Submitted by jclishe on
in
Forums
My company was recently acquired by a larger, publicly traded company. The acquiring company has been making some changes and cutting a lot of overhead, and unfortunately last week I was one of the cuts.
The good news is that I was already beginning to see changes that I didn't like and had already started reaching out to recruiters prior to my being let go, so I already had some irons in the fire.
However, the REALLY good news is that for the past year or so I have been regularly reaching out to my network via "Keep in touch with" tasks in Outlook, and I've been keeping my resume updated quarterly.
The day that I was let go, by the end of the day I had sent and received a combined 73 phone calls (I checked my call log) and sent nearly 100 emails with my resume attached. I had 2 firm interviews scheduled and many more tentative. And this was the first day (last Wednesday). I have been quite busy since then. (so much for taking time off!)
The point of this post is not to talk about my jub hunt, but rather to say that the "keep in touch with" recurring tasks are GOLD. So many people have been so supportive and have done so much to help me these last few days, it has been truly incredible. And I attribute all of that simply to staying in touch with people. Acquitances that I haven't seen in years are doing things to help me, only because every quarter I send them brief "how's it going" emails to stay on their radar.
So the morale of the story, at least from my perspective, is that if you can only heed 1 piece of M&M's advice that they've given over the years, stay in touch with your network!!!! It is an absolutely invaluable tool that can work wonders when you need it most.
Jason
Lost my job last week
Wow, this is a great story, Jason. This is what I call : seeing the positive in any situation. That is impressive. I wish you to rapidly find another position with a better working environment.
How long did you dedicate per day to the task of expanding and taking care of your network ?
Lost my job last week
Well done Jason
Why don't you also post your 30 second commercial in the forum so that you might get some leads out of this network as well?
FR
Lost my job last week
Ced: Thanks for the kind words! I'm probably spending less than an hour per week maintaining my network, it really doesn't take much. When I first heard the "Stay in touch with" cast it took me quite a while to create hundreds of new recurring tasks in Outlook, and then to actually send out the emails. But that was over a year ago. Now, the tasks are spread out enough in Outlook that it really doesn't take too long to get the emails out. Granted, every now and then there's a "heavy" week where lots of "stay in touch with.." tasks pop up.
This does not include networking lunches and thank you's, though.
Aster, good idea. I wasn't sure if that type of self-promotion was acceptable here. Should I post something about myself in this forum or in the careers forum, do you think?
Jason
Lost my job last week
Jason
I would post in both forums... the price is the same :lol:
.... some basics, where you are, a bit about what you have done, what you want to do... if people are interested, they will ask you.
*RNTT
Lost my job last week
jclishe: Just keep reminding yourself: "until you've got an offer, you've got...[i]nothing[/i]." And act accordingly.
-Hugh