I’ve just been laid off

Dealing with a Layoff

Some of the best people get laid off or fired some time in their lives. In fact, from a recruiter’s perspective, I see little correlation between layoff frequency and quality of work. It happens to people who are poor performers, and to individuals who are world class. That being said, what should we do if hit by this ego bruising event? This article is meant to provide a guide to dusting yourself off and getting down to the business of landing a new job.

Come to terms with the event.

Don’t take it personally. Usually, layoffs are a business decision that reflects little on the worker’s performance or likeability. Other companies understand this and the smart ones see layoffs by other organizations as an opportunity for them to hire good people. Your chances of being employed again in the near future are excellent. In the meantime, try to engage in activities and thoughts that keep your ego strong and self-confidence high. Don’t beat yourself up about possible past mistakes. Look forward with a positive attitude.

Leave on Good Terms

Make sure you leave your job as cordially as possible. What good does it do for you to leave on bad terms? Whoever had to lay you off probably didn’t enjoy it. Let your supervisor know that that you’ll help him or her have an easy transition. Don’t burn bridges. Your former supervisor might be the very person who helps you get a new job. Make sure you’re on his or her good side.

Finances

You will need to pay the bills while you look for another job. Now’s the time to make up a comprehensive overview of your finances. To make a personal financial statement, list all your assets and liabilities. Assets include stuff like house, car, boat, stocks, stock options, bonds, mutual funds, (bank) CDs, cash in savings and checking, IRAs, 401Ks, other retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and any severance pay that is due to be coming in. Then list liabilities. These include home mortgages, auto and boat loans, loans against 401K, credit card balances, and other such things. Net worth is equal to the difference between assets and liabilities.

Next, make up a budget. You can get an excellent budget template and analyzer at: http://www.toolsformoney.com/budget.htm List all fixed and variable obligations. Fixed obligations include items such as your mortgage payment and health insurance. Variables include food, clothing and other items where you have some control over spending. Work out a budget that reflects normal and customary spending. Then see where you can cut. Common items to cut in an emergency are eating out, travel, entertainment, clothes and other discretionary items. Get your projected monthly expenses down as low as possible. By the way, you’ll probably have an option to buy health insurance through COBRA. Unless you have another source of health insurance, (spouse or partner), don’t let it drop. This is a necessary item just like the mortgage.

Estimate the time you have available to land a new job. To do this, add up all available, liquid funds. Now take monthly expenses less contributions from social security and your spouse or partner. Divide your available funds by your NET household monthly expense. For example, say you have $15,000 liquid assets, you have monthly expenses of $6,000 and your spouse takes home $3,000. Then you’ll need to draw a net of $3,000 per month from your fund. $15,000 liquid assets will last you 5 months. Obviously, the more time you have to find a job, the more selective you can be.

Envision your new position

Compensation

What salary will you need to earn at your new job? If you don’t need to be making as much money as you were previously, now might be a good time to examine your work priorities. Perhaps it’s justified to trade income for job satisfaction.

What sort of work do you like and do well? What’s in demand? Envision your new work environment. Do you prefer to work with people around you all the time, or do you prefer more solitary work at the lab bench? Are you good at managing people? Do you like a straightforward, organized routine, or do you like juggling lots of different projects? It’s important to develop a clear idea of your target job.

Now make two lists: First, a list of the jobs that you’d enjoy. Second a list of jobs that use your most marketable skills and traits. Jobs that appear on both lists comprise a list of potential jobs. These are the jobs that you enjoy, and which are in demand in the marketplace. Next, look at the pay scale for these jobs. Compensation needs to be within your acceptable range.

Where am I willing to live?

Which geographical regions are possible for you? This will depend on a number of factors including:

What is the probability of getting a job in this region?
Do I have the financial resources to wait until I find a job locally?
Do I have children in school?
Can I afford to move to another location where cost of living might be higher?
Would my spouse or partner loose a good job if we move?

It’s important to know as soon as possible if you’ll be able to stay in your area or if you should look nationwide. If you waste precious time in the beginning by restricting your search geographically, you will loose your most precious window of opportunity.

Now, you know what job you’re looking for, and your also have an idea of acceptable job-hunt geography. You’re ready to prepare for the hunt.

Work habits

Infrastructure for your job search

In a sense, you already have a job: job hunter. Treat this job as seriously and professionally as your previous position.

Work Schedule

In your regular job, how much would you expect to get done if you only worked 2 hours per day? The same holds true for job hunting work. You should be working 8 hours per day at this new job. If you are constantly on the phone and the computer working to find a new job, you’ll get a good one.

Infrastructure

Make sure you have a solid job search infrastructure in place. This includes a good computer, fax, internet service and either 2 phone lines or high speed service such as DSL or cable so you can receive phone calls while you’re on the computer. An answering machine with a professional sounding message and a cell phone are also important. If you skimp on infrastructure, you’re likely to miss calls from hiring managers or HR departments. (They might not call back.) Organize your work area including computer, notebooks, telephone, business card file, office supplies.

Make yourself more marketable.

Sharpen Skills

Now is a good time to sharpen your skills in areas that might be lacking. Bring yourself up to speed on the latest technology in your field. Take courses in areas that will make you more marketable. If relevant, take all the short courses you can find. They usually last just a few days and can be a boost to your marketability.

Attend to your physical appearance. Make sure you’re well groomed and well dressed when you have contact with the public. For the interview, wear clothes that fit and that make you look great.

