How to Find Hope in the Midst of a Brutal Downturn
I REMEMBER AS VIVIDLY as though it were yesterday, the time I got laid off when I had a wife and four small children. My boss delivered the news just before noon. He mumbled the usual condolences. I stumbled outside, into the bright sunlight. It was lunch time in San Francisco, and as I wandered around the city dazed, I heard laughter, everywhere. I remember thinking a totally irrational thought: How can you all be so happy? Don’t you understand? I just lost my job. The whole city should be in mourning. Even the sun should be hiding behind the clouds today.
Nobody seemed to care. They went about their business oblivious to the fact that my whole world had just collapsed. I wondered how I would tell my wife and kids that I didn’t have a job anymore. I knew the news would make them anxious, and afraid. I guessed what their thoughts would be: What about their future? How long would it take me to find another job? Would we starve, in the meantime?
I had lost my job before, but I was single back then. Now I had five people depending on me. Their fate was in my hands.
If you think I knew what to do, you are out of your mind. I was a babe in the woods, so far as job-hunting was concerned. I did eventually find work. But it took me several months, and I made every mistake in the book, along the way.
Out of this experience, however, was born great sympathy. I think this happens to every person with any “character” who loses their job. You can never again look into the face of someone who has lost their job, without remembering, without feeling kinship and empathy, remembering how you felt when it was your time. You want to reach out to them. You want to give them a hug. You want to help them, in any way you can.
The world thinks of unemployment in terms of numbing statistics: thirteen million people out of work here (that was at the height of the Great Depression, and also is the current number in the U.S.). Twenty million people out of work there (that is the current situation in China, as I write). But I think of unemployment, now, in terms of faces—thirteen million sad or haunted faces, etched with fear, searching for hope.
I’ve been out looking for work, and I’m here to tell you, there are no jobs out there. Just how do you keep hope alive, during this brutal Recession?
It is simply not true that there are no jobs, out there, as we saw in the previous chapter. But that brings us then to your question: how do you keep Hope alive?
The answer is relatively simple:
For example, there are eighteen alternative ways of looking for work. They are:
1. Self-Inventory. Before you do anything else, do a thorough self-inventory of the transferable skills and interests that you most enjoy and do best, so you can define in stunning detail exactly the job(s) you would most like to have, to your family, friends, contacts, network, and employers. And then use this knowledge to focus your search for work.
2. The Internet. Use the Internet, to post your resume and/or to look for employers’ “job-postings” (vacancies) on the employer’s own website or elsewhere (Career-Builder, Yahoo/Hot Jobs, Monster, LinkedIn, etc.).
3. Networking. Ask friends, family, or people in the community for job-leads.
4. School. Ask a former professor or teacher for job-leads, or career/alumni services at schools that you attended (high school, trade schools, online schools, community college, college, or university).
5. The Feds. Go to the state/federal unemployment service, or to One-stop career centers (directory at www.careeronestop.org).
6. In Your State. Go to private employment agencies (www.usa.gov/Agencies/State_and_Territories.shtml).
7. Civil Service. Take a civil service exam to compete for a government job (http://federaljobs.net/exams.htm).
8. Newspapers. Answer local “want-ads” (in newspapers, assuming your city or town still has a newspaper, online or otherwise). The Sunday editions usually prove most useful. (See http://tinyurl.com/d58l8z for how to use them; for a directory of their websites, see www.newslink.org.)
9. Journals. Look at professional journals in your profession or field, and answer any ads there that intrigue you (http://tinyurl.com/dlfsdz).
10. Temp Agencies. Go to temp agencies (agencies that get you short-term contracts in places that need your time and skills temporarily) and see if they can place you, in one place after another, until some place says, “Could you stay on, permanently?” At the very least you’ll pick up experience that you can later cite on your resume (http://tinyurl.com/dxrdjy).
