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#JobSearch : A Survival Guide for When You’ve Been Laid Off. Here is What you Need to Know, and Need to Do. Great REad for All!

You can’t predict whether you’ll be laid off, but you can have a solid plan in case it happens.  The rapid succession of layoff announcements at Meta Platforms Inc., Twitter Inc. and other technology companies have put some workers on edge, and not just in Silicon Valley. AMC Networks Inc. recently said it is planning to lay off about 20% of its U.S. employees.

What to do immediately after

First, figure out what kind of separation this is—which often is more important than the reason your company is letting you go. There are some important differences between being furloughed, laid off or permanently terminated and it could mean the difference between having healthcare coverage or not. If you were fired, ask whether you will receive severance pay, as well as how you will be compensated for any unused vacation days. You could also be eligible for unemployment benefits in your state, depending on the circumstances.

Negotiate your exit, if you can

severance package is sometimes offered to departing employees.

In many cases, severance pay isn’t required by law, but some companies have established policies for offering it. The typical formula for a severance package is one or two weeks of pay for each year of service. This is either negotiated when a job is offered or when a job is terminated.

Check your employer’s handbook or ask an HR representative about severance pay. You can negotiate for a variety of things, from more money, how the severance is paid, and continuing health insurance benefits, to services to help you land your next job. Don’t hesitate to explain your personal situation if necessary.

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Did you know?  First Sun Consulting, Llc (FSC) is celebrating over 30 years in the delivery of corporate & individual outplacement services & programs to over 1200 of our corporate clients in the U.S., Canada, the UK, & Mexico!  

We here at FSC want to thank each of our corporate partners for the opportunity in serving & moving each of their transitioning employee(s) rapidly toward employment!

 

Article continued …

Post on social media

One of the quickest ways to get a job lately has been to announce on social media that you were laid off. There are a couple of big benefits to this practice: Your network will take note and offer to help amplify your message, and people who want to hire will feel welcomed to call.

Career coaches advise that job seekers who post online steer clear of bitterness, signal an appreciation of their time at their former employer and say they are excited to find a new adventure.

Reach out to friends and family

After a job loss, it is important to stay connected to people who will support you.

Many laid-off employees can feel directionless and lose their sense of self. To avoid that situation, career experts say it is important to reach out to your network, your family and your friends. Create a routine that will give you a sense of productivity, whether that means sending out a certain number of job applications a day, working on a new hobby, or a daily workout. Setting yourself up for small wins can help you regain a sense of control over your life.

Reach out to your network

Now is a great time to power up your roster of go-to professional contacts. It is daunting to put yourself out there and ask for favors, but if you have been laid off, this is the time.

Sign up for The Wall Street Journal’s five-week networking challenge, designed to take the guesswork and anxiety out of developing contacts into relationships. The challenge starts when you sign up. Over five weeks, you will learn how to build a list of powerful allies, gracefully ask for help, and revive old connections to help you with your job search.

If you weren’t the one laid off, here’s how to reach out

Losing a friend at work or seeing friends get laid off is stressful. Don’t pretend it isn’t happening: The worst thing to do is to do nothing—even if you’re not sure what to say. Say something simple, such as “I’m so sorry,” and only offer help if you’re willing to follow through. Here are more tips on how to be a good friend or colleague.

WSJ.com | December 2, 2022 |  Vanessa Fuhrmans

 

#CareerAdvice : #YourCareer – 4 Ways to Protect Yourself From a #Layoff …Great Two(2) Min REad!

Whether because of mergers, downsizing, or organizational shifts, each year, countless workers inevitably find themselves losing their jobs through no fault of their own. It happens to the most seasoned and dedicated among us, and that’s perhaps the scariest thing about getting laid off — no one is immune.

That said, there are certain steps you can take to minimize your chances of getting laid off, and reduce your anxiety along the way.

1. Have a unique skill

Though soft skills — those that apply to virtually any position — are always a good thing to work on, at the end of the day, you’re probably not going to get to keep your job in a round of layoffs by virtue of your solid time-management ability alone. That’s why it pays to work on honing one particular skill you know your company absolutely needs. If you’re an IT professional, maybe it’s a complex software that’s needed to keep the workflow going. If you’re a designer, maybe it’s that cutting-edge graphics program that’s been giving your company its competitive edge. No matter what skill you’re best suited to focus on, if you set yourself apart as the one person who’s an expert in that arena, your company might hesitate to give you the boot.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Continue of article:

2. Know the business inside and out

Maybe you’re the best copy director your company has ever seen. But if your knowledge base is limited to effective sales pitches, and you’re not well-versed in market research, finances, or analytics, then you might still find yourself out of a job if your company is forced to slash positions. On the other hand, if you make an effort to educate yourself on all aspects of the business, your company will have a much harder time letting you go.

