Soul Destroying Job Search

For those who can remember the bad old days, I left school in 1980 and endured the failing youth employment policies of 'Youth Employment Programmes' and the dreaded 'YTS' (Youth Training Schemes). For those younger readers, I’m afraid ‘the system’ for getting young people into work was about as ineffective as it is today!



It would be hard to think of a more lacklustre and innovation-less process to inspire young people about their career plans. Yet here we go again using a sausage factory approach to solving the challenge of getting more NEETs (a young person not in education, employment or training) into the workplace and off welfare payments.


Back then, I remember working as a so-called Assistant Professional Golfer 'thinking' I was on a credible training scheme, but basically I was working 60 hour weeks for £12.50 and being taken for a ride. When I look back it would be hard to imagine how a young person could be taken advantage of to such an extent, but policy-making seems to be cyclical or we have very poor memories as to what does and doesn't work.


What doesn't work is churning young people out of school without a viable and sustainable career plan. I've argued with the entrenched attitudes of old-fashioned teachers in common rooms stating that young people go to school to learn, not to develop a career plan or decide what to do with their lives! I'd say we're teeing young people up to fail if they leave school clueless about where their strengths and weaknesses lie and exactly what career attributes they possess to offer a future employer. Yet I know school after school who churn-out young people ill-prepared to even make a decision, let alone have any real idea about what goes on in the world of work outside. They are effectively ‘institutionalised’ and it can take them years to adapt to the realities of the world; which comes as a huge shock to many.


Fair enough, the careers profession has failed miserably to develop a credible presence in society as all people ever do is talk about who awful their career guidance was when they were at school. Well, I need to tell you, my early career guidance may have been dreadful, but I owe my livelihood to an inspirational Careers Adviser, who I have thanked in posts elsewhere. (My main aim has been to develop a tangible and non-esoteric approach that gives people traction quickly; without the touchy-feeliness associated with many career guidance approaches.)


In terms of Soul Destroying Job Search, we need a career plan if we're to stand a chance of jumping the obstacles between unemployment and a worthwhile job…and surviving this trial of attrition! People derive meaning in their lives in a vast diversity of ways. No two people are alike! Self-confidence stems from self-understanding, self-acceptance and formulating the ability to see oneself doing well in the world.


As I bang on and on about, people with a sense of purpose in their lives are charismatic. They attract positive attention from others. They're simply attractive. It's not rocket science, yet thousands and thousands of people get into their mid-life and have no clue about where their career attributes and strengths lie.


On a day-to-day basis many millions of unemployed people, the world-over, sit in front of a pc screen in search of a job. Statistically, this is rarely where their next job lies. I’d suggest switching computers off and going and talking to people about how they made their career decisions. How did they uncover their career strength? What skill do they make the most use of on a daily basis? What do they like least about their job?


If you ask your contacts for a job, you might risk embarrassing them. If you ask them for job-related information - especially the people who demonstrate a passion for their work - then there are few people who would turn you down.


The exciting stuff happens when you find someone who shares your interests, shares your passions for work and you have career attributes in common with. These are the potential gatekeepers to helping you land your next job. You won't have to ask, they'll recognise the right potential in you and do what they can to assist. A shared interest can form a powerful bond.

Your challenge is talking to enough people to get you to the person who shares your interests and can help. But rest assured, it has to be better than banging-your-head-off-a-brick-wall, in isolation, at home with your pc, in solitary confinement, with no money. This is what I recognise as a 'Tail Spin'!! And it is a pain-filled, bad news story for everyone.

Answers to Unemployment Number 1:

Make a considered career decision first - the job you truly love is far easier to land than the one you don't!

The double bereavement of job loss Part 1

In the early 1970s Elizabeth Kubler-Ross translated the findings of her extensive research into bereavement into what became known as the ‘Bereavement Curve’. As is so often the case, this diagrammatic representation of her thesis left a powerful impression on one’s mind; in parallel with the old adage that ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. Kubler-Ross summed up that those losing loved ones appeared to pass through seven stages of grief: shock, anger, denial, stress (either in the form of anxiety, or for some full-blown depression), apathy, acceptance and action.

Having worked as a freelance consultant in the field of redundancy counselling and performance coaching for 12 years, I am well versed in bastardising the ‘Bereavement Curve’ into what has also become known as the Change Curve. The fact of the matter is that human beings, in the main, are change averse. Often our security depends upon stability and routine combining to build up a sense of dependability and faith in the structures we surround ourselves. Often we subscribe to conventions to instil within us a sense of rhythm and repetition. Call it a ‘life beat’.

Job loss hits us hard primarily due to this breach of our life’s rhythm. Conventions lapse and the anchors with which we secure our routines are lost. For some, momentarily, and depending on how well we are prepared for change, for protracted and painful periods. Paradoxically, the more we wed ourselves to convention, the harder the flail of redundancy hits us. Let’s put it this way, the more indelibly etched the habits, the greater the turmoil.

The traditional psychological contract between employee and employer has shifted through 1800 from pre 1970 where employees were loyal to employing firms for providing jobs for life. To post 1990 where ‘The War for Talent’ (by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod, Harvard Business Press), seeing companies battling for flexible workforces and the freedom to deliver ‘just-in-time’ products and services, meant that more and more companies struggled to instil any sense of loyalty in their workforce. And why should employees develop any sense of loyalty when the average number of jobs in career had shot up from one or two jobs in a lifetime to as many as 18 career transitions from job to job.

So if that is Bereavement Number 1, what is Bereavement Number 2……..?