Your answer to this question may depend on your employment status, your age, or your education level. It might depend on the type of work you do, your view of long-term unemployment or how you define a crisis.
If you define a crisis as a condition of instability or danger, leading to change, unemployment of any duration might be a crisis. Likewise if you define a crisis as dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in your life, short or long-term unemployment might be a crisis.
This morning I will drive to Cambridge to attend a conference at MIT. The conference is sponsored by MIT Sloan Management & IWER Institute for Work & Employment Research and is entitled “The Crisis of Long Term Unemployment: What Can be Done?”
Since last fall, I have been involved with an amazing group of researchers lead by Ofer Sharone, MIT Sloan and a group of dedicated professionals at the Institute for Career Transitions (ICT) who have been studying and assisting a specific group of the Long-Term Unemployed. In full disclosure I am one of the Inaugural Volunteers with the Institute for Career Transitions (ICT).
The agenda is full. It includes policymakers, researchers, coaches, and people who are unemployed or until recently have been unemployed for a long time. Here are a few of those who will speak and share information today: Abe Gorelick, Ofer Sharone, John Fugazzie, and Joe Carbone.
I look forward to sharing with you the initial research results and insights from Ofer Sharone’s work. Unemployment long-term or short term can be complex. I know that because my clients share their stories and I too have walked the path of unemployment.
Being unemployed can be a path of shame, uncertainty and amazing innovation and rebirth. The path can be a place where one feels alone, disappointed or vulnerable. As well as a journey of joy, excitement and new adventures, each journey is unique.
If you or someone you know has been unemployed for a period of time and feeling vulnerable take action. Read and reflect on this statement by Brene Brown “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
Your assignment as you reflect on vulnerability:
1) step forward toward change, creativity and innovation by taking action; pause today to speak face to face with someone about your value and the work you want do.
2) take action every day to help someone else achieve a task or goal.
Sharing your value with others will take practice. Taking an action to help someone is easier than you think. The simple act of holding the door for someone can help someone achieve the task of entering a building.
Life is lived as a series of small steps and actions. You accelerate your search and your success by connecting, learning, and helping others.
Above I shared some of the amazing people I will learn from, connect with and help today to achieve their goals and tasks. Who will you connect with, learn from or help today?
Here is an update on the conference if you are interested: http://bit.ly/1m2GhuN
I find many unemployed are stuck in a mindset of despair… Would you agree Cindy?
Kelly, your observation is interesting. I work with talented professionals both employed and unemployed, and find that rarely does the status of your employment determine if you will be stuck in a mindset of despair. Maybe that is just one more of the ways people are more alike than different. Thanks for asking the question.