If you have been reassessing your working life due to redundancy, you’re not alone. More and more often, people are getting tired of having to come up with new methods to avoid becoming redundant. It’s harder than ever to really define a unique role for oneself in the corporate world, and it’s easier than ever for companies in need of cutting corners to find new ways to outsource labour.
If you recently realised that you are headed for a forced career change, take a deep breath and thank your lucky stars.
After you have gotten over the shock and taken some time off to gather yourself and have a well-deserved break, being made redundant can be one of the most liberating things to happen to your career. Why? Because it forces you to find new ways of getting out there and redefine what you do.
It can also force you to get new skills and grow as a person. This means that your skills will become sharper, more varied, and that you will also have more experience in dealing with the new job market to back up your improved resume than you ever had before. And sometimes, it’s that growth that we need in order to become better people.
Instead of mourning over your lost career, you should be celebrating the chance to do more with your skills than ever before. When you are looking towards a forced career change, your perspective can shift in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. Suddenly, you have the new option of starting your own business or teaching people the very skills that you used in your last job. You have the option of exploring your more creative side, and you also have the option of just going back to school to learn new skills while you do freelance gigs with the skills that you currently have.
Many of the jobs which are being made redundant are ones that don’t necessarily involve a lot of human interaction, such as computer programming, graphic designing or manufacturing. If you have been itching to improve the amount of time that you have been spending with others, being made redundant may be one of the best things to happen to you. Use your time off your job in networking, personal development, and social skills development time. You will be surprised how often you will be able to discover a job that suits your skill sets with more in-person interaction if you invest more time and effort into reaching out to others.
There is yet another added perk to being found redundant – many employers will not give you the “stink eye” or simply toss your resume in the bin because your company outsourced your job. Compared to the plight of felons, as well as people who were fired for more worrisome reasons, your plight is actually not that bad at all. Human Resource managers are usually very understanding of people who were simply pushed out from their jobs due to changing times, and more often than not, will give them a chance to prove themselves in a similar yet different position.
It is important to remember that being made redundant is not your fault, but if you react negatively to your circumstances, only you can be to blame. How you handle a forced career change is what will make or break your next career. So don’t look at your redundancy as a bad thing. See it as different. You have opportunities out there, and you really are not in that bad a position when compared to most other job hunters. All you have to do is figure out how to use this situation to your advantage.
If being made redundant means you need to review, update and revamp your resume then checking out Resume Rescue’s Ebook is a must!
