surviving setbacks & staying sane in a digital depression

What’s the first thing I did when I got laid of in August of 2008? I went on a romantic getaway trip with my girlfriend to California’s wine country for my best friend’s wedding. I booked the best rooms, rented a convertible, cruised the vineyard-covered hills and totally loved every day of the trip.

After I got back, I took the entire month of September off. Every other time I’ve been unemployed, I fretted and stressed about finding a new job as soon as I entered the dreaded meeting room with myself and two managers.

I didn’t want to rush into anything this time around. I’d been fortunate to find in my last job, a position that really matched who I am and the type of work I do best, the type of projects I love doing.

I knew that I didn’t want to panic or seize the first opportunity that came my way; I wanted to take my time and wisely choose my next step. Here’s how I did it:

Don’t Panic

Going on that trip and not cutting costs – even knowing that I could have extended my savings perhaps another month had I cancelled – and taking the month of September just to rest and enjoy life with no responsibilities… giving myself a sabbatical helped me feel calm and excited about the future.

Often, when we react immediately out of fear, we can’t see the positive side of life changes like being laid off. I know many, many people who are just happy enough to stick with their current jobs, but have brilliant, exciting ideas about what they’d love to be doing if only they had the opportunity.

Kicking back for a little while, refusing to get into the cycle of worry — can help you see what you might miss if you jump right into the job search: you have an opportunity to define what you really want and to find ways to do what you do best.

Follow Your Bliss

I traveled once or twice a month in the fall and winter of 2008, all to see family and friends, take vacations, enjoy my leisure time; I’d barely given myself vacation time in over 10 years, so I had plenty of making up to do. But I refused to give up doing the things and seeing the people that make me happy just because I wasn’t making money. It’s crucial that when you lose something important to you, you don’t automatically give up everything important to you.

And I’d been wanting to work on my photography, on my personal site, and on several of my own ideas for almost the entire year, but always struggled with “not enough time” when I was employed.

Some might say that I could’ve spent that time better looking for work. I disagree.

A labor of love is an incredible testament to your abilities, your personality, your aspirations – what you do with your own time expresses who you are and what you’re capable of so much more clearly than any cover letter or job application.

And the people who find you through your personal creative efforts will be looking for someone who loves doing what you love to do! Employers see you as a whole, and the process begins with so much more openness and interest than the usual job search methods.

Don’t Apply for Jobs

The traditional job search/hiring process is dehumanizing, unrealistic, rude, inefficient, and broken. It often goes like this:

Prospective Employee B finds a job listing online that sounds interesting; though he doesn’t have the required 30 years of web development experience, a Master’s in Computer Science, expertise in all known computer languages, including 5 that haven’t been used since WWI, he has a good chunk of what the job needs. And maybe he can talk them up a little from the minimum-wage salary they offer… he spends an hour crafting a cover letter highlighting how he meets Faceless Corp’s needs, attaches a resume he spent several days getting just right, and sends it along a number of other spuriously requested documents.

95% of the time, the job is either a fake placed by recruiters trying to gather resumes or the hiring company doesn’t even acknowledge that they received a resume. Most of the time, B will get nothing but silence in response.

Why? Not because he’s bad at what he does… he’s quite good at it, actually. But HR departments and other people usually involved in the hiring process at a corporate level often don’t have the specific expertise to evaluate candidates properly for specific positions, have to sift through many, many resumes to find a few that stand out overall.

If B actually gets asked to come in for an interview, the best person to interview him first is whomever would be his boss or working directly with B— the person who knows exactly what he needs from a new employee. First interviews with almost anyone else are pointless except for generic screening purposes.

So – don’t fall victim to the usual methods of shoehorning yourself into tight places so you look like an ideal candidate. Most job postings have little relevance to the actual work you’ll be doing.

Do what you love – polish your resume – highlight the things YOU are most proud of, feel the best about. Get your creativity out in public – such as how I’ve done with this site. Show yourself off, all the things that you’re passionate about. Let people see the big picture of you.

I think a relationship of any sort – built on radical openness right from the start – has a much better chance of weathering time than those that have you sweeping parts of yourself under the rug and exaggerating other parts just to get in the door.

In many situations, you will have to still apply for jobs the old-fashioned way. But don’t wear yourself out doing it. Concentrate your energy on your passions, let that be your living resume, knowing that the work that comes to you this way will be the kind you really enjoy.

