The Lighter Side

This week, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve hired a new writer: Doug Sampson.  Doug will be adding his thoughts in his new column, “Talk to Sampson.”  Check out his first article on Teaching English Abroad and expect a new article soon!

Also, we’re interviewing a number of notable Authors and CEOs this week!  We’ve been in talks with a number of very smart and successful people, and we’ll be sharing their insightful input over the next two weeks.

Finally, we’ll be releasing a two part article on the Psychological Effects of Unemployment by Guest Author, Greg Welikson, on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  Make sure to check it out!

Sitting in my cubicle each day reminds me of the movie Office Space and the line about how humans were not meant to sit in cubicles all day, staring at computer screens. That statement really hits home because that is literally what I do all day. I know I shouldn’t be complaining; having a job right now is something to be thankful for. But sometimes I feel like up and leaving the job and I know I’m not alone.

The sense of hopelessness created by the current economy has definitely fostered a bleak outlook for anyone entering the job market, especially those recently canned or graduated. However, there is hope for those of you who loathe their jobs or are sick of the “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” routine. If you feel like your back is against a wall, you hate your job, want to go back to school or just want some time to think about your future without going bankrupt in the process, teaching English abroad may just be the remedy to your predicament. It may sound risky, slightly irresponsible and downright mad, but before accept your current job or job search as the status quo give the idea consideration. As crazy as the idea sounds, it may just be the thing to get a break from the 9-5 grind, give some thought to your career or prepare to go back to school - God knows the last thing I want to do when I come home from work is study for the GRE. Read the rest of this entry »

If you get the Hendrix reference in this article’s title, then you’re probably the target demographic for this post. 

The modern worker has arrived at a place entirely unknown to the generations before him. Formal dress is a relic. Telecommuting has redefined the boundaries of the office. With the development of our services economy, a greater share of the workload is handled by consultants. With the realization of globalization, a greater share of the workload is outsourced to the emerging nations. All the while turnover has increased and employer-employee loyalty has fallen off. 

Fifty years ago, your first job out of school was a commitment. The dream was to work your way up through the ranks– from a desk or production floor, to an office, to a corner office– and then to retire at 55 with a pension and a house in the suburbs. The word ‘career’ was a straight line connecting these predictable dots. Today, these long, linear paths have all but disappeared. For my generation, a career will be a best-fit curve that describes a series of discreet jobs. The modern notion of a career is a long series of overlapping jobs and experiences loosely tied together along a theme.

But this transition has been neither slow nor steady. As a result, we have a class of job seekers with focused experience from a linear career cut short. The number of firms that could truly make use of their deep institutional knowledge is small. Further, their salaries are too high for firms outside of their immediate field of experience to consider gambling on them. Worse, many of them vie for disappearing middle management positions, claiming titles like Vice President, Director, and Division Manager.

They’re over the hill, but not yet out to pasture. Fortunately, our modern economy has a place for these folks in its scores of freelancers and consultants. 

I’m not talking about the McKinseys or Bains of the world, but more the Booz Allen Hamiltons and the IBMs. Large, established consultancies that do functional, task driven work. These types of shops are driven more by experienced hires and less by Harvard’s class of 2008. Further, they often offer flexible work arrangements for those who have left 50-hour work weeks in the dust. Between the two of them, Booz and IBM currently list almost 1200 job openings on their recruiting sites. 

Of course, the majority of people that I’ve talked to have avoided the institutional path and opted instead for an entrepreneurial one. Where does a 50-year-old with 25 years of narrow experience go once his company can’t afford to pay him any more? For many, the answer is “not very far.” Many experienced workers have been able to reinvent themselves as consultants, working heavily with the same companies that they have always worked with. Like their experiences, their networks are narrow but deep. Deep topical knowledge, combined with an established network of mid-to-senior level contacts, make fertile ground for a mutually-beneficial consulting relationship. 

It was 1967 when Hendrix sang Are You Experienced? to an unsuspecting crowd at the Monterey Pop Festival (I wasn’t even born yet). Things done changed since then, but there is still a premium paid on experience in the job market. Maybe consulting or freelancing is the best way for you to collect.

