What About a Personal Recession?

I lost my job in 2006. You know what was happening in '06? Nothing bad! The economy was great. Jobs were aplenty. Everything was dandy.

Except for me. I was in a personal recession. And for some reason, I couldn't get out of it the normal way (that is, to get a job). Even though there were lots of job openings, I wasn't matching up with anything where someone said, "we'd like to offer you this job."

I personally think we are going into a recession. All the signs I'm seeing seem to point that way. I'm no genius, nor am I an economist, but things aren't looking good.

What if, though, everything turns out fine. What if the world turns around and people get back to work? What if, that is, everyone except you?

I wonder if I had to lose my job during a great economy, and fail at my job search, just so when I started JibberJobber I wasn't doing it only for bad economies. I started it during a great economy... maybe that's part of my story. It's not just a job search CRM for the bad times, it's for people who are going through their own bad times even when everyone else is experiencing good times.

Reminds me of the time I was in Minneapolis getting ready to speak to about a hundred job seekers. I had breakfast with a friend at a nice restaurant and noticed the newspaper for that morning. It was boasting about how great the economy was... something about the unemployement rate only being around 3 point something per cent. Within an hour I was going to be in a room with people who were experiencing 100% unemployment.

If you are interested in not being in that situation, or preparing for that situation, let me share four actionable tactics you can work towards. Let's call this career management, which is a topic I've spoken on hundreds of times over the years. It's one of my favorite topics.

I even have a Pluralsight course on it, titled Career Management 2.0 . I talk about three of the four things below in that course. Let's start with....

Network Relationships

Some people call this networking, which is like a four-letter word for job seekers. It's the necessary evil, the supposed silver bullet.

Notice I didn't say just "networking," rather I said "network relationships." I did that on purpose. I think too many people think networking is a numbers game. Get more names, grow a bigger network, and you are effectively networking.

That didn't work for me. Sure, it can be valuable, but for me I was doing it wrong. I need to start, and nurture, real relationships.

And then one day I heard someone say, "You find your job leads from your third and fourth degree contacts, not your first and second degree contacts."

MIND BLOWN.

There's something about meeting someone, who likely will not give you a job lead, and getting an introduction to someone, who introduces you to someone, who introduces you to someone who works at your target company, who introduces you to the manager of your target department in your target company.

This is smarter networking. Not just getting names and numbers, not just add LinkedIn contacts, but gaining trust and then asking, "Who do you know at XYZ company that you could introduce me to?"

This happens when you focus on relationships, not the superficial numbers game part of networking.

By the way, I created a Pluralsight course I refer to as networking on steroids. Or, purposeful networking. This course, titled Informational Interviews , helps you learn how to have the right conversations with the right people. It's awesome, and I don't hear or read enough about how to do informational interviews effectively.

So, thing 1: Network. Real networking, not just networking to get yet another name of someone you likely won't reach out to.

Your Personal Brand

Personal branding has come a long way. Or, at least, the perception of personal branding has come a long way. The pioneers of personal branding did a lot of work trying to convince people that (a) it is real, and (b) it is important.

Now, when I talk about personal branding, I don't get a lot of eye rolling and pushback. I think, generally, people get there's something to this personal branding stuff. And that it doesn't need to be, or feel, inauthentic.

I had an epiphany during a presentation I did to an MBA class at Pepperdine years ago. Someone said, "I still don't undrerstand what personal branding is!" My epiphany, which I replied with, was this: "Your personal brand is simply how other perceive you."

It's not necessarily how you want others to perceive you. It's not the buzzwords and jargon you have in your online profiles. It's not how you talk about yourself. It's how others talk about you, and how others think about you.

The cool thing is that you can influences how they talk and think about you. I created a ... you guessed it ... a course on this, and it's one of my favorite courses I've made. It's titled Developing Your Personal Brand . It's one of my favorites because I think it is so impactful on your career.

Multiple Income Streams

For years, my Career Management presentations talked about networking and personal branding. I just couldn't figure out what a third, big topic would be to add. Until one day I finally got it: creating multiple income streams.

This concept is not rocket science. But between the concept and the application there can be a massive gap. I want you to figure out how to bridge that gap and go from talking about creating an income stream to actually working on it.

December of 2005, days before I was to be laid off, I was at my parents' house for the holidays. Late one night I was looking through the bookshelf and pulled out a book that caught my eye: Multiple Streams of Income. I only needed to read half the book... I was left inspired and excited.

Little did I know I'd actually be laid off about two weeks later. My plan was to get another job, and keep progressing in my career. Instead, I was thrust into a path of figuring out income streams while my job search limped along.

My income stream journey started out slow. It was painful. It was expensive. It took a toll on my physical, mental, and spiritual health. It impacted my relationships.

And, it was the only bright spot in my dark job search.

It literally took years of hustle, and failure, before I saw the beginnings of financial success.

Fast forward 12 years and I landed a dream job. Really, that was my first real job since the big layoff in 2006! So here we are in 2018, I landed this amazing job for an amazing boss who say my value. But, a few months later my boss moved on and the program I was hired to create was shut down. I was laid off just 10 months after I started.

Sounds like a sad, painful story, right? Financially it was neither sad nor painful. Check out this super important blog post I wrote: I Got Laid Off Again. Why Losing 1 of 4 Income Streams Left Me Empowered. Go read that post and then come back.

I will pound this multiple income stream drum as long as I'm around. It's so powerful, so empowering.

What if the next time you lose your job it doesn't impact you financially? What if the biggest sorrow is that you'll be sad to lose your team, and the project you were working on, but financially it's 100% okay?

Please, please, please think about, and then work on, another income stream.

Skill Up

Years ago I went to a Pluralsight conference with, I think, a couple thousand other people. As I walked through the hallways I kept seeing this phrase, "skill up," on all the marketing material.

It was a new phrase to me, at least as a stand-alone phrase. I thought a lot about this idea of skilling up and, well, I'm a firm believer.

In the olden days, skilling up was said this way: Get an education. But an education used to mean "go to school, get a degree," and somehow there was this idea that you would be fine after that.

The world moves too fast to think that a degree from two decades ago will keep your skills up. One of the reasons I chose to partner with Pluralsight was because I loved their mission or providing continuing education to highly skilled technical people, and people who lead techies. I never thought I'd be in the education space, but this type of on-demand, JIT, relevant, updated education for people around the world was exciting.

It's why I have 38-and-counting courses at Pluralsight . I love that a programmer can go into one of the 7,000+ courses and learn how to do something they need to do. Or, learn a new language. Or, with the soft skills courses, learn how to become a better listener , manage change , etc.

I don't care if you learn through courses, classroom, audio, books, hands-on, the school or hard knocks, or what. The important thing is that you are learning skills that help you get better at whatever you want to do or become.

I used to think education stopped when I received a degree or diploma. I've since learned that we never stop learning. Read more, listen, try, go to a class, maybe even TEACH a class. But never stop learning. Never stop, as Pluralsight would say, skilling up.

Your Recession

Whatever is happening in society right now is scary. How many more layoffs will there be? What companies will not survive? Too many scary questions.

But I want you to think about career management in a different way. Not just when you need it, but always. I want you to be excited about the things you have control on, or influence over.

Be intentional about your career management. Do this on purpose. I'd like to help... I have a bunch of tools and ideas. Just ask.