The worry of redundancy

Just yesterday in the newspaper I read of 3 companies planning large scale redundancies - BP, the BBC and probably Royal Mail. Companies talk about efficiency savings but the bottom line for staff is uncertainty of their future - what will they do next?

If the jobs are to go, the staff may get an outplacement package and this can be really helpful. I’m currently working with a company offering a supportive one to one service to help the staff who have been made redundant move on from the redundancy with a great CV, support to find a new job and interview training. Not everyone is so lucky. Some people get nothing, and others may have a half day group programme which is really just playing lip service to supporting staff.

No one is secure in their jobs any more. We never know what might happen so here are a few tips to ensure you are marketable:

If you enjoy your work and want to continue on this sort of work make sure that you do a good job so if some staff have to go they are more likely to keep you. It is not just doing a good job but letting other people know you are doing a good job.
If you enjoy your work, keep your skills up to date. Don’t just rely on previous experience but seek out training and other ways to develop yourself.
When you need to apply for jobs you will want to have examples of what you have achieved to enhance your application so make a note of new things you have done and problems you have overcome and keep this list updated.
Think through where you want your career to be in the future- 2,5,10 years on and look for how to develop yourself for the future so you know what would be a good next step to aim for rather than to be willing to take whatever you can get.
Use the information to create a CV and keep it updated so it is ready.

I hope this doesn’t happen to you, but if it does do ask your company about outplacement support.

If you have gone through redundancy I’d be very interested to hear your story, so please get in touch.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 6:36 am and is filed under JOB SEARCH, Redundancy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.