Work on your resume. Show it to friends and colleagues before you hand it out to prospective employers. Don’t include a lot of irrelevant material. Do include specific skills, even models of instruments and software you have experience operating. Your resume should be geared towards your target jobs. Write up a separate, focused resume for each job application. Emphasize skills and experience required for the job. Minimize irrelevant stuff. Word format is standard for resumes these days. Write your name and the job for which you are applying in the subject line of your email.

Depending on circumstances, follow up sending your resume with a non-intrusive phone call. Just a few moments of friendly contact over the phone with the hiring manager can mean the difference between being noticed and being lost in the resume black hole.

Networking

Network – in an organized manner. Make a list of everyone you know in your targeted industry. This will probably be at least dozens of people, perhaps hundreds. When you call your contacts remind them where you last met. Explain your situation and ask for their help. If they can’t help you, ask for the names and phone numbers of others who might know about a job. Call those people and let them know who referred you. These secondary contacts will be invaluable in your job hunt.

Make detailed notes about each of your networking conversations. Keep a good callback calendar to keep track of when you agreed to touch base with your contacts again. Always end the conversation with thanks and a request for permission to call back in 3 or 4 weeks. Most jobs are given to people the hiring manager likes personally. Yes, you DO need the technical and scientific horsepower. But you need more than to be a good scientist. You must connect with your potential employers on a human level.

When you receive a call or email from a prospective employer, act on it immediately! When you finally have a conversation with the hiring manager, you’ll be asked to talk about your work in detail. And be prepared for questions such as why you’re leaving or have left your job. Keep the answers short and specific. Vague answers to this question are a red flag. (Blame casting is also suspect.)

Using Friends

If you know someone in a company where there might be a job for you. Ask for their help! You have a much better chance of getting the job by internal referral.

Using Recruiters

A good recruiter is another excellent way to get a job. If the recruiter has a position that is appropriate for you, he or she will do their best to get you noticed by the hiring manager. The recruiter will go to bat for you, (but only if you are a good fit for the position and only if you have not already applied to the company in question). Let the recruiter know where you have already applied, either directly or through another recruiter. (You should be keeping a list.) For these companies, the recruiter won’t be able to help you, so choose carefully the recruiters you want to be working with and ask the recruiter which companies they represent. Your recruiter will be putting forward several candidates for each position, but at least you will be seen in the most favorable possible light by your potential employer. It’s better to be one of a select few than to be one of 100s that are ignored.

Finding companies: For companies not covered by your friends or recruiter, use on-line resources and search engines. There are many good directory or investment sites that list companies by geographic region and business focus. After making a list of target companies, look up the company web site on Google and check out the employment section. Look through it for relevant positions. If you’re certain that you are an excellent fit for the position and you haven’t heard from the company after about 2 weeks from submitting your resume, and then try to get in touch with the hiring manager directly. You’ll have to do some detective work to find out who he or she is, but you can be sure that regardless of who you speak with at a company you are never more than a few phone calls away from the hiring manager in a department suitable to your skill set. This is true even at the largest organizations.

Conferences, Meetings, Seminars, Short Courses

Get out of the house! Go to as many meetings, conferences, job fairs and seminars as you can. Short courses not only sharpen your skills, they are one of the best ways to meet people who make hiring decisions. Any event where you have a chance to meet a hiring manager or someone who knows one face to face is a good bet. A five minute informal conversation with a hiring manager met at a conference or short course is worth days of work out of your home office. At conferences and meetings you have a chance for several “mini interviews” in a setting comfortable for both candidate and employer.

Interview preparation

Make up a good presentation. If you are applying for a higher level scientific position, this will be expected. The time to start preparing your presentation is immediately after you learn that you will be looking for work. Don’t put this off until you have an interview lined up. It generally takes a few days of solid work or a couple of weeks of intermittent work to prepare a good talk. You might be asked to give an interview on very short notice, and if you aren’t already prepared and PowerPoint polished, you’ll be wishing you had been more proactive. In order to give a good talk, you’ll usually need data from your previous job. So, as soon as you know you might be leaving your job, gather together any spectra, data, graphics, and relevant writing that might be included in an interview type presentation. Don’t include proprietary or confidential materials of course. However, it’s not normally unethical to use data from your work where the confidential portion has been deleted or generalized.

Your talk should generally last about 45 minutes with 15 minutes or so left for questions and answers at the end. An hour is about the limit. The subject matter should be related to what you’ll be doing at your new job. PowerPoint is standard these days. Confirm with your prospective employer that they will have a laptop and projector available and bring two copies of your presentation on separate disks. It’s also a good idea to email the hiring manager a final copy so they’ll have it on their computer in case you media, (floppy, ZIP or CD) fails. Confirm that they’ll have the type of drive you need for your media, or else bring it there on your own laptop or portable USB compatible drive and cable. Practice and polish your presentation in front of friends before you give it.

References

Make a list of reliable references. Your future employer will expect your references to be excellent. A negative reference will usually spoil your chances for the job. Therefore, don’t give someone as a reference unless you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN they will give you a good recommendation. Always ask permission from your references before you use them.

Good luck with your search.

If you work as hard and as intelligently at your job search as you did at your last job, your chances are good for finding a new job quickly.

If you have any questions, we’ll be happy to help. MS People has a short job interview guide and a good article on dressing for interviews that might be of interest.