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. This passage mainly tells that being unemployed is not all bad.