Plan Ahead

If you are like most people, you are being lied to or have been lied to by your manager about your prospects of losing your job.

You see when most people are worried about their jobs, they ask people they know at their firm, co-workers, managers, maybe a director for assurance or tidbits of information that will give them an idea about what lies ahead for them.

And these peole often don’t know any more than you do which explains why so many have also been fired or, to use the polite term, “laid off” for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In most cases, it wasn’t a question of firing incompetent people that caused someone to be “let go” (that’s the last time I use a polite term for “fired”). There has been and continues to be a maelstrom in the global economy that is causing firms to fire people for no more reason than not being able to afford them any more.

Yet people keep asking their managers who are several levels below the real decision makers whether their job is safe or their heads are on the chopping block.

I know this behavior passes for safe decision-making among most people but, frankly blind trust in people not deserving of your trust is just foolish.

Think for yourself and plan ahead.

You see, most people are completely stupid and learn how to job hunt through trial and error–that’s another nice way of saying, “blowing opportunities they could have been hired for through ignorance of how to job hunt.”

You see, job hunting, resume writing, job interviewing, negotiating salary, to name a few, are all different skills from doing your actual job yet people think that they can simply regurgitate some answers to questions at a job interview and like magic they will be find work again.

They also blindly believe all the stories they are told by recruiters, both corporate and third party, where they are told about “great opportunities!”

Bull-hockey!

You are interviewing with companies that want to hire another drone to replace the last one who left them.

So stop kidding yourself and start learning what you need to learn in order to not be another sheep and be a success.

Find out about the job market and firms that have been laying people off.

Read and re-read the articles here

Become educated.

Practice how to interview.

Write and update your resume before you need it.

Plan ahead.

After all, the person who gets ahead isn’t always the smartest or work the hardest although those are great qualities to have.

People get ahead by being alert to opportunity.

Sometimes, they are internal to their firm. More often they are not.

Become a prepared job hunter. Order any of my relevant books and guides to job hunting as PDF’s or on Amazon for Kindle.

If you prefer, order other people’s books on Amazon

No matter what you do, don’t stay ignorant.

© 2012 All rights reserved Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter