CareerQuest Newsletter

My dear friends, colleagues, clients and students:

A warm welcome to many of you from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry who have recently requested the free subscription to our monthly e-newsletter and other career-related information. We appreciate your trust. Please peruse our recently updated website at www.careerquestcentral.com. It also contains the Newsletter Archive and Twenty Tips on How to Choose a Career Counselor, Coach or Advisor.

Career Doctor Don Answers Your Questions appears as a regular feature in the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) - New Jersey Chapter newsletters. The September/October and the November/December 2006 newsletters can be viewed here. CareerQuest has provided interesting answers in the November/December 2006 issue to unusual questions asked during interviews. These are regarding accents, animals you would like to be, 'survivor' type interviews, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, your obituary, and a special from Jack Welch, author of Winning.

In this issue we present a timely article, How to Predict If You Are Going to Lose Your Job and Try to Hold on to It. Many industries like pharmaceutical and automotive are in severe turmoil.

Keep your feedback coming. Please feel free to share this newsletter with your friends, remembering to give us the due credit. Ask them to subscribe to our free E-Newsletter today!

Until we meet again through the magic of e-mail,

Peace! Love! Shalom!

Don Sutaria, MS, IE (Prof.), PE
Founder, President & Life-Work Coach
CareerQuest

How to Predict If You Are Going to Lose Your Job and Try to Hold on to It

by Don Sutaria

Prologue

If you have ever been laid off (and I have), it is like being hit from behind by a Mack truck! Everyone sees it coming except the person being run over! We will be angered, shocked, surprised, and pass through various stages of the grieving process – anger, shame, fear, sadness, and self-pity!

Of course, losing one's job is very devastating, one of the greatest stressors in life, but miraculously most of us survive!

What can we learn from our experience? I don't intend to be negative about it but perhaps in the future we can see some telltale indicators of the impending doom, instead of burying our heads in the sand!

This self-awareness allows us to take some measures early on, which may reduce the sting and bite.

The Diagnostic Test

But first, let's try some telltale indicators to predict the future of your present job. Please try to answer the following seventeen questions as honestly and undefensively as possible, without panic.

Has the personal relationship with your immediate supervisor deteriorated during the past six months for any reason?
Has you work performance diminished lately, regardless of the reasons?
Is your industry currently going through a contraction cycle because of financial or technical reasons? (example: pharmaceutical/biotechnology, Internet)
Does the country's politics dictate the winds of change? (example: Democrats or Republicans in power)
Is the competition for your company's products or services extremely acute, based on comments by sales people?
Are strikes and benefits/wage settlements by your company casting a pall on its economic future? (example: airlines, automotive)
Is there a new supervisor now between you and your previous boss?
Are you, all of a sudden, being saddled with an exorbitant workload or very few assignments, to ensure your failure?
Are you being moved to a smaller office or a cubicle?
Are you receiving excessive criticism from all quarters, compared to previously, and your boss is not defending you as was done in the past?
Is your company being acquired by or merged with another larger company?
You are not being invited to important meetings and do not receive key reports?
Has your supervisor dropped hints that your talents could be better utilized elsewhere?
Have your contacts with clients diminished?
Have you been frozen out of social functions?
Was your title changed during the past three years, showing decreased responsibility?
You did not receive a substantial pay increase in the past year?

If you have answered at least ten questions in the affirmative, your job is highly vulnerable! Beware, the axeman cometh!

Is Your Industry Currently Going Through a Contraction Cycle...

Potential Solutions

But it is not too late! You can become a turnaround specialist for your own good!

These twenty-one suggestions are not cast in stone but they have helped turn the stakes in people's favor and allowed them to hold on to their jobs by the skin of their teeth. It shows that you are a part of the team and that we are all in this together.

Project a new enthusiastic attitude towards your job and keep them wondering and guessing. I don't mean in a phony way but sincerely.
Try to come in a little earlier and leave a later than usual. An extra half hour at the start and end of each working day is not unreasonable.
Show eagerness to take on some extra duties, responsibilities and projects.
Keep an up-to-date resume in your briefcase at all times and keep up with your networking contacts.
Don't neglect your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, financial, cultural, and educational life. If you slip now, it will be very difficult to reclaim it!
Get active in professional organizations, alumni and other special interest groups related to your work life.

Get the Advice of a Good Career Counselor or Career Coach.

Get into the fighting-fit mode by regularly screening jobs on the Internet and other print media.
Register with at least six executive recruiters and employment agencies.
Get the advice of a good career counselor or career coach.
Cut back on wants and luxuries, and develop a stringent budget for family needs...and stick to it!
Make sure your project priorities coincide with those of your boss.
Keep a "Hero File" of your accomplishments. If it does not help in the present job, at least it will serve as a springboard for your resume and interviews. Leave behind good documentation in your present company's files, highlighting your accomplishments.
Don't whine and criticize your boss or your company, especially around peers and subordinates.
If you have a good mentor, seek their advice.
Do such a good job that your boss will get promoted.
See if you can get transferred to another department, with your boss's help.
Keep on doing a good job...nay, better than a good job!
Remember that 90% of success is just showing up!
Continue to contribute, and learn, and grow, unrelentlessly.
Develop a survivor mentality by never assuming that your job is safe.
Realize that job security comes from your inner strengths.

Develop a Survivor Mentality by Never Assuming that Your Job is Safe.

Epilogue

In spite of all our human efforts, the ball may drop on our heads. What should we then do?

Some suggestions:

Don't go into unreasonable panic.
Don't make your boss your enemy.
Don't badmouth your company or your boss.
Don't be so proud that you fail to negotiate a good severance package.
Do play upon your boss's emotions to receive an equitable settlement.
Do project confidence in yourself.
Do remember that good things, like getting an even better job, take time.

Don Sutaria is Founder and President of CareerQuest (formerly New Life Career Counseling), located in New York and New Jersey. CareerQuest is also mentioned in "What Color is Your Parachute?" Sutaria is a consultant to individuals and various corporations, offering executive coaching and career management services. He has developed unique methods for capturing jobs in the new millennium. He appeared on a Phil Donahue TV special on unorthodox methods of job hunting. Known as "Career Doctor Don", he has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Star-Ledger, The Union Leader, WorkingSmart, SmartMoney, Fortune, and on WINS and WOR radio. He specializes in counseling of international professionals, Generation X (age 20-29), career changers, freelancers, consultants, mid-career executives and people over age 50. He really believes that your career is a pathway to your soul.

Mr. Sutaria has over forty years of diversified industrial and management experience, complemented by training in career development and hands-on experience in career advising. He is an international cross-cultural trainer. He has also served on committees of several organizations, and conducted courses, seminars and symposiums at Columbia University, New York University, Nyack College, Alliance Graduate School of Counseling, and Rutgers. He is a member of the Association of Career Professionals International, Career Counselors Consortium, and Society for Human Resource Management.

Don earned his MS degree in Management from Kansas State University, an IE (Professional) degree in International Management and Personnel Relations from Columbia University, and obtained New York University's postgraduate Certificate in Adult Career Planning and Development.