How do you get there? Sit in on other teams’ meetings, and ask to collaborate with various groups on recurring projects. The more exposure you get to different areas of your company and how they work, the more your management team might end up fighting to keep you.

3. Keep up with your business associates

It’s no secret that networking has been proved to help countless searchers land jobs, but many people find themselves networking defensively — that is, they only start reconnecting with contacts once they’re out of a job and need help. But if you make a point to stay in solid touch with your associates regularly, you’ll protect yourself in the face of layoffs in two ways.

First, if you network extensively within your company, you’ll have more people around to speak highly of you, which might spare you from getting the ax. Second, if you have associates you contact regularly, you won’t come across as taking advantage by reaching out for help if you are indeed let go. Or to put it another way, it’s a lot easier to ask a favor of someone you’re in touch with regularly than to sneak up as a blast from the past wanting assistance.

4. Boost your emergency savings

Having more money in the bank won’t do a thing to help you avoid losing your job. What it will do, however, is buy you some peace of mind that if you are let go, you won’t have to immediately resort to credit card debt just to keep up with your finances. Having that stress removed might, in turn, help you focus better at work, thus reducing your chances of landing on the chopping block. Plus, if you are laid off, you’ll be less pressured into taking the first job you find because you’re desperate for money.

Though layoffs are sometimes inevitable, there are things you can do to lower your odds when your company is going through them. If anything, working on the above suggestions will give you someplace to focus your energy so you’re not utterly fixated on the thought of losing your job.

 

GlassDoor.com | February 13, 2019 | Posted by 

#CareerAdvice : #JobSearch -I Was #LaidOff Twice in One Year–Here’s How I Bounced Back. Great Read!

When I graduated from college, I was 21 and had several prestigious internships under my belt. Shortly after, I accepted a management position at a growing health institute.
My career started strong. But five years later, I was laid off–twice. Not only from the first job, but also from the next management-level position I accepted.

It’s an experience many people can relate to. One fifth of U.S. workers had been laid off in the last five years, according to a Rutgers University survey. And layoffs are particularly common in early stage companies, where cash flow is often a problem.

For these reasons, knowing how to move forward after an unexpected job loss is a skill worth developing. Here are three lessons I learned the hard way that empowered me to bounce back.

I SAVED THE VENTING FOR MY WIFE, FRIENDS, AND DOGS

I’ve never been great with rejection. But after listening to multiple supervisors dismiss me as non-essential, I knew that I had to remain polite and professional. It took all the willpower I had to mutter, “Well, thank you for the opportunity to work here. I hope you’ll consider writing me a letter of recommendation.”

What I really want to say was, “There are so many other people you should be cutting before me. You may not recognize the value I bring now, but you will once I’m not around.” But I knew that wouldn’t help me get what I wanted even more–a fresh start. So instead of fighting a war I couldn’t win, I swallowed my pride and focused on honoring the relationships I would need to find another job.

In one case, I attended an awkward “sorry you’re getting laid off” party simply to protect valuable work friendships. Another time, I asked for permission to finish the day without pay to debrief co-workers on ongoing projects and set the team up for success. Going this extra mile paid off.

The first executive who laid me off later hired me back as a consultant. The second time, three work contacts from partnering organizations expressed an interest in hiring me the very day I was let go. That never would have happened if I’d allowed my anger to poison those relationships.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Continue of article:

I HAD TO FACE MY GRIEF

Telling my wife that my job and income were gone was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was even more painful to repeat that a year later. In both cases, she was supportive, but I still felt like I was letting her down.

The second time I was laid off, my wife and I were in the process of adopting our first child–an extremely expensive process. After losing my income, we weren’t sure how we would be able to afford to move forward. It was so tempting to shut down emotionally. After all, I was already forcing a smile in my work life while I looked for new opportunities.

But at the urging of a friend, I engaged my feelings and tried to grieve proactively. I stopped blaming myself for what happened and started brainstorming how I might have prevented it. Over time, I made peace with the fact that layoffs reflect the state of the company, not your performance as an individual.

In both cases, the companies I left went on to downsize further. That’s not uncommon. Last month, Munchery, an on-demand, single serving meal delivery service, announced they were closing their doors, roughly eight months after a significant round of layoffs. Observing these trends helped further me let go of the past and focus on my own future.

