Recession Fears and Your Career: Increasing your Job Security and Surviving Layoffs

Is Your Job in Danger?

As recession news dominates the headlines, it’s only natural to feel uneasy about your own job security. The good news for Hispanic and bilingual candidates is that your cultural knowledge, international experience and language abilities are in-demand skills, giving you an advantage when it comes to keeping or landing a job in a tight job market.

However, as a smart professional, you should be keeping a close eye on your current employment situation, taking steps to boost your job security and sharpen your marketability.

Tips for improving your job security:

• Take on additional business-critical duties
  Are any tasks or projects at your company being neglected because no one has stepped up to take responsibility for them? Now is the time to take on additional duties that are valuable to the business, even if they are beyond the scope of your job description. This could be an opportunity for you to solidify your current position or transition into a new role with more job stability.
  
• Increase your visibility at work
  Become involved with any high-profile projects that are underway at your company and try to take on some type of leadership role within the team. Being associated with key projects is an important way to increase your visibility beyond your immediate supervisor and coworkers. The more visible you are to management, the more likely it is you’ll be recognized for your contributions to the company (and less likely that you’ll be viewed as layoff material).
  
• Improve or update your skills
  Are you up-to-date on the newest skills, programs and methodologies in your field? You should always be looking for ways to improve your professional skills, regardless of the economic climate, but it’s especially important if you think a job change may be in your future. Now is the time to take classes, get industry-recognized certifications, and attend lectures and workshops related to your field (these are also great places to network). Be sure to take advantage of any paid training or professional improvement classes that your current employer offers!
  
• Communicate your value to management
  During difficult economic times, it’s an unfortunate fact that companies often trim payrolls to cut costs. Ultimately, the decision-making process of who stays and who goes comes down to one word: value.

  Those who are contributing the most value to the company will have job stability. If you don’t regularly report your contributions and clearly show what your job means to the company's bottom line in terms of income or cost savings, corporate decision-makers may not recognize your value when making cuts.

How to prepare for possible layoffs at your company:

• Have an emergency reserve fund in place
  Make sure you have at least 6 months of living expenses saved as a reserve, in case you find yourself out of work for an extended period of time. If you don’t have this emergency reserve, start saving now.
  
• Update your resume
  When people are laid off, they often experience a period of shock. This is not a time when you’ll be able to clearly think about your accomplishments and create a job-winning resume. Update your resume immediately and upload it to job boards like LatPro so prospective employers can find you when searching for candidates online.
  
• Kick your networking efforts into high gear
  Make time to get out and network with professional organizations and attend functions where you may meet successful people. The connections you make could lead you to your next position.
  
• Keep your eyes open for new career opportunities
  Even when times are tough, companies always need top talent. Research potential employers that you’d like to target should a downsizing occur, and don’t forget to review internal job postings within your current company. You may be able to transfer to a different department or role that has more stability.
  
• Start interviewing
  When you think that your position could be in jeopardy, avoid the tendency to ignore the warning signs and start actively job hunting before you get bad news. Potential employers tend to look more favorably on employed applicants, and you will also feel more confident in interviews if you are looking for a better job, instead of needing a job because you are unemployed.

If you have already been laid off, don’t let this become a stumbling block. In today’s business world, layoffs don’t have the stigma they once had. When interviewing, be honest about why you are out of work, but quickly change the focus to the skills and value you will bring to a new position.