Unemployment can present a daunting, discouraging, and formidable challenge to a job seeker.
As a professional writer and have had the privilege of writing resumes for over 8500 people of every walk of life. Over the past 20 years my work has been mostly about helping people to get better jobs and professional opportunities. Today, it’s about survival in an economy that has imploded into unprecedented job losses and stricken terror into the hearts of many.
Although unemployment in our economy fluctuates, whether market conditions are good or bad, when we are out of a job, we face a daunting challenge. I have no profound insights to offer about how the economy will go, though there is an upward trend in jobs, and a downward trend in unemployment. But I do have something to say about survival through hard times.
It calls to mind a time when I was learning to ski. My instructor had taken me up to a foreboding slope that was peppered with moguls and challenging terrain for any skier. She apparently felt I was equal to the task and with her positive “let’s go”, she took off down the slope ahead of me. I, on the other hand, stood transfixed on the moguls below, and the more I focused on them, the bigger they became. Fear enveloped and immobilized me and before I knew it, my teacher was at the bottom of the slope. Realizing that I was disempowered by fear, she rapidly ascended the chair lift, and soon rejoined me at the top of the slope. When she arrived, she reassuringly said, “We’re going to get down this hill together this time. But to do it, I want you to promise me that you aren’t going to look ahead. I just want you to follow me, and we are going to master this slope one turn at a time. Relieved that she had returned to rescue me, and realizing there was no other way out, I followed her instructions. I didn’t look ahead at the formidable moguls, kept my eyes fixed on her, and followed the tracks she made in the trail ahead, and one turn at a time, we got down that slope. When I reached the bottom, and looked back at the steepness of that slope, I couldn’t believe that I had just accomplished what I thought to be impossible.
And I believe this story presents a metaphor for how we can get through the challenges in today’s economy. We are going to have to follow positive people and focus on getting through those formidable financial moguls, challenges, and interviews one turn at a time.
