Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door (5 page)

•
Don’t take it personally
. Don’t consider yourself a failure if you get rejected. You’re a much bigger person than the way your last job packaged you. Take stock of your personal inventory. The sooner you think in terms of your breadth of skills and talents, the quicker you will find constructive ways to move on.

•
Leave the last door open
. While you may be retooling your new identity, don’t waste time with venom for the past. So what if the job wasn’t tailor-made for you? Blaming your last boss and your former company gets you nowhere. Consider that experience to have been invaluable to get you to the next run. Embrace the philosophy I underscore in the title of my book
We Got Fired! . . . And It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us.
Visualize the day when you can visit your last employer and actually
thank him or her
for the opportunity that was opened up for you. Remember as well that, on a practical level, you will need these people for references and goodwill within your industry.

•
Never say no for the other person
. Don’t anticipate rejection based on your immediate past experience. Indeed, you may have to polish up your attitude and credentials. On the other hand, you may also find employers who like you very much as you are. Be flexible, and test the market. Find out what feels natural for you, but also listen to others—recruiters, interviewers, and trusted friends and advisers. You’ll have to present yourself in a way that’s both digestible for the marketplace and acceptable to you.

•
Analyze every failure, but never wallow in one
. I always want to know
why
people say no, and I’m not afraid to ask. Was it me? Was it the condition of the economy? How about the particular needs of the firm or the department of that point in time? Be wide open to changing yourself, but be careful about trying to remake yourself to answer circumstances beyond your control.

•
Remember past achievements
. Reflect on your past career and business successes. How did you feel? When did you shine your best? And be honest and up to date. Don’t spotlight the kinds of career successes that are no longer possible in an industry or market that has changed forever.

•
Take a break
. If you’re feeling down, do something you like—exercise, read a motivational book, listen to a favorite song. Just don’t stay away too long. And never take a break when you’re on a hot streak, only when you’re in a slump. If a sudden streak of contacts and job prospects springs up, you may have already made the necessary adjustments in how you’re presenting yourself.

• A support group is positive when it helps restore confidence and negative when it degenerates into a crying society. Remember that Job #1 when you lose a job is getting a job. Spending a lot of time with similarly out-of-work people may strengthen your feeling of moral outrage that you were unjustly fired. It may also do nothing about your getting a job and might in fact amplify the unhealthy feelings that you are an unwanted, flawed human being.

• Dr. Marc D. Feldman of the University of Alabama has “warned about sympathy-seekers who invade Internet support groups . . . People can invent or induce fictitious illnesses in themselves or others in order to gain sympathy.” What holds true for illness-based alliances can afflict any sort of support group. Often people who are either unafflicted or mildy affected will exhaust the group’s time and subvert its positive purposes.

• As with any Internet-based communication, be conscious that anyone can be listening in—and that includes former employers and executive recruiters.

• Some highly qualified people are culled from companies in re-engineering-style mass firings. Confident in their own skills and their ability to land on their feet, wise individuals use their severance to finance a sabbatical. They invest in strengthening their present skills or learning a new specialized second or third skill.

• Let’s say you’ve been fired because your company forced you to engage in unethical practices, and your ex-employer has developed a reputation for doing business on dimly lit streets. You could appeal to firms priding themselves as ethical beacons.

• Perhaps you know you’re due for a one-way ticket to the headsman’s block. If you’re a manager whose performance relies on the contributions of others, who will you need in your new job to be a success? I recall one executive who often hopped from one turnaround assignment to another. The executives who made up his new dirty dozen as he ricocheted from one new gig to another were rarely the same. And, even more important, were often not people he liked. In fact, he considered picking team members on the basis of liking them to be a big mistake. He picked people he respected and could play a meaningful role in solving the problems of the new business he was taking on.