An IT manager who suffered three layoffs in just two years shares how he revamped his job-hunt strategy and outlines his search approach, which ultimately brought him back into the workforce.
If you're out of work, with no job prospects in sight, take heart. It's the same scenario I found myself in a couple of times a few years back, and I'm well familiar with the discouragement and frustration that comes with unemployment in an industry that is just slowly starting to rebound.
I was laid off three times in two years. Each time, my management role was downsized due to market conditions. After the third layoff, and several months had gone by without a nibble to the 250 resumes I had sent out, I decided it was time to change my job-hunt strategy as well as some other traditional employment approaches.
Initiating the job hunt
The first thing I had to come to grips with was that companies, even good companies with good management, have bad years. The sooner you accept the fact that your contribution was important at one time, and that you're just not needed due to corporate economic concessions, the better off you will be. You have to focus your energies on moving on to the next career step.
The conventional job-search methods that had worked in the past clearly weren't working anymore. To implement some radical changes, I first had to overcome four big hurdles.
No. 1: Accept that you are no longer the boss
This statement was hard for me to accept after so many years of working in management roles. I had no staff, no office, and no one to eat lunch with. The sooner you come to grips with the fact that you are no longer in charge, the quicker you can get your focus back to the task at hand. The faster you get over the trauma of being unemployed, the faster you can apply the skills you've developed to get a new position. My biggest issue was that I thought I knew how to get a job. I had to accept the fact that even though my judgment and decisions made a company a lot of money in the past, that same judgment was not working for me now.
No. 2: Realise only you can make needed changes
No matter how good your resume reads, and how perfect you are for the job, it's not automatically going to be yours. If 100 people are competing for one position, you have to change your approach in order to stand out. I knew the job situation was bad when some of my best friends, who were influential managers, couldn't get me interviews at their own companies.
No. 3: Examine the resume message
This was my second big revelation to accept — that experience as a manager can be a job-opportunity killer when the job doesn't require that level of experience. I discovered this by calling a company that hadn't even asked me in for an interview. I was told, "We are seeing a lot of chiefs coming across our desks, but not many Indians." My resume reflected and promoted me as a manager. It didn't strongly show my team skills and abilities to work as a staff member. Nowhere did it show that I was a good team player and that I got along with others.
No. 4: Understand that you may not be worth a manager's pay anymore
When I was a manager, I was paid like a manager. That, I soon realised, wasn't going to happen again in the short term. I ultimately took a 50 to 60 percent reduction in salary to get back into the workforce. Yes, it hurt financially, but my family was able to cope. We did sell a car to get rid of a note payment and then bought a cheaper car for cash. We started eating at home more and watching our expenses. Basically, I used my management skills to streamline my personal life in order to get my professional life back on track.
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