I’m a music addict. I like to think that every micro-phase of my life, year, day has its own soundtrack. Hell, I’m writing this post to the rhythm of the Gipsy Kings. Judging by the abundance of people who have white earbuds permanently grafted to their ears, I’ll assume that I’m not alone. 

So I wondered: Does anybody out there have a a soundtrack for unemployment?

A quick YouTube search yielded some promising results. The Dance of Unemployment shows two grainy cut-outs bumping, grinding, jumping, and spanking to a dance beat. In The Unemployment Blues, a dude makes a lot of hysterical faces while singing in sweats from his couch. Then there’s C.H.A.Z.Z. performing his original R&B song and music video Laid Off. Rhyming about his ex-boss, C.H.A.Z.Z. sings “hold me back, oh i punch eyes and break jaws, i’ll blind him, shoot him in the face with a paint ball, then i’ll hold up the office…” You can probably imagine where it goes from there: he decides to get a government job. 

Still looking for a suitable soundtrack, I turned to 8tracks.com, where people share virtual mix tapes. 8track gets around copyright laws in a similar way to pandora, where all the music is streaming. There were two unemployment soundtracks on 8track, neither of them quite right. So I made my own: The Lighter Side of Unemployment. 

If anybody else takes five minutes to make an unemployment mix, post it in the comments! Even if you don’t have time (who are you kidding?) to construct the full monty: Does your unemployment lifestyle have a soundtrack? Is there a song that rings especially true with your job search, unbound travel, or general listlessness?

I’ve read a few articles lately that talk about ways to prevent getting fired. Work harder, expand your impact, brown-nose, draw attention to accomplishments, etc. etc. are the focus. This is all fine and good, but in times like these dollars and cents matter most.

Remember that layoffs come from the top down. If your boss is getting the axe, then your fate will probably be determined by his boss in consultation with HR or a consultant. In this situation, your past reviews are critical. Assuming your boss is staying, however, he or she will have a say in your fate. Performance is still important, but cost is paramount.

Layoffs in 2009 are about cutting costs, not about individual performance. If you really want to keep your job, draw a close connection to the bottom line. Tyler Cowen thinks that the a solid way to do that is to take a voluntary pay cut. Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job, says that voluntary renegotiation can be an especially effective strategy for workers over 40. I would have to agree with both.

Of course you don’t want to take an axe to your contract unless you absolutely have to. Viscusi seems to think that you can be reactionary about it, offering to renegotiate when your boss hands you a pink slip. If you’re going to do it, though, being proactive is certainly going to have a higher success rate. For one, you’re probably screwed once the paperwork has been processed. Second, offering up front makes you seem like more of a team player and less of a desperate guy with his back against the wall.

So if you’re going to take a pay cut, do it right:

1. Know your options: unless you are really attached to this specific job, considering other opportunities can’t hurt.
2. Offer up front: when you feel the axe coming your way, make a preemptive strike.
3. Don’t go crazy: cutting more than 20% is overkill, 10% is a bit more common. But don’t necessarily skim off the top: one friend saved his job by switching to commission. Many more have relinquished contractual perks and soft benefits to help cut costs.
4. Don’t be desperate: you are committed to the company. You want to finish what you started. You have options, but this is the one you prefer.

Don’t get me wrong: I still think that getting canned can usher a positive change (it ultimately did for me). But for those of you who are emotionally- or pot-committed, helping your boss cut costs might save your job for better times. If you still get fired, at least you didn’y lose much.

It’s a daily occurrence; as I exit highway 465 and make the bumper-to-bumper crawl back to my apartment after the day’s work, I see them. They stand in the grass next to the traffic light, their faces squinted, hair wind swept. They pace the medians wearing sandwich boards. They hold their cardboard slates and run to cars as drivers hold their arms out from open windows, bills waded between their fingers. They nod their heads in gratitude and cross the exit, back to their original stance.

Maybe, like me, your pockets aren’t as deep as you’d like. Maybe you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck and surviving off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I understand; you can’t solve everyone’s problems. After all, you have your own headaches to worry about!

But maybe, with just one act of generosity, you could save someone. You could give them hope, or at least give them a reason to smile, and that one moment, that one act, could give them the strength to keep going. The truth is, misery does not love company. Misery wants you all to herself. It’s so easy to focus inward, to blame someone else, to just say, “This isn’t going to help anything.” And when you reach that low point, odds are that not too many people will be willing to join your party.

