Losing a job, being laid-off and impatiently waiting to be hired…

A friend of mine lost his job recently. Well, he raved and ranted but I knew for a fact that he had slogged everyday; it was heart-wrenching to see him lose his job again…
Yes, I say again because this is not the first time that he has been asked to clean up his desk and leave. Being forced to find a new job, after struggling for 3 month he did manage to find a position but only to be asked to leave when he was almost close to completing one year in his new position. Well, after close to a year you cannot call it new but it wasn’t old either, but the rule remained stuck — last to join first to leave. Anyway, blame on the global recession this time or conniving new team-mates, it had happened and its almost 6 months now since he has started his job-hunting and he’s still waiting for that elusive job to come his way.
It’s funny, I remember that he used to get calls informing him about opportunities almost everyday when he did have a job, but now that he’s jobless, he doesn’t get even one. Yes, there’s the odd one asking him to settle for a pay-cut, but I wonder if it is worth taking up. I’m sure most of you would feel that it’s better to take-up whatever comes your way than wait for something that suits your experience. I don’t know, but I definitely don’t agree. After all everyone expects their remuneration to match their capabilities and their experience. At the end of the day money does matter and if you settle for less, you will be forced to settle for less every time, especially when what you’re offered is only 75% of what you were drawing every month. Well, let’s forget remuneration, that’s not what I wanted to write about today, I’ll save that for some other time.
What I wanted to write about today is the sheer determination that has helped my friend survive this rather mean lean period in his life. Ever before everything else, the financial crunch hit him real hard. With all his bills waiting to be settled and just one month’s salary left in the bank, I can say he was in no frame of mind to bounce back. But bounce back he did and quite commendably.
The first thing that anyone would do when they lose a job is to register or if already a registered member, update their profile on job portals like naukri, ClickJobs.com and timesjobs. It helped him tremendously but not with a full-time job but what most wouldn’t even bother to take-up —a part-time position in a branch of work where he was inexperienced, though it was the same industry
Abhay, is and was a software engineer. Now he has meandered to a different path that takes software solutions to the general public through his studied briefs and products features booklets. Abhay has moved to writing about technology and technological products and everything connected and related to it. I personally feel it’s a fabulous transition, because though he is now not actually devising and deigning and implementing software solutions, he’s still in touch with what he does best by writing about it. It was no easy task, he has never tried his hand at writing but like they say necessity is the mother of invention, he self-taught himself to write and well, did get help by asking people he knew professionally to take a look at his work. It always helps to take feedback and clearly understand the pulse of the audience you’ll be catering to.
Like Abhay I trust there are hundreds of jobseekers out there waiting for opportunities to come their way. I was thinking, why just sit-back and wait? Why not just go ahead and pursue opportunities yourself. While going through a lot of job-portals I came across freelance opportunities in literally every field. Today almost every kind of job is getting outsourced, so why not let that help you find something for yourself? Maybe just as a stop-gap option, but why don’t you let the freelance bug bite you too.
After all it will help you pay your bills at the end of the day.
Think about it, I’m sure it will make a difference, well who’s going to complain about having extra-cash, anyway?