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Rebuilding your life after redundancy - our 4 point plan
Being made redundant is certainly no picnic and so you need to have a practical approach to surviving the experience and moving on to build a new life for yourself and/or your family. In February 2013 the Office for National Statistics announced that 3.5 million people, one in seven workers, has been made redundant since the start of the recession. That's bad news for businesses as well as employees, with the cost to UK employers estimated at billions of pounds.I don’t want to oversimplify the matter, however, there are essentially four basic areas you need to address if you are one of those unfortunate enough to be experiencing redundancy, in more or less the order I’ve outlined below.
This website has been designed to support you to make sensible decisions and find the resources you need to move on as quickly and as successfully as possible. You may also find it useful to buy a copy of my book 'Rebuilding your life after redundancy' which covers these topics, and many more, in far greater depth than we can achieve online. We appreciate that everyone’s situation is different so do please use the following pointers to build a survival plan that works for you.
Good luck and happy hunting,
Janet Davies
Founder and editor
www.newlifenetwork.co.uk
Stage 1: Understand how you will support yourself/your family whilst you develop an alternative income stream.
Sorting out your finances is an essential first step. It’s much harder to rebuild your life if you are constantly beset by money worries. Will you be receiving any severance pay? You may need anywhere between 3 to 6 months pay to insulate you before you have secured an alternative income stream. Itemize your outgoings and look for immediate and longer term savings to make it last longer. Have you made an application to register for JobSeeker's Allowance? You need do so as soon as possible as claims can’t be made retrospectively. It's difficult to predict how long you will be out of work and it could take a while to get an appointment to sort out your claim. You can do it online at JobSeeker's Allowance or contact 0800 055 6688.
You’ll find useful resources and contacts to help you in this stage by clicking on to following links:
Redundancy pay
Claiming state benefits
Buy the book - Rebuilding your life after redundancy
Redundancy - your legal rights & facts
Managing your finances
Stage 2: Identify what that alternative income stream might be.
Have you been offered outplacement counseling by your employers to support you in this stage or not? If you have, make good use of it, if you haven’t, use this website to create your own outplacement programme. Are you a relatively unskilled person without much experience, an experienced and skilled professional or managerial person? Is it likely that you will be able to find another job similar to the one you just lost if that’s what you’d like to do? Might you need to be prepared to relocate or up-skill to find a similar position? Might you need or want to do something completely different? Will that require re-training or funding of any kind? How long might that take? Could it involve you setting up your own business or looking for a different job? These are all serious points and it is worth spending some quality time on evaluating your options.
You’ll find helpful resources and ideas via these links below:
Outplacement explained
Choosing a new career direction
Starting your own business
Working freelance
Careers in interim management
Learn new skills
Stage 3: Create your plan to achieve that alternative income stream.
List all the things you’ll need to do or have in place so that you don’t miss out anything important. It will look different if you are job hunting as opposed to setting up a business – it will help to give you useful direction and a sense of achievement as you go into your action stage. Remember the old adage - fail to plan, plan to fail!
You’ll find helpful resources and ideas by following the links throughout these sections:
Job hunting - our top tips
Find a great new job
Be your own boss
Learn new skills
Stage 4: Implement your plan.
If you are a job hunter, have you prepared a CV that is geared to the kind of job you want and demonstrates to recruiters and employers that you have what it takes to do it well? If you have that CV written, have you researched/registered with all the employers, recruiters and websites appropriate to the type of new job you are looking for? Have you networked with friends, family, colleagues, professional associations etc to look for additional leads? If you have interviews, have you brushed up on your interview skills and planned your answers to common questions? Are you taking good care of yourself both mentally and physically because job hunting itself can be pretty hard work? Are you pursuing your plan rigorously?
You’ll find more helpful resources by following these links below:
CV Help
How to succeed at job interviews
What to wear at job interviews
Careers fairs, exhibitions & recruiter events
A guide to Executive Search Firms
How to get headhunted
Recruitment consultancies & websites guide
Careerbuilder Centre
Network your way to your next great job
Relocation
Managing your time effectively
Working overseas & gap years
Learn new skills
Finally, if you are offered that brilliant new job, have you prepared yourself for joining your new employer and making it a big success? Check out our tips in the sections below:
Starting your new job successfully
How to get promoted
Continuing professional development and employability
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