Your Next Life — Preparing for the Unthinkable
Feb 19 2008
Your Next Life is one of four new monthly columns that will be featured in Message Center. Look for a new column every Monday.
Don’t think it could never happen to you. Every day, good employees lose their jobs and immediately are escorted off the property with barely enough time to scoop the memorabilia off of their desks. It might seem harsh, but people who run companies see immediate removal from the property as a reasonable tactic to protect a company’s intellectual property, computer networks, and working environment from being corrupted by a disgruntled former employee.
Even the most seemingly secure — from the big corner office to the tiniest cubicle — can be at risk of sudden job loss due to change in corporate strategy, petty office politics, a strained relationship with the boss, a sudden merger or acquisition, a slowing economy, or a host of other factors. Accordingly, it pays to periodically update your personal files in the event of a sudden job loss.
More importantly, don’t keep all of your professional data, contact information, and e-mail archives exclusively on a company-owned computer. As a minimum, e-mail address books, essential networking and schedule information, contact lists, commendatory correspondence, company directories, and other details of your professional life should periodically be backed-up on portable memory or a personal computer. Refreshing your résumé — including revenue increased, costs reduced, subordinates nurtured, teams led, and problems solved — and intensifying the networking process leading to your next job are especially important. All of this data should reside somewhere else besides your office computer.
Equally important, don’t be lulled into complacency thinking the worst could never happen by overestimating your value to the organization. Take small steps every week to enlarge your professional network, strengthen your résumé, and reconnect with mentors by attending conferences, joining trade groups, publishing professional articles, keeping in touch with former bosses, and seeking expanded responsibilities at work. In short, be ready to execute a job search before you’re executed.
About the author: Jim Carman is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and a retired Navy captain. He writes and lectures on career transition topics.