There’s just no getting over that hump unless you believe that you can. What better way to embrace that belief than by reaching out to the people around you? Let’s start by throwing some generosity back where you came from - your mother and grandmother.

This Mother’s Day, let your heart - not your wallet - do the talking, and show the important women in your life how much you appreciate them. It’s true, you don’t have to buy her an iPod, or even flowers - we all know they’ll just die anyway. Instead, why not help weed the garden, clean the house, or cook a nice dinner instead of shelling out money at an expensive restaurant.

Thinking of buying jewelry, but not sure if your budget can fit her taste? Forget about it! Buy a gift she can really use, or make one that could be both useful and heartwarming. Use your talents and genuine thoughtfulness to show your appreciation for all the things you might overlook or take for granted. Don’t stop there either. Tell all of your family, your friends, your neighbors, your pets, your mail carrier, the clerk at the check-out counter, and anyone else you see everyday that you care about them, that you hope they have a great day, and that they are important. Not only is it considerate, it’s good for humanity.

Do your part to infuse the world with generosity and you’ll find it much easier to put misery out of… well, you get the idea. Happy Mother’s Day.

Everyone has a bottom line: an industry, position or company that they vow to never work in and avoid at all costs. No matter where your bottom line lies, the scary truth is that this troubled economy may leave you feeling as though you have little choice or options.

Your confidence is shaken, you begin questioning your qualifications, and before you know it, you find yourself in desperation, accepting a position in which you are overqualified, underpaid, overworked, unappreciated - and dressed as a hotdog. Okay, your situation might not be that extreme, but you still need to prepare for the possibility of professionally “backtracking.” Many less than desirable jobs have some redeeming qualities that could be useful in leveraging your way back up the ladder of success. The only problem is that you still have to interview for them.

How do you survive an interview for a position that doesn’t quite match up to your ideals? You may decide that settling for a job you don’t really want is hardly worth the energy used to muster the fake smile and enthusiasm, which is one way to survive it.

But if you find that the short straw is better than no straw, you’ll need to have a plan.

The first and most obvious task is to not let your potential employer on to the fact that you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. This is where that fake smile and enthusiasm will come into play - you need to psych yourself up and find solid reasons, other than the fact that you’d like a paycheck, for seeking out the position. Make a list of those other pros - experience is generally a good place to start - and practice your delivery; after all, you need to be able to convince yourself before you’ll ever be able to convince any hiring authority.

Next, like any interview, research the company and convey your interest. The position may be a step (or several) below what you’re used to in terms of pay grade, prestige or even responsibility, but that doesn’t mean it can’t open up new doors.

Finally, you’ll need to answer for yourself, as well as the interviewer, where you see yourself future-wise. Again, this is true for any job seeking situation, dream job or not - employers want to know that they’re investing in your longevity. If there’s a possibility of growth within the company that could get you even inches closer to your ideal, you need to educate yourself on it and indicate your willingness to participate in the process, even if it means paying some dues first. But you won’t get a chance to pay any dues unless you appear genuine, and that’s tough to fake. Of course, you can’t know everything before an interview, and if you come across some red flags that you just could not handle, it’s important to trust your instincts and be upfront.

For example, I interviewed with a staffing agency for a strategic coordinator position serving a general clientele of financial institutions. The recruiter was vague about the responsibilities, but drew me in with the specs on salary, benefits and the fact that the position was temp-to-hire. At the interview, I discovered that the position entailed coordinating the repossession of automobiles on defaulted accounts. Even worse, the recruiter didn’t miss a beat telling me about how tow-truck drivers had been chased away with baseball bats and later refused to cooperate with these coordinators, a problem he claimed required more “creative” solutions.

As I knew my conscience would have a problem with coordinating anything that would take away a person’s transportation, and ability to work to pay off a loan, I thought it best to tell him. After all, there’s no bailout for being down on your luck and making stupid decisions with your money. Or is there?

Living in Manhattan, I spend about 20% of my salary on rent every year. When I spent five months unemployed, the rent didn’t fall. Pulling together such a large sum every month was a constant scramble of unemployment checks and odd-jobs.

But the tides are changing.

