Any response other than “a couple of weeks” and you’re at risk.
Once upon a time, jobs were fairly secure. We like to pretend they still are, but they’re not. You are one merger / acquisition, one departmental reorganization, or one crazy boss away from being let go, even if you performing well and haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not saying this is good or bad, but these are the times we live in.
So, it’s Monday. If you were to walk into the office and find an email directing you to report to Conference Room 1, where your boss and an HR representative were waiting for you, looking uncomfortable, and they gave you the news that your job has been eliminated, and you get a few weeks of severance, plus one additional week for each year of service…How long would it take you to get a new job?
This is not an academic exercise. It is a statistical probability over the course of your career. The question is not “if it happens…” but “when it happens, how prepared are you?” How long would it take you to find work? Ponder that for a moment. Would you even know where to start in looking for a new job? (Hint: if you think it involves carpet-bombing all of the companies in your industry with resumes, you are grossly mistaken.)
You may be tempted to play the victim here, and assert that this sort of thing is out of your control. It is not. There are larger macroeconomic forces at play, and you can make them work to your advantage, but it boils down to two factors, which will be discussed in subsequent posts: 1.) How valuable are your skills? 2.) How well connected are you to people who need your services?
image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons