Tag: Resume

Lost a Job? Find Your Career Instead

March 1, 2025

After the shock of losing a job subsides, how can you ensure you are career-ready to jump back into the job market?

It’s important to remember that a job isn’t a career. A job is a piece of work you take to pay living expenses. A career is a long-term professional project that can span multiple jobs and pivots throughout your lifetime. For example, someone who loves working with numbers may take a job as a bookkeeper, but they want to build a career as an accountant. Even if they lose the bookkeeping job, they can still pursue the career of being an accountant with further professional development.

With 4 out of 5 workers worried about losing their job in 2025, changing your thoughts from “job search” to “career path” is the path forward. Here are some tips to ensure you are career-ready.

Take Time for Reflection

“Take the time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go before jumping back into the job search,” says Sabina Sulat, author, podcast host, employment expert, and influencer. “If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t reach your goal.”

By taking a moment to consider the best next step in your career, you can avoid the trap of signing up for the same qualities that made you sigh with relief when you lost your last job.

Learn a New Skill

As you build a career, adding new tools to your skillset make you a more valuable employee. According to a study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, people who pursue mastery of a skill experience a more positive attitude and better sleep than those who just exercised or did nothing to alleviate the ongoing anxiety of job loss. Look around and see what skills to acquire to secure your next step in your career.

Pivot

A November 2024 Gallup poll reported that 51% of employees are dissatisfied and actively seeking a new job. Perhaps this last job revealed something you didn’t enjoy about your chosen career path. Now is the time to pivot! This time between jobs can be used to learn about another aspect of your career you hadn’t considered and pursue other opportunities.

Figure Out What You Want…And Ask for It

According to Eric Maisel, psychotherapist and author of Choose Your Life Purposes, we’re naturally reluctant to ask for what we want. “That reluctance at best reduces your enthusiasm and makes for a dry presentation, and at worst it prevents you from reaching out to your connections or to the jobs that interest you,” he says. “On top of all of the practical realities involved, the psychological ones matter a lot, too!”

Do the necessary research to determine what you want, monetarily and career-wise, and practice asking for what you need. You can do this by setting up practice interviews with friends and colleagues, journaling your thoughts, and practicing saying the words in front of a mirror.

Doing the necessary work to make yourself career-ready helps you realize your goals. “This clarity and confidence not only make you a stronger candidate but also shine through in your applications, interviews, and networking conversations,” says Sulat.

InsureYouKnow.org

With the recent rise in layoffs and higher unemployment, you must remain ready to pivot. After you’ve gathered your certifications and updated your resume and portfolio, store them safely using InsureYouKnow.org to keep them organized and easily accessible. Having these important documents at your fingertips makes accessing that next step on your career journey easier.

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The Call to Return to the Office

June 28, 2021

Has your employer notified you that the time has come for you to return to your office? Are you ready, hesitant, or determined to seek an alternative option to keep you at home, or at least closer to home if you also would face the return of a long daily commute?

Employees’ Reactions

With the coronavirus pandemic receding for everyone who has received the vaccine, some employers are pushing employees to get back to work in office buildings. But some people have moved during the pandemic; others have concerns about the virus and vaccine-hesitant colleagues; and working parents would have to quickly find childcare options for youngsters out of school for the summer.

According to Bloomberg News, a May survey by Morning Consult of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39 percent would consider quitting if their employers aren’t flexible about remote work. Some workers are leaving for new jobs, with better pay or remote-friendly working conditions. Others have decided to start their own businesses rather than collect a steady paycheck. Still others are quitting with no firm plans, confident they can get a better deal elsewhere as the economy rebounds from the pandemic recession. Some people are seeking happiness and are rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend and balance their time at work and home.

Increase in Resignations

All these factors are prompting a dramatic increase in resignations—a record 4 million people quit their jobs in April alone, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 740,000 people who quit in April worked in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes jobs in hotels, bars and restaurants, theme parks, and other entertainment venues. Many workers in these fields are burnt out after enduring conditions during the pandemic that may have put their personal health at risk.

At the same time, white-collar workers are feeling empowered too; resignations also are up in professional services. In March, about a quarter of all workers told Morning Consult they were considering switching employers.

Employers’ Reactions

Faced with mass resignations, employers are scrambling to keep their talented workforce on board. Some employers have announced plans to raise pay, be flexible, and make employees’ well-being and safety top priorities when they return to their companies’ offices. A compromise of allowing employees to choose to work remotely part of their workweek is being considered by concerned employers. With work teams composed of both in-office and remote employees, businesses will need to offer collaboration tools and innovative techniques so employees can continue to work together effectively, regardless of location. No one solution will work for every company, but a reintroduction to office life without a well-thought-out plan can be risky and dangerous.

Post-COVID-19 Working Conditions

Although some companies have decided to remain fully remote and have gone as far as selling their office buildings or not renewing lease agreements, other businesses want their entire staff to return to the office. Most organizations will be somewhere between a fully remote and a fully in-place workforce. Global Workplace Analytics, a research firm that specializes in remote work trends, predicts that 25–30 percent of U.S. employees will work from home multiple days per week by the end of 2021, up from 3.6 percent prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hybrid Work Model

A hybrid work model is made up of both remote and in-office workers and gives employees the ability to choose how, where, and when they perform their job duties. This often includes office spaces designed with flexible work arrangements where employees come and go from the office based on preference and as project work dictates.

Several large enterprise companies have formally announced new policies designed to embrace a hybrid work model that gives employees the option to voluntarily return to the office or continue to work remotely for an indefinite period.

Returning to work after the COVID-19 pandemic will look different for every organization and will require a solution that works best for the safety and welfare of a specific group of employees.

Lifesize.com offers 10 Tips for Companies Returning to Work after COVID-19 under the following bullet points.

· Embrace a hybrid work model

· Implement a rotational work schedule

· Take a phased approach

· Restructure your offices

· Create a sanitary workplace

· Encourage good hygiene and self-isolation

· Have a contingency plan

· Get employee feedback

· Review your communication tools

· Maintain team-building efforts

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, employees and employers will face monumental work-related decisions that will affect the future of a productive workforce returning to physical offices, choosing a hybrid model of in-place and remote work, or abandoning the traditional workplace to seek alternative career options not bound to pre-pandemic conditions.