How to find a job after redundancy.

How to find a new job after redundancy.

Are you one of the unfortunate people in the UK who has experienced redundancy? Are you out of work, looking for a new job and feeling a little lost?

Although it may not feel like it, now is a good time to re-evaluate where you might have been going wrong in your work-life balance, upping your career game, or just re-evaluating your goals to change your life for the better.

Our ‘Redundancy Survival Guide’ has been written to help you to make the most of your situation.

Remember — your job has been made redundant, not YOU!

Find a new job after redundancy
How to reevaluate your work-life balance and reset your goals.

How to re-evaluate your work-life balance and reset your goals after redundancy.

Finding a new job after redundancy can be one of the most stressful processes a person goes through. It is natural to fear that you won’t find a job, or that the job you find will be worse than the job you lost.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Your new job doesn’t have to be everything your old job was, and it doesn’t have to be a direct replacement.

Redefining your job goals and discovering your true purpose in life is a process that requires time and effort.

Now is the perfect time to take the first step, sit down and really examine your life and work. You might be surprised by what you discover!

Here are some pointers to think about:

  • What did you enjoy doing as a child?
  • How about the goals and dreams were you working towards, that were halted by unforeseen circumstances?
  • What aspects of your job / career would you like to take with you, and what would you like to leave behind?
  • Think about what you have always wanted to do but never had the opportunity?

This is the time to think about how you can use your skills and experience to do what you really want to do.

Feeling like you need some inspiration? Check out our “29 Inspiring and Motivational Quotes for your job search!

How to find a new job after redundancy.
Make time to find yourself and your new goals to commit to.

Make time to find yourself and your new goals to commit to.

Don’t be overly hard on yourself if you feel that you haven’t made progress in achieving your original career path and personal goals. Your work-life balance may have been heavily weighted on the wrong side, and so those 5k runs you committed to back in January had to be sacrificed.

It won’t help at all if you’re beating yourself up. Instead, try to think of it as a learning process… and now is the best time to hit the reset button!

So, create goals and form them into habits. This will help you to move away from your old mindset, which over time has become the default.

You can build a good habit in just 21 days. In fact, it takes less than three weeks to form a new habit.

But to build a new habit, you need to put in the requisite work. Here’s a three-step approach to building a new habit:

1.SET A GOAL or GOALS

Decide what you want to build a habit around. It could be exercising regularly, going for a run or going to bed early, or eating more veggies!

2. DO IT / THEM EVERYDAY

Take a few minutes each day to work towards building that habit. This could be going for a walk after dinner, eating a healthy snack before bed, or going to bed an hour earlier.

3. ENJOY THE REWARDS

Take diary notes on how you’re feeling, work to an end goal, or ask your nearest and dearest what they’ve noticed that’s different about you in the weeks that follow.

So, lets define this a little further:

The first step is to choose your habit: you’ll need to find something you can practice daily. Next, you’ll want to find a way to reward yourself after you’re finished. Learning the art of measuring your own performance can also help you boost and advance your career.

Create a wish-list for your new job.

Create a wish-list for your new job post redundancy.

What are you looking for in your new job? Money, security, a new challenge, more work-life balance?

It’s hard to know what a job is going to be like before you’ve started, and even if you do get an interview, it’s hard to tell from the questions you get asked how the job is going to turn out.

Instead, you need to think more about your needs and motivations and ask yourself some very specific questions.

You will then be able to decide what jobs meet your basic needs and, if not, what changes you could try to make in your life so that you can be happy.

Creating a job search plan – which is a list of your ideal requirements for the job you are looking for – is a great start and it will ultimately help you strategise finding that job.

Take a step back with a clear mind and look at the big picture.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • How long were you in your previous job?
  • What were the biggest challenges you faced?
  • How do you envisage your job in the future?
  • What did you enjoy most about your last job?
  • Which aspects of your career in general have you enjoyed / do you enjoy the most?
  • What do you do outside of work to keep yourself happy?
  • How do you hope to grow professionally over the next five years?
  • What transferable skills do you have?

Create a ‘bucket-list’ of things that you have always wanted to do, but never had time.

The word bucket-list is a great concept for people who want to get the most out of their lives.

Although the term was popularised by the 2007 film of the same title, it has been in use since the 1950s, and the concept of a list of things to do before you die has been around for much longer.

The idea is that you make a list of the things you have always wanted to do, but never had time. But a bucket-list doesn’t have to be about long-term life goals, it can be really useful to list more immediate goals to keep you focussed and motivated.

Whilst it’s vital you structure your day with job searching tasks, it is also important that you keep some time back for you!

So, create a list of things that you want to focus your personal time on, and tick them off as you do them.

You know people, so build on your relationships and broaden your job search.

You know people, so build on your relationships and broaden your job search.

Relationships are one of the keystones of success. People who have lots of connections are more likely to achieve what they want out of life, from career to family.

Everyone has their own unique way of forming connections with others, so there’s no one right way to build relationships. However, there are some very effective ways of contributing to relationships that can really support you.

A good way to enter the job search and to lay the groundwork for success is to start contributing to the relationships you already have.

This not only strengthens your professional network, but it also keeps your focus on your work and your abilities. After all, relationships are the foundation of networking, and the beginning of all job searches.

LinkedIn, for example, can be a great source for connecting with like-minded professionals who have the potential to lead you to your next great opportunity. Helping you build and maintain relationships with the people you may know or would like to ‘meet’.

Take this time to learn some new skills.

Take this time after redundancy to learn some new skills.

Learning a new skill is one of the best ways to make yourself an attractive candidate for a new job, and is vital if you’re looking to change career direction.

This digital age has made it easier than ever to learn new skills. The internet is full of opportunities and no matter what you want to learn, there is a ‘course’ waiting for you.

Learning a new skill through YouTube or Vimeo is one of the easiest ways to approach up-skilling, and a lot of new content is available each day.

So, if you’ve ever thought that your experience with Excel is a bit light for example, make a quick search and find content that resonates with you. Build that skill.

Although you won’t get a certificate at the end of it, you will be able to include it in your skills section of your CV or a covering letter of application

For example: Familiar with Excel including Pivot Table and Macros (if that’s what you’ve polished up on!).

In conclusion — the sky's the limit, not your fear.

In conclusion — the sky’s the limit, not your fear.

The main thing to remember is that you’re not alone. You have been made redundant, but you shouldn’t feel redundant.

It can feel like the whole world is against you. (It’s not.).  It’s hard to know where to start with the practical concerns of your job hunt, let alone the emotional and psychological impact of being made redundant.

So, hopefully this blog post has enabled you to get through the fog, put things in perspective and create a bit of structure for your job hunting.

Jobs and careers are no longer for life and the more you can enjoy every aspect of your job search, the more likely you are to find a job you love.

Stay great, share your amazingness and find your perfect job opportunities!

Your dream job is just around the corner!

 

Other articles you might like to read, include:

5 Tips to a Better Work-Life Balance

16 Ways to Use Redundancy to Your Advantage

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