There is no denying it, it’s all over the news now and no one in perfect judgment can ignore reality: recession is here, countries do bankrupt and companies all around the world will be in trouble and letting people go because of it – or, simply, taking the excuse to make a profit from not having to pay as much as usual in salaries…

The bottom line is: the ones that need a job to bring food home and pay their bills are the ones that ultimately suffer. All of the sudden there will be thousands, millions of qualified professionals as well as others less skilled, looking for the same: a job, or a income. It’s, more than a financial crisis, a job crisis.

Personally, I went through three major recessions and at least as many job “crisis” thase sent me strugling for survival. That, in the last 20 years.

Did it make me stronger? Yes. I feel much more confident and prepared.

Did it make me ready for future crisis? NO, no new recession brings exactly the same problems neither will it flow exactly the same way.

Can I give advise about it? LOL! I certainly can, but there will never be guaranties that ANY advise will work, only common sense, effort and a lot of preserverance, as usual. Well, at least in my experience that is so, and that’s just what I can share here: my thoughts and experience.

- I read somewhere that the word for Crisis is the same as for Opportunity, in Chinese…

When a job crisis hits you, you have the opportunity to… well, first, not to let yourself fall irrevocably!

Or should I say, with so many people going unemployed, “downsized” (some companies call it, euphemistically and totally tastelessly, “right-sizing”…) and layed off all over the world, what real choice do they have but to seize some kind of opportunity, considering how daunting the experience is and how they must feel?

If they are lucky and do get a nice severance package coupled with early retirement, the opportunity can well be just that: nice retirement in a mild climate or something of the sort. I’d love to reach comfortable retirement at a early enough age and keep some decent, honest income to live my life away from worries and stress. That is a sure thing.

However, chances are that you are no where near retirement age or not willing to force yourself to simply stop doing what you have done for the past 10 or more years – make it 5 years, eve – when the pink slip (or equivalent form) is handed down to you while the security guard shows the exit door and ensures you packaged only your belongings that cluttered your desk drawers for years.

I was faced with a similar situation back in 2002, when the company I had committed to start working for in November of that year, suddenly closed its doors, apparently the very day I was to start. Dramatically enough, I saw security guards at the door of the building doing what looked like not letting anyone in and seemingly making sure the ones going out carried only what they were supposed to bring with them.

I never made it through that door, obviously.

-It takes a while to realize it’s true…

I saw myself faced suddenly with a very bad personal situation. You see, my actual contract hadn’t been signed yet, and this meant there was no legal binding to hold to! All contacts with the company were done by phone and I had a copy of the contract faxed to me two weeks before “to read and digest it” – but not signed by anyone yet.

I did sit in the usual 3 or 4 interviews there, all in the same day in a nice attempt from the surprisingly young but competent HR Director lady to accommodate the fact that I was from out of town (I lived in Sao Miguel Island at the time, and the interviews were in Lisbon) and that I had to go back to work the next day.

They liked me, I liked them, I passed the test. And I went back to my life, until soon thereafter they called. Then we settled everything, they formalized a proposal by sending me a fax with it and, upon my acceptance of all terms and conditions, followed up by sending me a copy of the contract, the same way. We would sign it the next week when I started, along with the other usual HR stuff that has to be done in the first day and week.

Nothing had prepared me for the incredible view I had when, with a huge smile in my face and hope bristling out of my shiny eyes, I presented myself, wearing my best business suit and black shoes, at the central office to start working and going on with my starry career.

I couldn’t believe it, the shock was almost overwhelming and I was in denial for quite some time, dialing and redialing the phone numbers I had from the HR Director and other people I had met there, to no avail. All phones were off or busy, all lines seemed to be suspended. Then realization came when I heard in the news what had happened. And I made it through acceptance on my two hour flight back to Sao Miguel, still not sure how I went from a bright and promising continuity to my career to a gloomy future where no Unemployment Insurance was possible (I had quit my job to start the new one!) and no money for bills or anything else was coming my way.

To make it even worse, I couldn’t stop reminding myself that I had already turned 40 years old which I was sure meant, specially in the Portuguese job market, I was as good as dead and burried!

-The effects can be devastating both economically and emotionally

Uncertainty was the worse feeling I can remember having. I was down right scared, and, sure enough, now history tells me that I was indeed in for a very, very bumpy ride… It took me a while until I actually decided to see everything in a different and creative light, and actually seize that disaster as an opportunity in my life.

