When it’s time to look for another job, there are two steps we all take.  One, we will usually reach out to the people in our network, including family and friends.  Two, we hit the job boards and start blindly submitting our resumes.  We’ve done it this way for years.  If you are an accountant, you search accountant with a few keywords based on your software skills and any expertise you may focus on.

True, some take it a step further.  There are those who update their LinkedIn profile and those who have their own personal website.  All of these things do work.  They can take time to see success.  As long as you keep at it and work hard for it.

What if time is not a luxury because you’ve just lost or quit your job?

So what is a person to do?

How do you stand out?

Get the job you want?

Find your bliss?

This story comes from experience.  I’ve been laid off three times and fired twice.  Three out of those five times didn’t go so well emotionally or financially. As a recruiter, I was laid off twice in less than two years.  That took a toll on my savings account.

Let’s come back to the present moment.  Start now!  Believe it or not, the first step has nothing to do with job boards, networks or resumes.  It has to do with you.

What do you believe you are worth?

How much confidence do you have in yourself?  Your skills?  Your actual first step should be personal development.  We have the tendency to become complacent.  I know I myself can go into auto-pilot.  Or, as I’ve seen in my own department, we become discouraged thinking this is it.  There is no upward mobility.

This all comes on the eve of my stable, growing company announcing that they are laying off 60 people in my department.  Luckily, I’m not going through my fourth layoff, but I am watching people I have grown to know having to face an unknown future.

They’ve started to take the two actions I discussed in the first paragraph.  The worry lines have started forming across their foreheads.  At work, I get to step in and make sure they stay motivated even with the fear of no income being less than two months away.

On a personal level, the ones that I’m close to, I get to make sure they are feeling whole and staying whole. Them, I get review that they are ready and offer to prepare them for their interviews. I get to remind them of their strengths, not just professional, but what they bring to the world.

I know from experience, you have to look within first. After that, it’s okay to update the resume, the LinkedIn profile and job boards and websites.  Then you see with clear eyes and not eyes filled with fear and worry. You don’t accept just any job, but you go after what you want. You realize that there is an entrepreneur waiting to break out and be free. You pull the artist from your heart and emerge your hands in clay as your foot works the potter’s wheel. It’s then, and then only, you become the real you.

It’s time to break free of the conventional way of doing things. We no longer “hit the pavement” in search of our next paycheck. We are in an era where the sky isn’t even the limit. We can go even further.

My challenge to you, and my co-workers facing uncertainty is to take inventory. Who are you for real? Who do you want to be?

It took me 10 years to write a book, not because I lacked time, or know how, but because I thought, this is it. So, I’m here to tell you, it’s not it.

Be-Do-Have

Portia