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How Executives Deal with the Jobless Time
Although the economy has improved, a jobless executive may have to face up to a year or more of unemployment. That’s a lot of time, especially for those who are not used to having any free time. While some job seekers spend hundreds of hours discovering daytime television, others seem to thrive on activities that boost their professional careers or resolve family issues when they aren’t working.
Having an extended period of free time in the prime of one’s life can in fact be a unique opportunity to focus on volunteer service, professional education or personal growth.
Community Involvement
For Lisa Perez, the wakeup call was burned pork chops. An executive who previously hadn’t been particularly interested in home and health had become obsessed with homemaking during a period of unemployment.
She realized that cleaning and organizing her home wasn’t helping her job search. Nevertheless, "I made lists of 50 things to do every day," says Ms. Perez, a political and public-relations consultant in Scottsdale, Ariz. "My house was clean, just so I’d have something to do."
One day, her boyfriend didn’t arrive on time for dinner because he had to work late, and her pork chops were ruined. She flied into a rage. "I’d never been a person like that," she says. "So I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, and go out and do something productive."
Ms. Perez, 35, resolved to become an active volunteer for the duration of her search. She gave her time to a health-care concern, a housing program and a political campaign.
The work offered her self-confidence. "Volunteering takes the focus off you. One thing you have that’s still valuable is your time. And, of course, you learn that there are thousands of people with a life that’s much worse than yours," she says.
Volunteer assignments are also great ways to meet powerful and well-connected people. Over a six-month period, her volunteering evolved into working as a paid consultant and then as a full-time employee, a job she still holds today. In all, she was unemployed for eight months.
Before her job loss, she thought she didn’t have time to volunteer while working. "Now, even though I have a demanding job, I still volunteer, because of what I got out of it," says Ms. Perez.
Continuing Education
Gene Bellavance, a 36-year-old information-technology project manager, took another route during his unemployment. When he was laid off from a steel company near Cleveland, he knew his immediate prospects were bleak. He expected his search to take a year. He faced a decision: take a job that would set back his career or hold out for an offer he really wanted.
Mr. Bellavance, single and virtually debt free, shifted his finances into survival mode. He cashed out his pension, sold his house, unloaded things he didn’t need at garage sales, and rented an apartment with a roommate. Then, he says, "I signed up for every benefit I could find."
But he wasn’t just waiting out the year. He spent the rest of his search updating his skills, including becoming certified in new database and project-management software. "You have to invest in yourself," Mr. Bellavance says. "I estimated what technology was going to be the most beneficial and chose applications that were going to ensure top pay.
His job search was one month shy of the full year he’d expected. He looked for work during his training and says he would have finished the certification programs even if he’d been hired before completing them.
Family Matters
In addition to pursuing training or volunteering, some displaced careerists use their time off work to attend to family matters. Many executives rediscover their children or find time to help their parents.
Stanford Rappaport held three jobs in San Francisco, including high-tech and teaching positions. When he was laid off from the high-tech job last year, he knew it might take a long time before he could get another post like it. "I was able to do the math," says Mr. Rappaport. "The number of people laid off: huge; and the number of available jobs: little. At the time, I thought it might take two or three years before the tech industry recovered."
Mr. Rappaport’s remaining job, a part-time faculty position, didn’t pay enough to support him. After a couple of months of searching with no results, he decided to escape. "My plan," he says, "was to get out of an expensive living situation, and either seek work in another section of the U. S. or overseas, for those two years."
Before he found an assignment, his Arkansas-based mother was diagnosed with a serious chronic illness, and he was called into duty as a son. Mr. Rappaport was able to help his mother get her affairs in order not to interrupt his search by using a San Francisco mail drop and cellphone. "I continued to look for work in California while I was home, helping my mother through this crisis." He took his mother to medical appointments, made repairs on her house, bought her a better car, and straightened out her legal and financial affairs.
Mr. Rappaport stayed in Arkansas for six months. "It’s amazing that at this stage I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with my mother and improve her life. Most people never have that opportunity. I’m very thankful that I had the chance. It was absolutely worth it," he says.
One of the unexpected benefits was the huge boost in confidence he gained from his role as caregiver. He’d been feeling depressed and defeated when he left California, but after returning, he felt renewed. He landed a job with a former employer after returning to San Francisco and remains a part-time faculty member.
Discovery and Exploration
Instead of spending time off worrying about your unemployed status, ask yourself: "Is there something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because of the demands of my job"
Felice Fisk, a 29-year-old in Seattle, recently left an account-manager position at a contract-furniture company. During seven months of unemployment, she took an interest in fine-art painting and completed 18 pieces before returning to work. "I found the art work to be really beneficial," she says. She’s now a designer for an interior-design firm.
Michael Ross, 42, a former IT administrator in El Cerrito, Calif. , recently spent his 10 months of unemployment playing guitar and exploring his lifelong interest in scriptwriting and the movie business. "After 18 years at my former employer and how hard I had worked, I knew I had to recover, to get restored," he says. "I looked at this as an opportunity, rather than a penalty. This was very much about clearing space for me."
At the executive level, even a very efficient and successful job search may be quite lengthy. It makes sense to spend that time in an enriching and productive manner. These job seekers pursued service, continuing education and shoring up family bonds. How you’ll look back on a period of unemployment depends on what you do with it.
Lisa Perez found a new interest in homemaking during the period of unemployment.