It took me a couple of months to actually regroup and react, I confess. But finally I started doing something rather than just sitting empty eyed in front of the TV. For starters, I did ask for help. I went to relatives, friends, anybody that could help and I asked for jobs, money, connections anything that could help. This wasn’t particularly helpful, though, because no one could actually help to the extent I really needed, and stuck in an Island in the middle of the Atlantic, at least psychologically, wasn’t just the environment one can see opportunity in, specially in winter times

The actual phase when I was wandering around, feeling sorry for myself and still not able to trully react to what had happened in itself is a story that I mean to write about sometime, but it’s not the focus of this post so I am not going to dwell in the details. It didn’t last “that” long, though.

-So what can be done?

One thing that helped, however, was that I managed to secure Unemployment Insurance. I approached my former boss and through his good will this was actually possible: my Director, a man of many controversies and a few differences of opinion with me, had the amazing and unforgettable gesture of “pretending” he had never received my resignation letter and gave me the equivalent of a “pink slip” and thus I was able to claim a regular term of contract (which was indeed true, for I had handed the unnecessary resignation letter by the time my actual contract was due to renew – or end).

This allowed me to claim UI and face some of mine and my family’s immediate needs. The debts, however, were already mounting to a point that I had no choice but to negotiate each one to be addressed at a later date…

Getting a few stabilizing Euros coming in to the family economy, even through UI, was a gust of fresh air that helped me clear my ideas and finally come to terms with my new situation – and to react and do something about it!

So, first and foremost, it is important to use whatever help is out there, including state and government sponsored programs. Most people, not unlike me, would feel awkward to go “into the system” and benefit from anything. For someone that worked all his or her life, this may seem indeed like charity — well, it is not so. We did contribute for it so we should use it when in legitimate need.

Some help may be coming from unexpected sources, such as my former boss. Asking for it can be daunting and tantamount to swallow a live toad, but when in need and if we were actually honest about everything, there is nothing that should keep us from doing so.

Help from friends and even the former employer can stabilize the worse parts. Then, it’s very important to “do something”…

- Done with getting food and utilities paid for? Time to work!

What can you do, then? My experience is that you can and should work on… getting work!

If you worked 8 hours a day for many years, making it your job to get a job can be the replacement for the actual routines you had before, thus making you feel useful to yourself and revamping a bit of your self-esteem in the process.

The process of looking for a job, with it’s tasks of selecting the right ads and opportunities (more on this later, I promise), preparing resumes (yes, it’s plural, you need more than one), cover letters, reviewing articles and writtings about it, websites and so on, is indeed equivalent in effort to any “real” job. And pratice makes perfect, so going to many enterviews actually builds your confidence and your knowledge about the market, the people that hire and what current employers are looking for, so you can tailor your approach and get closer to your abjective by each day that gets passed.

You will have the added benefit of having learned a lot about the job market, and in many cases, you may even find yourself making your own company or going into some other form of business on your own or back to school to learn something you always wanted to (or just to make you better equiped for the job market). This is actually a fenomenon of crisis times, the apperance of so many startups and small companies, as well as many new students.

The important, and that is my point, is not to give up. And to keep working! In a few weeks you will be closer to a solution to your predicament, either because you are now much more experienced and efficient in the job “hunting” process or because you actually developed some idea or knwoledge you hadn’t before that gives you a true new opportunity in life.

That also is something that happened to me and I will tell you about it in future posts!

Meanwhile, if you are one in that situation, my word for you is: work, work yourself out of feeling you have no work!

Cheers to you all!

Yours

-Sergio de Sousa

==== In my next article in this series: ====
Crisis is breeding new opportunity? Watch for it, this may actually be true!

-So how to make it into an “opportunity”?

Going back to the story a told in (this) article, the fact is that by December that year of 2002 I was more than ripe to either try something desperate or … something outrageous to the point of making my family shiver and hide in a corner. affraid of the consequences of my actions.

So I decided to go back to North America instead, truly convinced I stood a better chance there, specially in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) where I had lived for so many years and where I had so many friends and connections. With no real plan, only hopes for getting a real job capable of putitng food on the table and paying the bills, I took that flight to Toronto on a rainy, ghastly morning, fully aware that I was leaving behind a bunch of debts, including the cost of my airline ticket itself…