One of the cold, hard truths of the current economy is that nobody’s job is safe. What’s more, nobody should count on being given plenty of notice before they are made redundant. If an employer goes bankrupt, employees may only find out when the general public does. Likewise, you should not count on being given a meaningful redundancy package.
These are not pleasant thoughts but they are realistic ones. That being so, it makes sense to think about how you can prepare for the possibility that your employer goes bankrupt.
Keep yourself employable
Even in a recession, there are usually jobs available. You want to make sure that you put yourself in as strong a position as possible to get them.
Generally, the best approach to this is to think short, medium and long term. In the short term, you want to build on existing strengths as much as you can. You may also want to look at gaining new skills in areas that look like they will have strong ongoing demand.
Over the medium and longer terms, you can develop more advanced skills. You could also look to move into new areas. Ideally, you’ll look for areas that have strong demand and that interest you.
The good news is that there are a lot of free courses available online that can help you to develop new skills. There are even more if you can afford to pay. What’s more, the cost can be very reasonable. If you are able to attend real-world courses, you may have even more choice. Try checking out your local council’s website for information.
Remember your soft skills
If you’ve been in the same job for a while, you may be out of practice at applying for new jobs and doing interviews. Similarly, it might be helpful to brush up on your strategy for integrating into new environments.
If you work in an area where soft skills are particularly important, it may be useful to get some sort of objective proof of them. Ideally, this would be some kind of certification. At a minimum, try to get some endorsements on LinkedIn.
Brush up your profile(s) and/or portfolio
No matter what field you’re in, you should almost certainly have a LinkedIn account. You should also take your profile seriously. Fill it in as much as you can. Then decide what parts of it you want to share at what points in time. For example, you could make it fully public when you’re actively looking for a job and keep it private the rest of the time.
It can make a lot of sense to use LinkedIn to store a portfolio of some description. Remember, most employers very much want to know about how you performed in previous roles. Having a portfolio can answer their questions upfront. It can also be used to refresh your memory before interviews.
If you don’t want to (or can’t) use LinkedIn, then try to put together a portfolio some other way. For example, keep a diary and/or folder with concrete examples of how you delivered value to your employer(s).
Prepare yourself financially
There are two main steps to preparing yourself financially for sudden redundancy. The first is to think about how you would cope with a sudden drop in income. The second is to think about what you would need to do to replace any key employment benefits such as life insurance.
The answer to both of these questions may include taking out extra insurance cover while you are still in employment. If it does, make it a priority to arrange this. In particular, if you’re taking out insurance to protect against loss of income, you need to do so while you still have an income to lose.
