Unemployment Opportunity

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

An airline recently posted 300 flight attendant job opportunities. It received 22,000 applications. If you were one of those applicants, I think you can rest assured that if you didn’t get the job, it’s not about you.

That’s small comfort when you might still be unemployed, or have recently lost a job, and are desperately trying to find new work to support yourself and your family. I come across people every day struggling to find jobs in the current market, and I can see the fatigue in their eyes.

Here is some good news, however, that is about you:

Unemployment is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for you to reflect on your current career track and job search, take stock, and consider some changes that might make you more successful in your quest for work. The Nonprofit Professionals Group recently posted an article “Time to Stop and Think,” with some great questions to ask both during a job search and mid-career. Taking the time to reflect, instead of barreling ahead sending resumes – or being despondent about an unsuccessful job search – has many beneficial outcomes. 

Reflection on your job search process may lead you to:

1-      Change your search process. It may not be effective to simply send resumes to open positions posted online or in the newspaper. Depending on your field, you may need to literally go door to door with your resume, or focus more on building your network through events and informational interviews.

2-      Change your course. Perhaps there is no longer enough market demand in your current field. You may need to branch off into a different type of job that uses the same skills you have, but in a different context. It may also be time to consider doing some affordable professional development, or even a new certification in a more marketable field. Community colleges are great places for affordable certificates in up and coming fields.

3-      Pursue your passion. My friends John at TaDah! Foods and Mimi at Shadow Chic started their respective business while on hiatus from entirely different careers. They both had been nursing those dreams for years, and the time off from work gave them the freedom to explore new opportunities.

4-      Change your perspective. You may not want to start your own business. You may not have the resources or skills to make economic success out of your passion (this post by Study Hacks explains why that may be a wise decision). You may need a job, any job, to make ends meet right now, even if it has nothing to do with your training or previous career track. And the way the current economy in the U.S. is going, you may need to stick with an unfulfilling job that you may not like, possibly with a boss or colleagues you despise, for a while. You’ll need to find fulfillment in other aspects of your life, by devoting more time to family and friends, volunteering, and hobbies.

 Have you recently come out of a period of unemployment? Did you find it an opportunity? How helpful do you find this advice? Please share in the comments below.

This New Year, Take the Plunge

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

I’m looking at an ocean of Mega Bloks on the floor. Part of me wants to dive right in and clean it all up. It’s always nice to have a clean living room in the morning.

But that’s not the kind of plunge I’m talking about in this post. With friends on Facebook sharing their new year’s resolutions and fellow bloggers sharing their recommendations, I’ve decided to jump into the fray with my own recommendation: take the plunge.

This year, take a risk. Do something that you’ve always considered doing but have not done yet because of fear.

I’ve already started mine – starting this blog. I had been thinking about blogging for months. I even started keeping a journal of potential blog posts. But I had a few fears and obstacles about starting one. My biggest fear was about sharing my unedited thoughts with the entire World Wide Web. Writing is creating, and creating can be very personal. What if people don’t like what I have to say?  With so many writers and bloggers out there, what new material do I really have to offer?

I got over that fear by thinking about all the bloggers that I follow, how much I appreciate reading their viewpoints on all sorts of topics, and how, at the end of the day, most of them are ordinary people, just like me.

I had other fears too: fear of learning a new technology, fear of running out of ideas to blog about, fear of not having time to write … I got over those fears just by taking the plunge and starting the blog. Learning how to do it is turning out to be a lot of fun. I haven’t run out of ideas yet, and thinking about what to write also helps occupy my mind more productively during the day. All those ideas make me itch to get to my laptop in the evening and start fleshing them out, so I am making the time.

I guess those blocks will get cleaned up in the morning.

I did not come up with the phrase “take the plunge.” I borrowed it from the theme of my MOPS group this year. “MOPS” stands for “Mothers of Preschoolers,” and it’s a wonderful community for mothers of younger children, who are often quite isolated otherwise.  Some of the members my group have taken some inspiring “plunges”: one has started nursing school, one joined a mom’s group at her job, and one recently had a dinner party for 20 people in her new home, for the first time.

I suggest that whatever risk you take be a risk that involves building community. Building community and ending isolation is the first topic I blogged about. Invite people over like my MOPS friend did. Reach out to a neighbor you haven’t spoken to yet. Join a group of some sort – a hobby group, a parenting group, a sports team, a club on your school or campus, a faith-based group. Go to school and make some new friends among your classmates. Volunteer for a nonprofit you like. Start a business. Even blogging is a kind of community, inviting comments and sharing with others. 

So please share – what kinds of risks are you thinking about taking this New Year?

Listen, Learn, Act and Reflect by Phoebe Farag Mikhail is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.