11. Pickups. Go to places where employers pick up workers: well-known street corners in your town (ask around), or union halls, etc., in order to get short-term work, which may lead to more permanent work, eventually. For the time being, it may be yard work, or work that requires you to use your hands; but no job is too humble when you’re desperate.
12. Job Clubs. Join or form a “job club,” where you receive job leads and weekly emotional support. Check with your local chamber of commerce, and local churches, mosques, or synagogues. Excellent directory at Job-hunt.org (http://tinyurl.com/7a9xbb).
13. Resumes. Mail out resumes blindly to anyone and everyone, blanketing the area.
14. Choose Places That Interest You. Knock on doors of any employer, factory, store, organization, or office that interests you, whether they are known to have a vacancy or not.
15. The Phone Book. Use the index to your phone book’s Yellow Pages, to identify 5–10 subjects, fields, or interests that intrigue you—that are located in the city or town where you are, or want to be, and then call or visit the organizations listed under these headings.
16. Volunteering. If you’re okay financially for a spell, volunteer to work for nothing, short-term, at a place that interests you, whether or not they have a known vacancy, with the hope that down the line they may want to hire you (www.volunteermatch.org or www.networkforgood.org/volunteer).
17. Work for Yourself. Start your own small business, trade or service, after observing what your community lacks but needs (http://tinyurl.com/yqt7pc).
18. Retraining. Go back to school and get retrained for some other kind of occupation than the one you’ve been doing.
Now I give you a puzzle. Researchers discovered some years ago that the majority of all job-hunters simply give up by the second month of their job-hunt. They stop looking for work. Maybe they resume later; maybe not. But initially they give up, after a month. Why do you think that is?
Well, it turns out that it was and is related to whether or not they thought they had alternatives. In a study of 100 job-hunters who were using only one method to hunt for work, say the Internet, but had no alternative, typically 51 abandoned their search by the second month. That’s more than half. Lesson from this: No alternative, bye-bye hope.
On the other hand, out of 100 job-hunters who were using more than one method to hunt for work, typically only 31 abandoned their search by the second month. Two-thirds of them felt they did have alternatives, so they kept right on looking for work. Lesson from this: When you have alternatives, you have hope. If one method doesn’t work, that’s okay; you can still try the other.
And in the case of job-hunting, as we saw, you have eighteen alternatives you can choose between.
Does this principle apply only to looking for work?
No, it applies to every situation you may be facing during this brutal economic downturn. Whatever your challenge, if you’ve adopted one strategy for dealing with that challenge, but it’s slow to work and you’re losing hope, save yourself from despair with this simple question: What alternative way is there of dealing with this problem?
And why stop with just one alternative? Debra Angel MacDougall, co-author of 6 Reasons Employers Say No (Penguin Publishing, August 2009), recommends you find more than one alternative. She suggests you ask yourself: What are two other ways of dealing with this problem? (Whatever this problem is.)
In her many years of helping people in the U.S., Australia and Europe, particularly those who are down and out, she learned that people gain the most hope when there are three alternative strategies to choose between, rather than just two.
Why aren’t two alternatives enough?
Debra found that people often just can’t make up their mind, in choosing between two things. She found they freeze. But introducing a third alternative into the discussion breaks the logjam. She found it’s easier for people to choose between three things, than to choose between two. Paradoxical. But there it is.
So, in facing any problem, challenge or crisis during difficult times, look for three alternatives, instead of just two. And do this every step along the way.
How to find those alternatives? When all else fails, try Thinking. And then ask others for ideas.
This importance of alternatives is particularly true when looking for work. Studies found that anything up to four alternative methods of job-hunting increases your chances of finding a job, and meaningful work.
Conclusion: It’s probably going to be a long haul for you, this time out. Hope will sustain you along the way. You can do it, you can eventually conquer any challenge, given time. As long as you have Hope. Nurture it like a candle flame in a dark and wintry night, when the breeze is blowing. Keep that flame alive!