I LEARNED NOT TO JUMP INTO SOMETHING ELSE RIGHT AWAY

The first time I got laid off, I thought, “I need to find a new job fast.” Even though I had enough severance to wait for the right fit, I jumped at the first opportunity I was offered, despite several red flags. I remember telling a friend, “I feel lost at sea, so I’m swimming to the closest island I can find.”

After layoff number two, my thinking had changed. Even though I had significantly less severance to work with, I never applied for another job. Instead, I started gathering consulting clients, slowly building a diversified income that couldn’t be taken away by any one person’s decision. After a few challenging months, I finally achieved the rhythm I’d been working for–a sturdy income, ample free time, and the power to say “Yes” only to work that truly excited me.

During my first full calendar year of consulting, I grew my income by roughly 71% and my wife and I went through with the adoption.

A job loss is never easy, no matter how much warning you have, or how early you anticipated the situation. But for me, it ultimately led to more clarity on what I wanted to do, a significantly bigger income, and the motivation to pursue the life I wanted instead of settling for the life I had.

Remember, disappointments can turn into opportunities–you just need to keep moving forward. As difficult as it may be, your best days are likely ahead of you.


Author: Kyle Young consults with bloggers and authors on marketing strategy, product development, and operations management.

FastCompany.com | February 26, 2019

Your #Career : 4 Ways to Protect Yourself From a #Layoff …Whether because of #Mergers, #Downsizing, or Organizational Shifts, each Year, Countless Workers Inevitably Find Themselves Losing their #Jobs Through No Fault of their Own.

Whether because of mergers, downsizing, or organizational shifts, each year, countless workers inevitably find themselves losing their jobs through no fault of their own.

It happens to the most seasoned and dedicated among us, and that’s perhaps the scariest thing about getting laid off — no one is immune. That said, there are certain steps you can take to minimize your chances of getting laid off, and reduce your anxiety along the way.

1. Have a unique skill

Though soft skills — those that apply to virtually any position — are always a good thing to work on, at the end of the day, you’re probably not going to get to keep your job in a round of layoffs by virtue of your solid time-management ability alone. That’s why it pays to work on honing one particular skill you know your company absolutely needs. If you’re an IT professional, maybe it’s a complex software that’s needed to keep the workflow going. If you’re a designer, maybe it’s that cutting-edge graphics program that’s been giving your company its competitive edge. No matter what skill you’re best suited to focus on, if you set yourself apart as the one person who’s an expert in that arena, your company might hesitate to give you the boot.

2. Know the business inside and out

Maybe you’re the best copy director your company has ever seen. But if your knowledge base is limited to effective sales pitches, and you’re not well-versed in market research, finances, or analytics, then you might still find yourself out of a job if your company is forced to slash positions. On the other hand, if you make an effort to educate yourself on all aspects of the business, your company will have a much harder time letting you go.

How do you get there? Sit in on other teams’ meetings, and ask to collaborate with various groups on recurring projects. The more exposure you get to different areas of your company and how they work, the more your management team might end up fighting to keep you.

3. Keep up with your business associates

It’s no secret that networking has been proved to help countless searchers land jobs, but many people find themselves networking defensively — that is, they only start reconnecting with contacts once they’re out of a job and need help. But if you make a point to stay in solid touch with your associates regularly, you’ll protect yourself in the face of layoffs in two ways.

First, if you network extensively within your company, you’ll have more people around to speak highly of you, which might spare you from getting the ax. Second, if you have associates you contact regularly, you won’t come across as taking advantage by reaching out for help if you are indeed let go. Or to put it another way, it’s a lot easier to ask a favor of someone you’re in touch with regularly than to sneak up as a blast from the past wanting assistance.

4. Boost your emergency savings

Having more money in the bank won’t do a thing to help you avoid losing your job. What it willdo, however, is buy you some peace of mind that if you are let go, you won’t have to immediately resort to credit card debt just to keep up with your finances. Having that stress removed might, in turn, help you focus better at work, thus reducing your chances of landing on the chopping block. Plus, if you are laid off, you’ll be less pressured into taking the first job you find because you’re desperate for money.

Though layoffs are sometimes inevitable, there are things you can do to lower your odds when your company is going through them. If anything, working on the above suggestions will give you someplace to focus your energy so you’re not utterly fixated on the thought of losing your job.

This article was originally published on The Motley Fool. It is reprinted with permission.

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