If you live in California, a sand state, or Motor City, then you’ve already seen real estate prices fall as much as 50%. But in some areas — especially greater NYC– real estate has been stickier. According to Tyler Cowen, the median price in Westwood buys you 100 median-priced houses in Detroit. For the NY home owner, that’s been good news. But for us renters it’s been brutal.

According to a number of industry experts, however, many of the more resilient areas are poised for a correction. This is by no means good economic news. But for embroiled job seekers it will take some pressure off of the wallet. Conservative estimates put NYC housing 15% lower in a year. Pessimistic ones ratchet the decline up to 45% over two years.

Anecdotally, it feels like this has already started to take hold. Our landlord lowered our rent 8% without a whole lot of prodding. In the neighborhood, comparable properties are renting for as much as 15% less than we pay already. For high-rise buildings and newly-rentable condos, it’s not uncommon to see the first 1-2 months of rent free with a one year contract.

I’m rooting for the housing market to stabilize. But in the mean time, why not take advantage of falling prices?

We just concluded a survey here on TheCanned.com about job seeker priorities. As you might expect, the priorities reflect the times.

If I had asked the average job seeker what he was looking for two years ago, I bet the top answer would have been either more money or more prestige. These days, prestige has fallen off the map. Only 3 percent of our 275 respondents listed “prestige” as the most important factor in their job search. A cool-headed 15 percent said professional development which, given the times, is perhaps the best tactical move.

Ringing in at No. 1 with a 15 percent margin of victory: stability. Coupled with 22 percent of the voting pool who said I’ll take anything!, this survey paints a desperate picture.

But what does it mean to chase a “stable” job in such unstable times? Aside from working for the federal government, stability is tough to pin down. The Treasury is hiring, and I’d label that department stable. From there on out it gets murky. Perhaps, after all, the best indication of a company’s stability is whether or not they are continuing to hire. If this is true, it is redundant for jobseekers to chase stability.

Instead, try thinking two moves in advance. Of course paying your bills comes first. But after that, try looking for positions that will set you up for future career growth. You’re probably not going to get rich during the next year. But given the opportunity to develop professionally, you can be first in queue when the market picks up.

Compensation and prestige still matter; they just matter as a potentiality rather than as an immediate reality.

So you got canned and are now facing a lack of funding for the more enjoyable things in life. Sure, you may have had to cancel your Netflix and cable subscriptions, but look on the bright side — you now have fewer distractions to keep you from discovering more creative and less costly ways to appreciate your new abundance of free time. Here are just a few ways that you can have some fun without assaulting your wallet.

1. Keyword search: Free. Search local newspapers, magazines and the Web for free events in your area, and bring a friend! April is National Poetry Month — celebrate by attending a reading! For those of you in the Indianapolis area, Charles Simic, last year’s Poet Laureate, will give a free, public reading at Butler University on April 21.

2. Revive game night. Bring your copy of Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit out of retirement, call your friends, and get playing!

3. Seaweed soiree. Invite your nearest and dearest to help you make Sushi dinner! For around $45 you can roll enough seaweed to feed about 8 people - it’s much less expensive than dining out, and much more fun!

4. Get Lost. The fact that you cancelled your cable is no excuse for missing out on this (or another) primetime network show. Host a Lost party and use the commercial breaks to discuss the multitude of questions you will undoubtedly have just five minutes into the show.

5. Four squares. Buy some chalk and a kickball, go take advantage of the spring weather, and have yourself a four square tournament. I am not even kidding. And while you’re taking a break from the ball bouncing fun, give that sidewalk some art!

6. Sing for your life. It’s Karaoke time — grab some friends and find a bar that has it! If you have access to play it, Singstar is the karaoke option of preference for those who like to belt out tunes in their usual tone-deaf style without a huge crowd present. Either way, you’re sure to have a good time.

7. Get bikini ready. Feel more confident in your one or two-piece swimsuit this summer and use getting canned as an excuse to get in shape. Taking a jog is always free!

8. Don’t skimp on the Holidays. Get creative and plan an adult-friendly activity for an upcoming holiday. Recently, my roommates and I hosted an adult Easter egg hunt — the eggs were filled with hilarious dares and, of course, candy! You’re never too old for candy.