I have been thinking about what happened and how I could have made things better for myself. To be honest I really enjoyed my job and wanted to stay there a long time, so I just didn’t really prepare like I should have.
I bring this up because I think there are 4 things to remember concerning making sure that you come out of a downsize in the best possible light. Here is what I have personally learned:
- Keep your resume up to date and ready to go
- Keep your personal website going, up to date and keep your portfolio current
- Make sure to make copies of important items, scripts, code, ect… along the way
- Keep moving your education forward
It took me about 3 or 4 days to really get my resume tweaked. I was lucky because it had only been just under 2 years since I had used it, so it wasn’t too far off. Having said that, I have learned alot in the last two years and I had to totally re-do my resume to reflect those improvements. Keep it up to date so that you don’t have to spend time formating it when you want to be sending it to people to land that next great job.
Keeping your website current is another thing that would have helped reduce some of my stress during all this. Because I didn’t keep mine up, I assumed that I would just be where I was for a really long time, I have now spent 21 hours over 2 days trying to piece it together. The old saying goes:if you want something done badly, that’s what you will get. I think that my marathon designing and implementation will get the job done, but I think if I could spend just a little more time and not do it for 12 hours in one day, it would look alot better. So once I get it back up, I will go back and tweak it out and make it cooler as I have time.
Keeping copies of code, scripts, resources, ect… is important. I am not telling you to steal company property or reveal confidential information. I just mean there are things that I have developed over the last two years that assist me with what I did there. Making sure to periodically backup the things you use (no stealing) will insure that when the unthinkable happens, you will land on your feet.
Keep moving your education forward is important. I don’t have a 4 year design degree, I have a 2 year Associates Degree and alot of experience. But it seems that so many places use that to disqualify me. Having some continuing ed classes and my PHP/MySQL online courses really helps the look of the resume in my situation.
The main thing I want to convey is, if you get downsized, it will most likely come when you are not expecting it. In my situation it was a matter of 30 seconds between being a vital member of the team, and a guest, that was escorted to my desk and out the door. It turned my world upside down and was an extremely emotional situation. I had projects that I was working on and things left unfinished. I couldn’t even think straight as I tried my best to clean out my desk and loaded a couple of personal items off my computer onto a jump drive. My boss did the best he could, but I still felt bad that I had to be escorted from the building. I wasn’t the enemy, but I sure felt that way. That is why I thought I would share these points with you. They won’t make it less emotional, but they can help you rebound quicker and get back on the path to a healthy, productive life.
