Take Charge: Develop a Positive Approach

You've assessed yourself and set your goals. Now you have a better idea of what you can do and what you want to do. But what if no one seems to want that? Job seekers who find few (or no) classified ads for people with their credentials often see that as proof that there are no jobs. But that's not a valid conclusion. Eighty percent of jobs are not advertised. Finding no ads for people with your credentials means that:

• You have to search more creatively - Or
  
  
• It may be time for some new skill development
  
  
  

The latter is always a good idea. You must constantly be learning and upgrading your skills, and you're never too old for that. But what is needed now is more likely to be the former-more and better searching. To do that, you're reframing yourself, taking charge and developing a positive, enterprising approach.

What Does Taking Charge Mean?

Entrepreneurial Options

Being, self-employed, means simply, that you're open for business, and to business. That you're receptive to new ideas, and, even more, that you're searching for them and emerging opportunities. It certainly does not mean that you must set up a shop of some kind, selling office furniture or custom-tailored balloons. There are many different ways to use the entrepreneurial approach:

• As a transition to a full-time job, possibly as an interim position.
  
  
• As your new business. The business could take various shapes. For example:
  
  
• You could provide services to many clients/customers or to 4 or 5 "anchor" clients on an ongoing basis. These clients may not want a full-time employee benefits person (or purchaser or computer trainer). But they may need you for 8, 10, or 15 hours a week. Many former managers, especially those with about 20 years of experience, are developing this kind of business.
  
  
• You could function as a consultant, offering solutions to problems.
  
  
• Or you may want to be a temporary executive, not only offering solutions but also implementing them.
  

There should be no conflict between doing consulting work and searching for a job. Unfortunately, some people seem to create conflict by put ting the two activities into separate boxes in their heads. That's what Martin, a 52-year-old former executive, did. He became a financial consultant after his job search foundered. For three years, he had mailed out many hundreds of resumes. The result? Only a handful of meetings with hiring authorities. And no offers.

"I don't have time to look for a job," he complained, "because I'm always busy with these short-term assignments."

In the interim, his marriage of 26 years had deteriorated badly because his wife didn't think he was trying hard enough to find a job. Remarkably, Martin had failed to see every one of these short-term assignments as an opportunity for something more. He never tried to convert any of them into longer-range assignments or full-time jobs. More than one-third of temporary jobs become permanent, but temporary employment agencies have no lock on the "temp to perm" concept. You can do that yourself.

And, when you're self-employed, you have to do it yourself. That's the only way to survive. You are, after all, the president of your own service company. You know what services you can offer, what you are selling. To launch your service business, you have to find out who needs it and how you can reach them. These are the basic questions any businessperson or job seeker needs to ask-and answer.

Find a Need and Fill It

And if you cannot find a need, create it. That's the entrepreneur's credo. Ask your potential customers what they want. Then, if it's something you can do, do it. And do it well. If it's not something you can do, move on to the next potential buyer. Whatever your career objective-a job, a career change, or self-employment, you can use the entrepreneurial approach.

That's what Sam did. After spending all his working life in freight management, Sam was in his mid-fifties when the company he had been working for went out of business. Reeling from deregulation and the decline in manufacturing, the trucking industry was skidding downhill. Jobs in operations management-the kind of work Sam did so well-were gone.

But that didn't stop him, Sam called on former business associates in the freight-handling business and asked what they needed. It wasn't operations management. It was sales. And they wanted someone with previous sales experience.

"These people knew me as operations guy-on the loading dock, giving orders. Now, I had to persuade them that I could sell. They had to see me in a new light," To do that, Sam drew on his former sales experience, asked questions, listened, and was hired. That was 1988. "Sales was the doorway to my company. I did sales for about 3 years and gradually, the president has given me more and more responsibilities."

The smile in his voice speaks volumes. Sam is living proof that finding a need and filling it is what employment, as well as entrepreneurship, is all about.