hall to use the computer in your family office. This
will be where you begin your new job, the employment search.
The Internet has numerous places just waiting for you to
find the perfect job. That can be part of the problem if
you don't have a plan. There are certainly enough job sites
out there to check out, but STOP and consider first what
you want to do. Is the same old job enough, or do you want
to look for something better?
Before beginning to apply on any site after a search, consider
your skill set and what you really want to do. This might
be your chance to find that perfect job you have always
wanted. It might be your chance to make that career change
you have been considering. Without a plan for what you want
and what you are looking for you can spend an entire day
finding lots of cool-sounding jobs, but they are all in
Afghanistan or require skills that you haven't considered.
START with a plan. Do you want to stay located where you
are? Are you willing to travel and how much? One of the
first questions you will get almost every time is whether
you are willing to relocate? If you were willing to move,
where would you consider? Is Afghanistan in your plan? The
next thing is a resume. Do you have only one? Has it been
updated to match your desires for that perfect job you seek?
These are all questions that can help you better focus your
search and may eventually determine whether you have overly
limited your marketability. If you do not intend to relocate,
what do you consider to be local? Begin thinking of companies
that are in the territory you are interested in searching.
You may be able to sell one of them on your skills. You
can use this list of companies as one method of your job
search. Go to their Web sites, assuming they have them,
and try first to see if they have some jobs in your line
of talent. The other methods I used were the Sunday newspaper
and the Internet job sites.
The Sunday paper in most cities can be an excellent source
for understanding the job market and what companies are
looking for. It may point out to you companies that you
never considered before. Use this information to check out
their Web sites. Maybe they have more opening that just
what was in this Sunday's issue.
Now for the Internet: How do you decide what site best suits
your needs? Here are a few cautions: Different sites often
post the same jobs, the title and descriptions may even
be slightly different, but the job and hiring company will
be the same. Be careful not to waste your time repetitively
chasing the same job with different sites. This often happens
when different recruiters handle the same job and list them
differently to get the interested candidate to contact them.
You are likely to find three different kinds of postings.
1) The hiring organization posts positions with a Web site.
2) Recruiting agencies that look for personnel on contract
to hire and permanent solutions will post for specific job
skills for clients. 3) The recruiter who has a specific
job it is trying to help a company fill. They are doing
the staff search to help the company out and of course make
a few bucks.
One important thing to be sure with any of the recruiting
companies or agents is that you retain control of when and
how your resume is presented. I ran into one opportunity
where the recruiter just sent the first resume I gave it
to a hiring company. I did not even know it until later
when another recruiter was trying to present me to this
same company. The new recruiter was much more knowledgeable
about the kind of resume that would get a second look at
this company and coached me in what I needed to be prepared
for with this organization only to find out my first resume,
which at the time I thought was pretty good, had already
gone past the desk of the company human relations manager.
Now that I had a newer and much better one, they didn't
want to see it or have anything to do with me. I found myself
continually improving my resume, as I better understood
the skills that I wanted to emphasize. I actually ended
up with several resumes for different areas based on the
job and skills that I wanted to make stand out.
Let's briefly describe Nos. 2 and 3 so you have a better
understanding of what you might run in to.
No. 2. Recruiting agencies are in the business of finding
specific talent for a company or for hiring a pool of talent
that they can subcontract to companies on contract for hire
or purely contract positions. Often these companies will
interview you as if they were hiring you for a job with
them. This can be good because it will help your primary
recruiter better focus your skills and interest on jobs
that you might want. A good time to have your plan with
you.
No. 3. A recruiter (or head hunter as we used to call them)
is not that much different that the agency, but they tend
to concentrate more on full time positions versus dealing
with the contract jobs. You may find a couple different
kinds of recruiters, those that specialize in your field
(in my case that was information security) or specific talent,
and those that are just looking to get job positions filled.
Some recruiters may also limit geographically where they
focus their placement of people. Consider that if you plan
states that you are willing to go anywhere.
Depending on the recruiter you may get a lot of help. They
will help you format and reformat you resume based on having
worked with some hiring managers in the past. This will
help you be seen rather than be one of the large volumes
of resumes that a hiring manager will see. Watch out for
the other recruiter that in my opinion is much less desirable.
They only want the money they get from placing you. They
will take your resume and use the shotgun approach to getting
it distributed, purely shipping it everywhere. If they can
get it there first before you apply personally or with another
recruiter they figure they will be the one to get the placement
fee.
When you find a recruiter or agency you like, stick with
them. Use them as your primary placement agent. Don't ignore
the others because the primary may not have the same contacts,
but give them first chance on positions to place you. They
will have take the time to know and understand your wants
and needs and will be able to do a much better job of marketing
you to potential companies.
I suggested that you identify the companies in your area.
Use this list to inform the recruiter(s) of companies that
you are already working with. Use the list to pitch yourself
to these organizations. From the very start you should have
been keeping a list of each company you contact, who you
contacted, and notes about the status. You will need this
anyway as a way to document to unemployment that you are
searching for a job.
When the job offers start rolling in, don't jump at the
first one. Be sure you are comfortable that it meets your
career goals. You don't want to be back in the job hunt
career again in a few months. Besides life is way too short,
and this is all about your life. Ken M. Shaurette, (CISSP,
CISA) is a senior information security professional with
more than 20 years IT experience. He has provided information
security and audit advice and vision for companies building
information security programs for over 17 years.
Ken has written numerous articles and is published in the
2001 and 2002 editions of Auerbach's Handbook of Information
Security Management. For questions or comments contact Ken
at: [email protected]
|
