What are the reasons we work?

–       To earn money

–       To be a contributing member of society

–       To have an outlet to use our education, talents and skills

–       To give some structure to our days

–       To give us a place to go, something to do and people with whom we can interact

So, what happens when we do not have a job even though we would like to be employed?

–       Our finances go haywire especially if we have lived from paycheck to paycheck

–       We feel a loss of relevance, independence or purpose

–       We worry about losing our intellectual edge and fear we are no longer learning

–       We don’t know how to productively fill the open space in our lives

–       We feel lonely or isolated as we may have no other community

In last week’s blog, we talked about how job loss and unemployment can wreak havoc with our emotions and how impossible it is to predict what kinds of emotional responses different people have to the same situation.  This week, we will look at how you can put your various intelligences – strategic, analytical, social, financial and emotional – to work to empower you and give you a greater sense of control over your life while you search for your next position.

For what do you need your strategic intelligence?

Your journey to find a new job will benefit from your having a strategy in your game plan.  You have to step out of your immediate past role, and ask yourself some big questions.  Can you replicate your past role in some other organization, or has the role grown obsolete?  For what are organizations looking right now, and what components of your skill set and interests intersect with their needs? What are the big trends in the world, and how can you orient yourself toward where there is need and scarcity rather than where there is oversupply?

For what do you need your analytical intelligence?

Before finding a new job, you need to take some time and dissect your last position and your contribution to it.  Do you have a good sense of what you actually did every day in your previous position?  What are the skills you possess that you may take for granted but that set you apart from others?  What were your accomplishments — even the little ones — that you can build into stories to demonstrate how you could be an asset to your future employer? For what types of roles, qualifications and skills are people looking these days?  Do you have them? What specifically do you need to shore up? Do you have a good research process for uncovering opportunities?  And, once you have discovered them, do you assess the pros and cons of each in a consistent, rational manner?

For what do you need your social intelligence?

Unemployment is a time for people to get over their social reserves and to reach out to others for information, advice and help.  If you feel shy or reluctant, you can remind yourself that what goes around comes around, and one day you may be in a position to help others who reach out to you.  In any event, having short, targeted conversations with people and connecting with them at a human level can be rewarding in itself in addition to the useful tips, contacts and other information you glean.  And, once you build a network of people around you, don’t forget to nurture it; reach out to say hello from time to time even when you are no longer looking for a job.

For what do you need your financial intelligence?

As well as using your cool, rational head to conduct a well-planned and executed job search campaign, you have to be mindful of the impact of your new financial situation on your standard of living.  Have you taken a good, hard look at your spending-versus-income patterns?  Have you appropriately adjusted your lifestyle?   Have you had the difficult conversations with your dependents and helped them adjust their expectations?

For what do you need your emotional intelligence?

It is your emotional intelligence that will enable you to do all of the above as well as will keep you focused and positive while you search.  It will also help you assess those intangibles in your next position that will make a big difference to your quality of life.

Fredia Woolf, Founder of Woolf Consulting, blogs about career and workplace issues.  She provides Leadership coaching and Organizational “seasoning”, spicing up Productivity, Effectiveness, Performance, Personal Engagement, and Results (PEPPER), while enhancing Strategy, Alignment, Leadership, and Teamwork (SALT).  She can be contacted at fwoolf@woolfconsulting.com.

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