Creating the Next Chapter in Your Career in Uncertain Times

Whether you are experiencing the effects of workforce reduction, corporate restructuring or growing disillusionment with your current employment situation, it is very easy to allow a sense of victimization to enter into your daily perspective. With the daily deluge of bad news that we are all experiencing lately, it would be hard not to buy into it. Unfortunately this is the very time when you most need to be confident about your capabilities and their value to your company. You are being asked to “create” the next chapter in your career while being inundated with just about every “fear producing” stimulus around. Fear itself is very similar to driving through a patch of fog…it blocks out virtually any glimmer of the sun…and it is easy to believe that this dark place is the “only” place on earth!!!




The good news is that whatever you focus on creates your inner state—and that inner state motivates you to act in a certain way. As an example, if you are viewing your current employment (or unemployment) situation as a PROBLEM, it then causes you to feel ANXIOUS / FEARFUL and causes you to act in REACTION to that fear.




What if you were able to shift this focus from WHAT YOU FEAR to WHAT YOU WANT TO CREATE? This shifts the dynamic considerably. Now is the time to shift from being fearful of what may happen to you to creating the next step in your life and/or career. I am not suggesting putting on a happy face and faking it till you make it here…I am suggesting real and lasting change. If that sounds like a leap you would like to make, there are 4 steps you can take to begin that transformation.




1. Write down how you are feeling—who/what you feel is victimizing you—and rate it on a scale of 1-10 (1 being someone cut you off in traffic -- 10 being a victim of a catastrophic natural disaster).



2. Write down what the “desired outcome” is that this situation is thwarting. In other words, what vision of your life do you want to move towards?



3. With the understanding that this vision of your life is still alive, acknowledge the current reality and then ask yourself what choices might you have for taking a “baby step” in the direction of the ideal vision?



4. Commit to—and take – that baby step! Each step you take either takes you closer to your vision or helps you clarify the final form of your desired outcome.




Also be mindful that your inner dialogue is a huge determinate in what shows up in your daily life! I once interviewed a candidate who was a senior executive in a multi-national company. He had expressed interest in a similar position with another company. When I asked him why he would consider leaving his present position for the new one, he made a very wise comment. He said he saw a lot of restructuring and personnel changes going on around him and that he had decided to take charge of the future direction of his career before someone did it for him. Very wise man indeed!!!



Why not take charge of the future direction of your career? Starting today….take five minutes a day to reconnect with the vision you have had for your career’s path and with that focus, write down 3 baby steps that you can take this week to move in that direction.



As the famous explorer W.H. Murray once said: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”



Attitude is everything! The current economic downturn does not have to control your attitude nor does it necessarily direct your future. Take charge of your attitude and boldly begin creating your future instead of reacting to your past.

How To Organize Your Recruiters To Retain Quality Job Candidates

One of the biggest problems that recruiters face is being able to hire true quality and keep up with them through the entire process. This is often how departments are positioned because they don't really help out the recruiter to retain well.

Many recruiters feel stuck because they don't get much say in the process and are only involved in the initial sourcing of the issue. Management will claim that they are not focused on creating benefit for their company by following mission statements, values, etc. when deciding on candidates to source.

So in order for a manager and a recruiter to be on the same page there has to be some congruency. One of the big things that has to happen is the recruiter needs to be involved more in the whole process from start to finish.

One way to do this is to make the recruiter directly responsible for employee turnover that happens in the first year of the employment. Second they need to have more of a say in the process and given the ability to reject the candidate at any time in the process.

If companies do this, records show that it will improve the retention for those companies and the time-to-fill metrics that are commonly measured by companies. You are going to find this with any department you work in. The more authority you give then the more respectful and motivated the employee will be.

In the end no matter how many interviews and resumes you have, it comes down to recruiting right and finding that ideal candidate before your competition does. If you can quickly respond to the right resumes you are going to get valuable employees.

My suggestion is that you look at ways to automate this whole process. One company that does well with that is Entice Labs and their Talent Seekr product that sends out jobs across numerous niched web sites on the internet.

So get to work and empower your recruiters if you are manager and make sure they are in line with your methods. If you are a recruiter then find ways to gain more authority and become more focused on creating great success for your department.

Cade Krueger consults with recruiters as the Director of Sales for Entice Labs and helps recruiters with finding ideal job candidates for quality hires. He also promotes the TalentSeekr product for job recruiting that reaches five times the audience at a fraction of the cost of job boards. This helps to save recruiters time and money.