Self-Help for Job Seekers
Of course nobody knows how many jobs will actually be lost as a result of the government’s deficit reduction measures. All sorts of figures are being bandied around but at the end of the day the only thing that matters it that it will be a lot of jobs, and each job lost will create a crisis for a particular individual. The real question has to be, what to do if you lose your job.
Before the spending freeze many public sector workers could expect some sort of support from their employers in the event of redundancy. The extent of the support varied from one organisation to another, and depended on age, seniority together perhaps with other factors. Now that many is tight, this level of outplacement support may not be available.
So what other support can you get if you are looking for a new job? There are Job Centres of course but they have come in for a lot of criticism recently; they are a resource but should not be relied on as the only one. More pertinent perhaps are job clubs; local groups of unemployed people who provide peer support for each other, work together to improve their CVs, networking and interview skills and share job opportunities with each other. Job clubs are sometimes run by the local council, others are independent. An internet search should tell you where your local job club is.
Alternatively, although employer funded outplacement support may not be available, there is no reason why you should not engage the services of an outplacement company yourself. If personal, one to one support is too expensive, consider joining together with some colleagues and commissioning us at Career Energy to provide you with Job Search workshops. These can be highly cost effective and will give you a head start in the jobs market.
It will take time before the jobs market stabilises. Those who take a pro-active approach and seek out support for themselves are bound to get back into work faster than those who sit back and wait for jobs to come to them. This is not a time to be complacent.
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Tags: Job Centres, job clubs, Job Search Workshops
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