Rescinded offers, no offers, no interviews - Resilience Accelerant

April is turning out to be the cruelest month of all for those of us who need work - full-time or consulting. 

On Abovethelaw.com, for instance, David Lat reports on rescinded offers.  Lat cites the smaller number of those in law compared to the financial-sector. For example, law has been experiencing none of the Bear maulings in which 250 new hires had the offer snatched back.

But, proportional suffering doesn't help the sufferer.  I know.  It's irrelevant that myriad colleagues have less ongoing work that I do.  It's also irrelevant that I was approaching Microsoft for a full-time speechwriting position as a Hail Mary Pass.  It's equally irrelevant that I'm a skilled rainmaker at scouting up business for my communications boutiques and for part-time jobs, when I want them.

On Monday, Microsoft turned me down.  On Friday, I was interviewed by the first round of gatekeepers.  I was totally seduced because the interview was taking place over the phone from a coffee shop.  No disembodied voice from a cube.  The job was in launching a new online game.  We know all about that, don't we.  Games are magnificent platforms for all sorts of transmedia.  Even it that wasn't in the cards, the game industry is growing faster than the S&P 500, at an annual clip of 8%.

The no came quickly.  I fell apart.  The only thing that saved me from a M&M Peanut run was that there was Popcorn, fat-free, low-call, unpopped in the house. Reality screamed: Over-reaction.  But the pain was also real.

Why do we suffer so over professional blows, even when they're not severe, not unexpected, and not without options?  I lost a bundle when WorldCom tanked.  The earnest class-action plaintiff attorneys retrieved about $19 back for me.  So?  I could really shrug it off: Just money.  I can make it back, someday.  Everything is copy and I can [and did] write about the end of my nest egg.

When the rejection, rescinding, rebuff, disappointment, discouragement, or loss occurs in my professional life per se, it's always the end of the world.  I got that down to putting myself on the cross for three hours but I can't get it down any further.  I imagine those less experienced in this kind of exotic suffering - e.g. the newbie grads and 2Ls had jobs/internships, then didn't - can endure weeks of the crucification rituals. I shoulda, couldha. It they can't sue, it's back to square one.

Well, the good news is, as the title of Chapter One reads: Resilience Matters. 

And it does, doesn't it. Those who bounce back will be around to get a job or an assignment or a promotion or maybe even praise. I used to spend months getting up and down the cross.  Now, thanks to that wonderful new industry for volatile times - which produced that book "The Resilience Factor" in which that chapter appears - we can tidy up our suffering patch and move on, maybe even stronger and smarter.

My first time through resilience training was a five-month, once-a-week stint in 2003 with a cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] psychologist.  Her name is Amy Karnilowicz [860-216-5116; family.therapist@comcast.net]. To my amazement she informed me that I could recover from losing my nest egg, my two communications boutiques, and my two dogs.  I did.  As the April 9, 2007 cover story in FORBES explains, CBT works and it works fast because it focuses on action, bypassing feeling.

Since then I have added plenty to that re-wiring.  Here are what function as resilience accelerants, no matter how bad we emotionally tank for a few hours or how bad the incident is or seems:

• Take action, even if it might turn out to be a mistake.  Action lifts us out of the situation into the present and future.  Those whose offers were snatched back could act in several ways ranging from contacting a lawyer and the career-placement office to report this and ask about push-back tactics to getting online and resuming a job search.  There's no payoff in turning inward into feeling.

• Be totally self-directed.  Yes, this happened to us.  Cliches about the lousy job market or a glut in our profession are irrelevant.  We need a job or X number of assignments.

 

• Ask for help, in all the right places.  There are plenty of free or sliding-scale counseling, presentation coaching, resume-overhauling services available.  After four months jobless a newbie JD called me to reinvent herself. I charged half my going rate. It turned out that all she needed was to get down from the cross and allow her resume, cover letter and interviewing skills reflect that she did nothing wrong and a lot right, e.g. she also had picked up an MBA.  She did get a good job.

• Time is money so use it shrewdly.  That might mean pruning a network that's out-of-date, being realistic about opportunities that are open to us, and smelling prospects just going through the motions for quotas or whatever.

• Get work, any type.  It's a myth that survival and inferior jobs louse up a resume.  Doing work brings in money, widens our perspective, enhances our networks, and forces us out of ourselves. Professional life is no longer linear.  In 2003, I was a contract security guard.  So?  It catapulted me away from the scene of the crime into a whole new set of challenges [e.g. who would see me in my trusty blue uniform]. The old saying is really true: Nothing gets us a job like a job.

• Pray.  It doesn't matter to what.  This is a surrendering to a force bigger than ourselves.  All I request is guidance.  I get it, perhaps because I am no longer in the way.

• Take breaks.  After "CSI: Miami," I was ready to consider a number of tactics I hadn't before the Microsoft no. 

It's too much to shove down your throats that adversity can be a distinct professional advantage, right? But since it is, I'll have to force-feed on you. Take a peek at Steve Jobs' iconic commencement speech here.  Another champion of the plus suffering brings is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.  His book on that is "Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters."  If we buy what Jobs and Sonnenfeld are saying, I guess a lot of us have plenty going for us, in these brutal times.