Depression means losing out before the battle ends. So keep optimistic in a layoff situation, advises Geetanjali Pandit.
Sometimes an inflated or an unnecessarily big tab of salary can be the cause of a layoff. Is that the case with you? Are you being asked to quit because of your overinflated cost to company? Are YOU willing to rework your compensation (downward) to suit the new economic necessity?? Would your current employer be willing to let you stay on at a reduced cost? Sometimes, this can work.
Get in control of short term spends and long term liabilities. Do the homework on a better rate of interest on your home and car loans, and do the documentation.
Up next is the job hunting strategy. Chart it out - clearly and step wise. What are you doing to do EACH DAY differently to reach out to new employers? Browse the net; talk to successful job hunters - those who made it back after being sacked; those who went back after a sabbatical. How did they get a job? What worked for them? The avenues of job hunts have changed over the years.
Make your presence felt on various avenues like LinkedIn, Twitter.........specific groups on LinkedIn offer more job opportunities than a generic job board. There are specialist groups and it is a good idea to track the jobs there for your field and for your skill sets.
Networking is your best bet. It is very necessary to not let your unemployment isolate you from your friends, your family and your former colleagues. Being sacked used to carry its own stamp of perceived indignity but no longer. Being fired is a part of life and an assumed job hazard. You will come out of this. The identity imparted to us by the job is a temporary one and does not define who we are as people, our intrinsic worth.
And the last but critical coping strategy is to keep optimistic and positive. Negativity and depression means losing out before the battle ends. So many job seekers give up hope and spiral downward in negativity, fear, self doubt and lack of the professional identity.
You don’t have to give up on yourself or the search of right opportunity. It will reduce your chances of making a positive impression at an interview.
Being fired can be turned into an opportunity to revisit the way we have lived and worked these past times. Ask the question - What do I need to change within myself and create a better self that will create the better opportunity??
The time provided by the universe, is a time out for self introspection to develop not only new insights and understand new truths but also new skills. What can those be?? If you can treat your time out as a sabbatical of choice, you are holding a winning hand. And when you return to work, what is it you would do differently? What would you cherish more and how would you treat those around you?
Within these answers, which are uniquely yours, lies the key to overcoming the low of this period, and moving forward, without a doubt, to a better innings at work and in life.
Winston Churchill famously said, “If you are going through hell, keep going”.
The author is a senior human resources leader and is presently the chief people officer at Zee Media Corporation.