Ask for Help

I’m drawing unemployment right now. I know a lot of people who feel too ‘proud’ to do that, or that they shouldn’t take other people’s tax money. The thing is, most companies in the US pay unemployment tax for this very reason, to help support the people they put out of work.

By the way, unemployment is one of those situations where you will have to play the game and submit applications & resumes the old-fashioned way to live by the rules.

I also asked for a small loan from my parents and have received a little help from friends and family along the way. I did that after I became sure that I couldn’t bridge the gap between savings and unemployment on my own.

The other option that I could see was to accept whatever I could find quickly, regardless of how well it suited me. And I decided I’d rather ask for a little help, take unemployment and keep looking than settle for work I wouldn’t enjoy for pay that wouldn’t support me.

There are always options around, especially in unemployment situations – you can take a part time job, get unemployment, ask for help from loved ones, but just don’t settle for less than what you’re worth because your savings deplete. Take steps that’ll get you another month, or two or three, to choose where you want to go.

It’s Who You Know

I’ve talked with three separate companies about opportunities to join them as their CTO, and all 3 discussions happened through friends and other people in my ‘network’. The contract jobs that I’ve taken to help pay the bills along the way all came through people I know personally.

You’re anonymous to most employers; you’re submitting yourself to a machine (quite literally, in some cases) designed to evaluate applicants with as little subjective, human thought possible. Resumes get reduced to a set of keywords and qualitative numbers. There’s nobody to care about the people behind the cover letters in this system, so it’s no surprise that – from a job seeker point of view – the process is shockingly ineffective.

But when someone you know introduces you to a company, the human element is at the center of the process. You’re not a faceless minion; you’re somebody’s friend, and they said the most wonderful things about you. You’ve just jumped past the rooms where resumes die and people are looking at the whole you again.

I’ve had this happen, quite rapidly, with people who are acquaintances, friends of friends, even those who’ve just stumbled onto my site. Suddenly I’m being sought by employers based on a much broader understanding of who I am – through my site, both the blog and work sections, including my resume – and through the words of my peers.

The position I’ve decided to accept came to me this way. I received a call on Valentines’ Day 2009 – a Saturday! – suggesting a job that fit me so closely that it was uncanny, and asking me to discuss the possibility further.

The person who gave my name to this company is a fellow Buddhist who runs a Buddhism-related podcast and blog for which I wrote one article a year or so back. And I didn’t ask him to do it, even. He just knew from my Twitter stream and my site the sort of work I do, and thought that I’d be a good fit.

Again, do what you love, be social, interact with other people who share your passions. Get yourself out in front of those people, use your natural talents, and you’ll find opportunities arising without any extra effort on your part. It can be rather amazing.

Listen to your Heart

Finally, as in every other part of your life, listen to your heart. In the past I’ve often been too flexible for my own happiness, undersold my worth or abilities in order to find employment sooner. This time around, I had several opportunities where I knew my contract rates would be much too high for a prospective client, but stuck with them. In all cases I would’ve been happy to adjust significantly for the right opportunities, but all of them wanted to pay less than a quarter of what I requested.

Technically, I could have taken the work and brought in money. But it didn’t feel right. And I didn’t even really say no, all of these opportunities simply assumed they couldn’t afford me and wished me luck before I had a chance.

And in two of the possible CTO opportunities, the projects were compelling, I liked the people involved, and I think for the most part I would have enjoyed my job. But they didn’t feel just right for me, and so I didn’t pursue them past a certain point.

The third CTO opportunity I’ve pursued with zeal. And I’m hoping to be able to share in the next few days what I’ll be doing next, and with whom!

So don’t be afraid to step back, even from situations that look promising, if you don’t feel really good about them. Chances are, your intuition will prove right further down the road.

Getting laid off, especially right now as the world cowers in fear of a depression, can be a stressful, fearsome thing.

But if you do what you love, and you don’t give up on yourself, you can find the work that fulfills you, the work that you do best, the work that makes you happy.

Everyone else can tell you how to save money in lean times, make a budget, live on a shoestring, write the awesomest resume, create Brand You, use Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook to find a job… etc, etc…

I’m just here to tell you to have a little faith in yourself and go for your dreams.

Mila has previously worked in the job search industry as part of Headhunter.net (now Careerbuilder.com) prior to the 2001 recession, managed a Ritz-Carlton hotel, guided Zaadz & Gaia.com development efforts until summer 2008, & plans never to panic about work ever again.